Language-learners' chat

PipneyJane

Cherryfudge said:

I wonder if the scary hotels are peculiar to Italian? I don't remember them in French.

I do remember (vaguely) that the Italian for a whale is 'una balena' (feminine I think) but where on earth did I learn that? I think it came in the unit with ants and sharks, which may not have been Duolingo. Never needed it yet, but perhaps the hotel in Italy will have a scary whale?

It's fascinating that you have that background in Italian. I read somewhere that early speech physically shapes part of the throat (possibly the pharynx?) so that it becomes predisposed to be able to make certain sounds - so perhaps you are predisposed to a good Italian accent? I'm sure that the brain doesn't lose it all. 

My husband can also look Italian and gets spoken to as if he were. If you can imagine a very short Dutch person, that would be me, except that the Dutch always seem tall by British standards. I'm not at all Italian, so they kindly switch to English for me.

I dread verb declensions, but I miss them so much. I'd gladly trade una balena for the correct context of 'vorrei'

Are you Dutch, @Cherryfudge?  That’s another language that lives vaguely in the back of my brain.  (My mum could speak Afrikaans, so would respond to me in that when I was learning German at school.)   I think I’ve mentioned the time I was on the Tube, heading to a Chelsea match and was convinced that the two men I could hear chatting were Geordies.  I understood everything I overheard.  It was only when they got off the Tube, that I realised they were supporters of the Dutch team we were playing that evening and had been speaking Dutch.

Of course, that may just have been due to language similarities.  (There is one sound shift between English and Dutch, and two more between Dutch and German.  There is/was a separate dialect in the Rheinland.) One thing I love about Dutch is that, unlike English, every vowel sound is spelt differently, so that once you know the combinations, you’ll always know how to pronounce a word.  No, I don’t speak Dutch.  However, I spent 5 years working alongside Dutch colleagues, on a major project that originated in their office, but was built in the UK.  Another favourite memory is when I had dinner with a Dutch colleague and he complained that his grandchildren weren’t being taught “the traditional four languages”.  When I queried what they were, he replied “English, French, Dutch and German”.

- Pip

Cherryfudge

PipneyJane said:

Are you Dutch, @Cherryfudge? 

I'm not, but family legend says my Dad's family were Dutch and came over to drain the Fens a couple of hundred years ago. Many of his relatives (my distant relatives) still live there. He had what I'd think of as Dutch colouring: fair and rosy-cheeked, and his job used similar skills to those of the Fen-drainage people, so I'm inclined to think those may have been passed on from Dutch ancestors.

It's amazing that the Dutch people you heard sounded so like Geordies and you were able to understand everything! I expect the Afrikaans contributed, but when you think North East England is just over the way from Holland, perhaps there's a direct language link. I've caught the boat from South Shields to Amsterdam: it hugs the English coast for some way then nips over the North Sea about breakfast time to land you in Holland well before lunch - so not that far, really.

We were very impressed at the standard of English spoken in Holland: it's one of those countries that has a much wider language education than England.

MrsStepford

My adoptive mother is English but her younger brother is French. He started teaching me the alphabet in French and French nursery rhymes, before I went to primary school. My birth family hails from Normandy. I started French lessons in secondary school and got pretty fluent. At grammar school we started French from scratch and I got very bored. At school in Canada, I learned some Québécoise French. I have GCSE, A level, DipHe and Institute of Linguists French but I'm rusty as hell. 

I would like to learn Italian, so that I can cook from some Italian cookbooks I bought. At uni, I did a couple of terms of Italian and my Italian teacher said that my accent was very good and I find it easier to pronounce than French.

I tried Toucan and that was OK. I have heard that Babbel is pretty good. Anyone tried these ? 

Cherryfudge

I haven't come across Toucan, @MrsStepford but I remember doing a trial version of Babel years ago. I didn't get very involved but that could have been because I was expecting to learn school-style and didn't gel with their method.

I'm enjoying the Duolingo Italian and it seems to be bypassing the need to translate that lasted for years with French. Again, I don't know if that's because their method is working for me or it's easier, or maybe because I have a background in another Romance language. I have been told that Italian varies so much across the country that a 'prescribed' version is unable to cover all varieties - but isn't that true of English and other languages too?

If you are looking at learning specific groups of words, I'd recommend Drops, which is all vocabulary, grouped by topic.

PipneyJane

@Cherryfudge there are dozens of Italian dialects.  True story:  in the 1970’s there was a very famous Australian Aussie Rules football player, who grew up talking “Italian” at home and went to Italy on a short holiday, visiting Milan, Venice, Rome and his family’s home in the south.  Turns out, he couldn’t understand anything that was said to him except in his home region, nor could anyone understand what he was saying when he was further north.

- Pip (I think it was Ron Barassi, but I may be wrong.)

Cherryfudge

I'd not heard of this instance @PipneyJane, but I was taught 'standard (presumably Parisian) French and couldn't understand my Mum, who spoke it with a southern accent. My Dad spoke Egyptian Arabic but found he communicated best with a Saudi man in French because the vowels varied between Egypt and Saudi Arabia (that's my understanding of a story told to me many years ago).

Then you just have to watch me try to understand some English dialects to see that a born and bred English speaker can be baffled by what's supposed to be her own language... so I will be content for now with enough Duolingo Italian to ask for a meal and say 'thank you'. I would love to explore more of Italy, though.

PipneyJane

That’s interesting @Cherryfudge. Years ago, there was a piece on English dialects on the BBC where they spoke as if it was the early 1800’s.  One of the dialects was Wiltshire and I remember thinking “so that’s where we (Australians) got that phrase!”.  No recollection what the phrase was, but many words that don’t get used in Standard English are used regularly in Australian English.

I’m not surprised re your dad’s story regarding speaking Egyptian Arabic and not being understood by a Saudi.  The land distance between those two countries is huge, so their dialects would be quite different.  Only the fishermen would, possibly, intermingle.  It’s similar to the Portuguese and the Spanish, who can read each other’s newspapers but can’t understand the spoken word.  (I don’t remember which Spanish king spoke with a lisp, but his court is responsible for a major sound shift between those two languages, since it became fashionable to pronounce words as he did.)

ETA; one thing I have noticed about Duolingo, is that there are regional accents incorporated into the spoken French.  Not every character is Parisian.  (I only know this because I worked with several people from Normandy and we discussed the differences.  They are more likely to pronounce the last letter of a word, while the Parisians will drop it.)

- Pip

Mistral001

I recently started to learn German again.  I tried Busuu and Duolingo years ago.  I know Duolingo is the most popular site, but this time I have been using Busuu.  I have to do a lot of the lessons again, because I have been away from the site, but I am really impressed with by how much the site has improved since I was using it several years ago.  The lessons seem to be more thorough and have better media.  They now have some Austrian and Swiss colloquial sayings as well.  The interaction with other users of the site is quite good if you ignore the span requests for friendships, which frankly are so easy to spot that they are quite harmless.

Has anybody tried Busuu? 

Cherryfudge

I hadn't even heard of it, @Mistral001, but I'm interested. I had a quick look online and it looks as though you can chat with other users which is now missing from the basic Duolingo (I don't know if it's on a paid version). It was really useful. I might have a further look later and see if it helps.

I'm currently very, very bogged down in Italian pronouns. I'm fairly sure one sentence recently would have translated directly as 'At (name) they please not her', which is enough to cope with, without also having to remember the pleasing bit agrees with the things doing the pleasing (which could be something completely inanimate, such as buses) and my having a complete mental block on which of a large selection of words to choose for 'her' and still remember to leave out the 'the' which my subconscious is trying to insert somewhere. In Italian, it seems, you have to say things please you, not that you like them, so takes a bit of turning round in my head.

Urgh.

On the other hand, I managed to make myself understood in Italy! I asked for the exit and a helpful lady pointed the way. And when someone asked me a question, I came right back with 'I don't understand, I'm sorry' (and she nodded).

I wish I could find the grammar book which was recommended to me on here last year. I bought it then it got tidied up. It had everything in it.

PollyWollyDoodle

I think we’re on the same Section, @Cherryfudge!  It’s one of my gripes about Duolingo, there is never any explanation and if you're not quick at ‘decoding’ it can take a while as you guess at why you’ve got it wrong. 

I have taken to checking my answers in Google translate before entering them on the app, and I’m actually learning more from that. I have got an Italian grammar book somewhere, and I should really sit down and learn some of the verbs.