'Good/Bad at languages'

TheCandystripes

Does this annoy anyone else? I mean what does this even mean, you can't be good/bad at languages like you can be with maths for example. I mean I speak fluent English, so I'm hardly bad at languages? If you go to live in a country you will pick up the language, theres no good or bad about it?

CliffHuxtabel

TheCandystripes wrote: »

Does this annoy anyone else? I mean what does this even mean, you can't be good/bad at languages like you can be with maths for example. I mean I speak fluent English, so I'm hardly bad at languages? If you go to live in a country you will pick up the language, theres no good or bad about it?

what, for the junior cert?

Podge2k7

TheCandystripes wrote: »

you can't be good/bad at languages

Yes you can. If the only French words you know are bonjour and au revoir then you are obviously bad at the language.

minidazzler

Have you heard how some people, for example skangers, speak? Are you telling me they are not bad at languages?

MistyCheese

TheCandystripes wrote: »

Does this annoy anyone else? I mean what does this even mean, you can't be good/bad at languages like you can be with maths for example. I mean I speak fluent English, so I'm hardly bad at languages? If you go to live in a country you will pick up the language, theres no good or bad about it?

Hi, hello, Powers-That-Be, can I be this young and stupid again, please??!

liah

Some people find languages easier to learn than others, particularly if they've had exposure to multiple languages when growing up.

It's really not hard to understand, to be honest.

You can definitely be good or bad at languages. Some people can learn a language very quickly and others can live in a country for 10 years and still speak the language really badly. Just like one person can grasp a mathematical concept immediately and someone else might need to spend ages on it.

Snowie

Parler français pour moi, c'est facile. Mon ancienne petite amie était le français. Elle would'nt Parle-moi si je did'nt parler français!

and for the none French speakers.

Speaking French for me is easy. My former girlfriend was French. She would'nt Speak to me if I did'nt speak French!

liah

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Parler français pour moi, c'est facile. Mon ancienne petite amie était le français. Elle would'nt Parle-moi si je did'nt parler français!

This is kind of a really not-PC question but does your dyslexia affect other languages? Because unless you copy-pasted that french it's perfect.

Dartz

I'm good at bad ****ing language, and that's about it really.

ScumLord

I can't learn other languages to save my life, I've had beautiful Polish girls try to teach me their language but it just goes in one ear out the other. Maybe it was the fact they had nice tits that distracted me but I just know for a fact I'm **** at learning new languages.

Snowie

liah wrote: »

This is kind of a really not-PC question but does your dyslexia affect other languages? Because unless you copy-pasted that french it's perfect.

Ive been speaking a reading french since I was 7. It's drilled into my head that is 21 years of it. I learned french through cartoons, I dunno if you've heard of it. Its called Muzzy ! It was Vhs back then tho...

http://imgkk.com/i/wD6oVRwP.jpg this dude here.

It doesn't make sense because yes I can speak french perfect, its because I learned in a exciting way as apposed to learning class room english, teachers allways said he can speak french amazingly well tho and the point was i learned in a fun way at my own pace.. what fun is a cartoon you can understand it ?:)
forced me to learn it.. And the a mad thing is Its stuck with me for such a long time. but then again I lived and worked there I've got lots of french friends...

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

TheCandystripes wrote: »

Does this annoy anyone else? I mean what does this even mean, you can't be good/bad at languages like you can be with maths for example. I mean I speak fluent English, so I'm hardly bad at languages? If you go to live in a country you will pick up the language, theres no good or bad about it?

WTF are you talking about? You can be good and bad at anything. Just because you speak a language, doesn't make you good at languages. You could be sh!te at learning other languages...

liah

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Ive been speaking a reading french since I was 7. It's drilled into my head that is 21 years of it. I learned french through cartoons, I dunno if you've heard of it. Its called Muzzy ! It was Vhs back then tho...

http://imgkk.com/i/wD6oVRwP.jpg this dude here.

It doesn't make sense because yes I can speak french perfect, its because I learned in a exciting way as apposed to learning class room english, teachers allways said he can speak french amazingly well tho and the point was i learned in a fun way at my own pace.. what fun is a cartoon you can understand it ?:)
forced me to learn it.. And the a mad thing is Its stuck with me for such a long time. but then again I lived and worked there I've got lots of french friends...

That's so peculiar, but it's actually incredibly interesting.

The more you know!

ScumLord

French is durty.

drzhivago

not sure what the focus of the thread is but wish that more people took an interest in the irish Language

cant get my kids into gaelscoil, really wish I could, they love the language, enjoy speaking it

Last Summer they went to an Irish camp in Blackrock college and loved the experience, 4 weeks of fun and games through the medium of Irish and their Irish improved immensely

they want to go back next year which is a great sign

Love going to grandparents where people do speak Irish regularly

I wish the curriculum would improve to the point that kids find it interesting and not a chore

TheCandystripes

speaking irish is a waste of time unless tommorow we woke up and ireland was an irish speaking country, now irish is just another foreign language.

i mean i speak a good bit of irish and watch tg4 all the time but it be much better if we could speak german or french as well as english. if i had it my way we would speak irish and french as the second language.

CliffHuxtabel

drzhivago wrote: »

I wish the curriculum would improve to the point that kids find it interesting and not a chore

well when i was at school they were about .1% of the way there so they should be able to make irish fun by the year 3000

drzhivago

TheCandystripes wrote: »

speaking irish is a waste of time unless tommorow we woke up and ireland was an irish speaking country, now irish is just another foreign language.

Why is it any more a waste of time than people learning french Italian or Spanish in secondary school
How many people will ever actually need those languages for work ever again

We have some heritage with our language and there are areas on our own Island where it is the dominant language

drzhivago

CliffHuxtabel wrote: »

well when i was at school they were about .1% of the way there so they should be able to make irish fun by the year 3000

I hear you
I am that soldier and I am sad
I really worked at it, i liked Irish but it was made so hard
I didnt grow up in a gaeltacht and wanted to learn but it was made hard
Never knew about french until secondary school and people left my class speaking more french than Irish because it was fun

ScumLord

I hated Irish in school, all my teachers where cunts. Every last one of them, now I wished I'd learned it. 18 years and not a word. I wish I had my school years over again as an adult, I honestly do wish I knew how to speak Irish, 18 fuppen years and not a word other than "can I go for a piss".

cHaTbOx

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Parler français pour moi, c'est facile. Mon ancienne petite amie était le français. Elle would'nt Parle-moi si je did'nt parler français!

and for the none French speakers.

Speaking French for me is easy. My former girlfriend was French. She would'nt Speak to me if I did'nt speak French!

You said elle wouldn't? Isn't it meant to be elle ne serait pas or elle ne serait and si je didn't goes to si je ne ? Sorry just spotted it and didn't know if you don't it by accident or it was a joke

Live with three french people and one Italian , getting better at French , just starting Italian.

CianRyan

fCUK IS NOT A BAD WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Sadly though, boards tuing s its is so i have to filter it... ¬.¬
vefubdn2e
waaaaaaaaaaaaa

CliffHuxtabel

drzhivago wrote: »

I hear you
I am that soldier and I am sad
I really worked at it, i liked Irish but it was made so hard
I didnt grow up in a gaeltacht and wanted to learn but it was made hard
Never knew about french until secondary school and people left my class speaking more french than Irish because it was fun

irish was the thorn in my side in secondary school.

the language on its own was bad enough but we had this horrible old sow as teacher.

i can speak some german, french and italian but not even sharon ni fheolain (sic) could help me learn gaeilge

Snowie

liah wrote: »

That's so peculiar, but it's actually incredibly interesting.

The more you know!

Its not really its down to basic teaching, Teachers teach and kids want to learn, there's a devide there. I did'nt have that useual devide because the boreing teacher asking questions. Thats was'nt the case... It was fun to learn. I am genuinley dyslexic Ive got a sanctioned government report to say I am and all that mumbo jumbo that goes with it.

But if you really want to learn something you really can the problem with english could crasp the silent letters always caught me plus i didnt have, french lessons 3 days a week and my french teacher was amazing she engouraged a fun sense to learn french which made it all the better.
Its a fact kids learn twice as quick if its fun, plus at 7 years of age any child has a brain like a sponge. French was something I'm good at.

As for english and my terrible, spelling at times I think its improoved hugely since I joined forums as its better to be able to type decent. I honestly tho thin i have good days where i can spell perfectly and others where I even use spell checker and it can't even decifer the words I spell..

Snowie

ScumLord wrote: »

French is durty.

:eek: try the women

Snowie

cHaTbOx wrote: »

You said elle wouldn't? Isn't it meant to be elle ne serait pas or elle ne serait and si je didn't goes to si je ne ? Sorry just spotted it and didn't know if you don't it by accident or it was a joke

Live with three french people and one Italian , getting better at French , just starting Italian.

Bye mistake me thinks thats why i can't work as a french translater i still get words wrong or type french and put a word in english with out noticing it ...

Crumble Froo

well, my sister, at 16, has very good english, irish, pretty good french and bulgarian, and decent every day russian. i'd class her as being good with languages.

i went to the gaeltacht when i was 12/13 and had very poor irish (and grades at irish), and managed to pick it up very quickly, like, by the end of the first week i was practically fluent, while my room mate, despite having had a similar level of irish as me when we both started, was nowhere near as fluent after three weeks as i was after one week.

Davidius

You can be bad at languages. If you couldn't then everybody who didn't put the time in in my class would have gotten the same grade. :pac:

I hate learning languages myself. I can't follow them as they too often don't really make any sense due to the nature of their evolution and the differences from English. Too much learning things off at the beginning too. Also have great difficulty associating concepts with words that are not english. It sometimes takes me a while to link words with ideas in English too.

Much prefer maths. Not much in the way of memory learning and it makes sense.

cHaTbOx

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Bye mistake me thinks thats why i can't work as a french translater i still get words wrong or type french and put a word in english with out noticing it ...

Don't be sad , it's good , Just thought you were joking about .


I'm getting used to it a lot more now I have people who speak it around me. But one is what you call a salope!
Taking up spanish in the new year and have basic german so I may also work on that.


French isn't dirty like even **** sounds better in french imo(Merde)

SV

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Parler français pour moi, c'est facile. Mon ancienne petite amie était le français. Elle would'nt Parle-moi si je did'nt parler français!

and for the none French speakers.

Speaking French for me is easy. My former girlfriend was French. She would'nt Speak to me if I did'nt speak French!

Honestly, that is quite clearly put through a free translation thing online.
That's the reason it says would'nt and did'nt in english because the grammar wasn't correct and it didn't know what you were trying to say.

Dave147

Je parle francais temps de temps, il n'est pas facile pour moi parceque j'ai finis l'ecole 7 annee, mais mon francais etait super!

Aussi, J'ADORE LA LOUVRETTE!

I had a French gf too, my French was unreal when I was about 17, 18. Now it's rubbish

Snowie

SV wrote: »

Honestly, that is quite clearly put through a free translation thing online.
That's the reason it says would'nt and did'nt in english because the grammar wasn't correct and it didn't know what you were trying to say.

Go disscuss it in the conspiricy theroy forums thats sounds like fun.
maybe jim corr will say something to and before long youle be wearing tin foil hats and geeking it about the cia mean while il still be speaking french as well as i do and you'le probably have gottin your own armodillo hat.

SV

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Go disscuss it in the conspiricy theroy forums thats sounds like fun.
maybe jim corr will say something to and before long youle be wearing tin foil hats and geeking it about the cia mean while il still be speaking french as well as i do and you'le probably have gottin your own armodillo hat.

That's a very odd way of saying "you caught me" ...

tallaght01

Very few kids are "bad" at anything if they're taught it properly from a young age. People telling them they're bad at it, makes them believe they're bad at it though.

There's not many kids who don't have the capacity to pick up a second language under the right circumstances.

Agricola

Did French throughout secondary school. Still have bits and pieces of it. Problem is you have the vocabulary for a 14 year old, ie bus timetables, train stations, what to say to the French family your staying with!

But yeah some people are good at languages and some bad. Take for example Gary Lineker, he went to play football at the end of his career in Japan and hes fluent in Japanese. Beckham on the other hand spent 4 years in Spain and AFAIK he only has a rudimentary grasp of it.

blubloblu

liah wrote: »

This is kind of a really not-PC question but does your dyslexia affect other languages? Because unless you copy-pasted that french it's perfect.

No it's not. There's numerous mistakes in that sentence.

SV

blubloblu wrote: »

No it's not. There's numerous mistakes in that sentence.

Free translation sites never get it quite right.

mental07

drzhivago wrote: »

Why is it any more a waste of time than people learning french Italian or Spanish in secondary school
How many people will ever actually need those languages for work ever again

There's one right here....

3hn2givr7mx1sc

Podge2k7 wrote: »

Yes you can. If the only French words you know are bonjour and au revoir then you are obviously bad at the language.

Sigh.. that's why I got an E in the Junior Cert.:(

wudangclan

i think it´s a matter of application.
if you try hard enough you´ll get it.
when i´ve learned a new language (i speak french ,dutch and spanish to varying degrees and i was terrible with languages at school but it helps if you´re living in the country),it was by going there always carrying a little pocket dictionary with me to translate words i came across,streets signs etc and by not being afraid to try the couple of words you have learned and then building on this everyday.
after a while,then i would use a book to learn verbs,like hugo,to start putting the strucutre of the language together.
listening to as much of the language as you can to be able to differentiate between the different sounds,news channels are good for this.
and then engaging as many people as possible in order to progress.

paddymorrison

Snow-Monkey wrote: »

Mon ancienne petite amie était le français.

Mais "mon" est masculine! Je pense que en français correct, on dit "ma ancienne petite amie est française".

Captain Havoc

I failed my leaving cert French and I now speak it fluently While I was at college I was sent to French speaking part of Switzerland for a year and after I finished college I moved to Paris for a year followed by four years working for a French company. I also speak basic German after living in Zürich for a year. My thesis for college was also on language barriers.
Having worked with plenty of foreigners and dealt with plenty as customers, yes you can be good or bad with languages. It's depends on your intelligence and personality. Just because you can't learn French in school doesn't mean you can't do it. I learned all my French down the pub through interaction. If you are affraid to speak to your foreign overlords colleagues then you will never pick up the language unless you are extremly intelligent. I've seen the dumbest of people that can speak multiple languages because of their upbringing.
I don't believe the languages you learn in school really represents a language. Imagine if you learned English only from a book and someone said "story bud" you wouldn't have a scooby what they were at. I don't speak French all prim and proper (but I can for work) more like a scanger with a natural feel.

Captain Havoc

paddymorrison wrote: »

Mais "mon" est masculine! Je pense que en français correct, on dit "ma ancienne petite amie est française".

or you could just say "mon ex"

genericguy

i speak fluent french and irish, and have done since i was in school, having had no exposure to native speakers up until about the last two years - i always grasped languages quickly, and whenever i'm going away anywhere i can always learn enough to get by before i go. genericgal on the other hand isn't so great at languages. but she's good with people so she ends up doing all the talking anyway!

edit: what jerseyeire says is very true - when you get to another country it's colloquial language tha does you more favours than the stuff from the books.

Neamhshuntasach

That french from earlier was obviously done thorugh a translation tool. Haha. Why would someone pretend to speak a language.

And of course you can be good or bad at languages. I pick them up a lot easier than most people but i always suck at grammar when it comes to writing. I've spoke spanish since a kid but i failed a written essay for a profiency test to prove i could speak it when i went to college. I speak it how most latinos would speak it, lazily and full of slang. I suppose it's the same way i know feck all of the grammar for English.

cHaTbOx

cHaTbOx wrote: »

You said elle wouldn't? Isn't it meant to be elle ne serait pas or elle ne serait and si je didn't goes to si je ne ? Sorry just spotted it and didn't know if you don't it by accident or it was a joke

Live with three french people and one Italian , getting better at French , just starting Italian.

I don't think it's the conditional mood at all. The 'wouldn't' in English basically means 'she refused to' in this case, as far as I can tell. I suppose you could put it as 'she wouldn't have talked to me if I hadn't spoken French' but 'She refused to talk to me if I didn't speak French' is really what he meant. And it wouldn't be the verb 'serait' in any case, as 1) that's the verb to be' in the conditional, or 2) it is used as an auxiliary in the conditional perfect for être verbs like 'venir', which 'parler' is not. Also, the 'ne' in French negation is often omitted in casual speech, so missing it out isn't really a mistake.

I find people tend to totally overestimate how well they speak a language. 9 times out of 10, when someone says a language is easy, it's because all the subtleties and difficulties have gone right over their head. People who speak a language well rarely say it's easy (unless they grew up speaking it, obviously). For general conversation, it doesn't really matter, but as someone studying to be a translator (Spanish - English), it pisses me off when I tell people what I'm doing in college, and they say 'oh I speak Spanish' and act like they could do translation as well, when they wouldn't have a hope in hell. It's like me calling myself an artist because I can draw a stick man or a mathematician because I can do my times tables. There's a lot more to languages and translation than being able to hold a conversation in another language.

paddymorrison

paddymorrison wrote: »

Mais "mon" est masculine! Je pense que en français correct, on dit "ma ancienne petite amie est française".

Wrong. Ancienne begins with a vowel, so you use "mon". You'd also use "mon" with just "amie" for the same reason. In this case, it doesn't mean the noun is masculine - you can see it's feminine by the endings of 'ancien' and 'ami'

pickarooney

paddymorrison wrote: »

Mais "mon" est masculine! Je pense que en français correct, on dit "ma ancienne petite amie est française".

The vowel at the start of 'ancienne' requires 'mon'. That's one of the few things right in the post.

Mackleton

cHaTbOx wrote: »

You said elle wouldn't? Isn't it meant to be elle ne serait pas or elle ne serait and si je didn't goes to si je ne ? Sorry just spotted it and didn't know if you don't it by accident or it was a joke

Live with three french people and one Italian , getting better at French , just starting Italian.

Okee dokee in French what he meant to say was:

Moi, je parle très bien en français. Mon ancienne petite amie était française et elle ne me parlait pas, si je ne parlais pas en français avec elle.

Sorry just couldn't leave it as it was. But personally I can say that I am way better at languages than say maths or science. I speak French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, but I can just about do basic mental arithmetic. My brain can retain the rules of grammar easily but struggles constantly with balancing an equation or the likes, it's just how I'm designed.

pickarooney

Mackleton wrote: »

Okee dokee in French what he meant to say was:

Moi, je parle très bien en français. Mon ancienne petite amie était française et elle ne me parlait pas, si je ne parlais pas en français avec elle.

Sorry just couldn't leave it as it was. But personally I can say that I am way better at languages than say maths or science. I speak French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, but I can just about do basic mental arithmetic.

[quote=[Deleted User];62689958]
I find people tend to totally overestimate how well they speak a language. 9 times out of 10, when someone says a language is easy, it's because all the subtleties and difficulties have gone right over their head.[/QUOTE]

Build it and they will come.