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Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:44 pm
by Distracted
Linda wrote:I find languages fascinating though learning a language does not come easy to me. But a strange thing happens sometimes when I am learning languages. While learning Ojibwe (Chippewa) I would be trying to remember a word - say the word for water (which is nibi) but when I couldn't remember the word in Ojibwe it would come to me immediately and easily in Spanish (agua). And I hadn't been reading or speaking Spanish for years, but if I was trying to remember the word directly in Spanish, it would not come to me. This has happened many times while learning Ojibwe. Then lately, I was trying to think of a word in Spanish and the word in Ojibwe came to me. This is frustrating! I don't understand why my mind works like this. Has anyone else experienced something like this?
It's likely because you have words compartmentalized in your brain as "English" and "Not English". I would think that's pretty common for someone who does language study late in life. When I was learning French and making the transition to thinking in the language there was a period of time when I would look at a common object and literally not know what to call it in ANY language because I'd been immersed in French so long that I'd stopped thinking in English but I didn't know the word in French yet. It was a truly strange feeling. I'm thinking that people who learn languages well have to somehow separate the languages in their brain so they don't get mixed up. You've just got two categories apparently. Or that's what I think.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:54 pm
by WarpGirl
My Aunt is Portorican (I spelled it wrong I know) and Peruvian, so they all know Spanish. It's funny because their little guy starts a sentence in English and ends it in Spanish. It drives his sister crazy.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:56 pm
by Asso
My friends, you can not even understand how much they are different - as for accent and language - north-Italians from south-Italians. And Italy is little, very little, don't you think?
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 6:01 pm
by WarpGirl
That's not true ASSO. You don't need to be fluent in another language to understand how different it is from your own. I can understand (but not speak) French, Italian, and Spanish. I know they are very different than English. I'm also semi-fluent in ASL another completely different language than English. So I think I have a good idea of how thinking in a different language is.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 6:24 pm
by Asso
Ah, but maybe you misunderstood me. I agree completely with you, I was merely joking about differences.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:17 pm
by WarpGirl
See it's HARD!
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 1:40 am
by Alelou
Linda wrote:I find languages fascinating though learning a language does not come easy to me. But a strange thing happens sometimes when I am learning languages. While learning Ojibwe (Chippewa) I would be trying to remember a word - say the word for water (which is nibi) but when I couldn't remember the word in Ojibwe it would come to me immediately and easily in Spanish (agua). And I hadn't been reading or speaking Spanish for years, but if I was trying to remember the word directly in Spanish, it would not come to me. This has happened many times while learning Ojibwe. Then lately, I was trying to think of a word in Spanish and the word in Ojibwe came to me. This is frustrating! I don't understand why my mind works like this. Has anyone else experienced something like this?
All the time. These days French and Spanish are always mixing up in my head when I try to speak either of them (and given my family it's usually Spanish I'm trying to speak). Luckily the cognates are similar enough that this can actually be helpful when trying to guess my way through something. But I also remember that after just staying with a German friend at her home for a couple of days before I traveled on to Paris, I couldn't get a simple "oui" out to save my life, it kept coming out "ja." So I felt like a special kind of idiot. I can only assume that the parts of the brain that are busy trying to handle a new language easily transpose the 'alien' words for the same concepts.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:10 pm
by panyasan
I have the same. When we visit Germany, after we came back from Japan, we started to talk Japanese instead of German. Sort of a mix of Japanese and German. Then my German is terrible any way, so I don't think it mattered.
Re: A real live Hoshi
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:15 pm
by Asso
IDIC 