Learn a Language 1

[controlnovice]

I've found that learning languages has helped me at work.

While it may not 'get me ahead' at work (like the main topic suggests), what it has done is help me stick around while others are let go. You still have to be a decent engineer, but other languages definately help.

Speaking other languages for Europeans is not a big deal, however, in the States, it is. Ever hear the old joke? What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bi-lingual. What do you call someone who can speak one language? American.

Anybody else see this? I'd recommended it for anyone wanting to improve themselves.

 

[weh3]

I found that Parisians were extremely receptive to me when they found out I was American--this was not always obvious to them, as I speak French with very little accent.

I think if you know five words and try to use them, they will speak English with you, but if you go assuming they speak English, they will not be courteous. Imagine the reception a Frenchman would get pulling up to a gas station somewhere in Anycity, USA, and trying to be understood in French, and you can understand why many think Parisians to be cold towards Americans.

William

 

[haggis]

weh3 is right on with his experience. When you attempt to speak to someone in their native tongue, regardless of how badly, they see that as a courtesy and, if they speak Engish, they are only too glad to help. This even goes I might add in many ethnic neibourhoods in Anytown USA.

 

[MJR2]

Knowing other languages is really useful. I am not fluent in any other than english. I work daily with people all around the world and english appears to be the only standard.

I try to pick up the language when I travel. I've found that after two weeks it starts getting through (and I'm pretty thick).

My complaint is that while I allow and try to understand what they say in english my hosts too often beat me up on getting their langauage 'just' right. It is not going to happen.

Recently I've been in China where they were surprised that I understood so much of the converstion after a week.

And in Haiti I was walking by two teenage girls who were harrassing me in french. As I passed in front of them one said 'they don't speak french' in french. I turned and replied 'Yes, What would you like to know.' That's all I understood but they didn't know that. They will probably be more careful in the future.

It's a small world.

 

[astructurale]

Great thread. I agree that Americans should at least learn one other language. I know Spanish (as taught in high school). I can read it OK but I am like a child trying to speak it. I just don't get enough practice.

I may pick up some Italian soon since we're planning a vacation there in the next 2 years.

But I do speak 6-month old very fluently! ;-)

Kudos to all of you who are bi- or multi-lingual!! I plan on teaching my son spanish from a young age and encouraging him to learn another language beyond that. It is neat that some children's programs in the US are encorporating other languages into their programs. I've seen some on Sesame Street, and Dora the Explorer is a great one for spanish. Maybe the next generations of Americans will have a better leg up on most American's today.

 

[kchayfie]

It is occasionally profitable to speak the local language as well. I've found in small picturesque villages full of tourists, ordering coffee/sandwiches/beers etc in the local language costs less than ordering in English. If you don't have the hang of the accent and show yourself up as a foreigner, the nice guys give you local rates just for trying!

 

[Heckler]

What I dislike seeing in America are families from other countries that do not pass down their native tongue. I have several friends that are first generation Americans and do not know their native tongue (myself included). I know enough spanish to get by. Kchayfie - you're correct about local language costs less.....an example, even though Puerto Rico is a US territory they're a spanish speaking society. The locals in Ponce and San German would much rather visiting Americans try to speak spanish. Although, I didn't experience this behavior in Germany. So I'm not sure it's across the board. But some interesting experiences nonetheless.

 

[karlbamforth]

Although I am not fluent in anything other than my native english I can be polite using Hello, please, thankyou etc and order food and drink in French, German and Spanish. I have always found that as long as I attempt to speak their language they will go out of their way to help me. I once had to order food in french while in a portugese restaurant, it was the only language the waiter and I had in common. I am currently trying to learn some Thai, believe me thats a hard one. One word can mean 4 or 5 different things just by changing the inflection in your voice. When reading it you have to choose the best translation that matches the rest of the sentence.

Karl.

 

[HgTX]

wabbit--Hebrew as a dead language?? Biblical Hebrew isn't really any more different from modern Hebrew than Shakespeare's English is from modern American English.

Heckler--a lot of immigrants have deliberately chosen to raise their children not speaking the parents' language. "Out with the old, in with the new." Sometimes they're afraid their children will be stigmatized, sometimes it's just a matter of wanting to adapt as well as possible to the new surroundings and therefore speaking the new language as much as possible including the home. It takes a deliberate effort to keep the language going in the second generation. (What then sometimes happens is it's the *third* generation that wants to rediscover their cultural roots.)

Hg

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[waskillywabbit]

HGTX - so you know Biblical Hebrew? I still have to fully concentrate to read backwards! I don't know the modern Hebrew dialect or have any familiarity with it, other than I've been to a Barmitzvah, but I know modern English and you talk to most folks that speak/understand modern English in a Shakespearean dialect and they'd take you to the funny farm. While yes they are the same grammatically, they are miles apart spoken...thus the use of my term "dead". While we are at it, it is Koine (Biblical) Greek too and then I just threw Latin in there while I was at it (in school).

Brian
Pressure Vessels and Autoclave Systems

http://www.mcabeeconstruction.com

The above comments/opinions are solely my own and not those of McAbee Construction.

 

[Rich2001]

Knowing foreign languages has been useful in my engineering career in the USA, though I don't use them much. Howwever, just in the past 6 months, I have used German, Flemish and French, for both written and oral communications.

I know some Polish and Russian, though only spoken, and have yet used it for work.

Winston Churchhill said that you really only need 500 words to communicate in another language.

If you are interested in learning a new language I have found immersion is the best teacher. Use the internet to find streaming audio and video such as

http://www.france2.fr/

(streaming video French news). A list of foreign internet radio stations can be found here

http://www.multilingualbooks.com/online-radio.html

. Read the local papers such as

http://www.liberation.fr/

Vita sine litteris mors est.

 

[HgTX]

[digression]
WWabbitt--they built modern Hebrew out of what had survived over the years in liturgy, so there really isn't that huge a difference. Vowel shift, loss of some lenition, and somehow they swapped past and future tense marking, but really not that much of a difference. Yes, you'd get funny looks if you went around Israel spouting Ashkenazic Biblical Hebrew, but they'd know what you're talking about. I wouldn't file Hebrew under "dead".

Even Shakespearean English, spoken, isn't all that different from modern. There's a pretty strong theory that some parts of Appalachia (at least till they all got satellite TV) kept a 17th-century version of English fairly intact.
[/digression]

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[amorrison]

Hey . .Engineers . . the answer to using or at least listening (so you will not forget your volcabulary) to any language is available in 2005.

It's called "Satellite Radio" - hopefully no one will quip

"500 stations and nothing on" .

 

[GregLocock]

Hg, that kind of has a ULish ring to it. Then I found this

http://www.wvculture.org/history/journal_wvh/wvh30-2.html

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[HgTX]

*Phew*! I was all ready to eat crow for not having gone and verified everything immediately before posting. Glad to see I wasn't full of it.

Interesting reading, thanks!

I hear "pooch" in Texas. ("That girder looks kinda poochy where they didn't get the web straight before they welded it but dagnabbit it's within spec so we can't make 'em fix it.")

Hg

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[astructurale]

HgTX -
Gotta laugh at the "pooch" comment. That's hilarous. Being a southerner also, I can appreciate it!

That reminds me of something...My mother has a new expression for being overweight, she's "fluffy" not "fat".

 

[MedicineEng]

I was once in a market in China buying fruit. When the two ladies saw me trying to communicate in Cantonese (chinese dialect), well, it seemed that they were being possessed by the devil. They couldn't stop laughing...
In the end they gave me a discount...

I can tell you that in Cantonese the expression "I am hungry" is exactly the same as "I have a big diarrhea" only dependig on the tone that you give to the words. So you can imagine the fun that it is a foreigner trying to speak cantonese. At least my collegues have lots of fun whenever I start "speaking"...

 

[plasgears]

Doing business in Switzerland can be amusing. They seek your best language. Many years ago I was passing thru Zurich after spending three weeks in Italy. I asked directions in German, the policeman answered me in Italian, and said goodbye in Engish. You see, he was looking for the accent to determine my best language.

I worked the Geneva Auto Show a few years ago, and I had the same experience several times going from German to French, to Italian, and finally to English. A new experience for me was meeting a guy from Bacelona who could not speak anything but Spanish. We agreed that I would speak Italian and he would answer slowly in Spanish. It worked!

 

[EddyC]

Paulo,

Your comments about Cantonese reminded me of something I read in a history book. Apparently when Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, his detractors refered to it as Mein K(r)ampf (My Diaarhea). Too bad that his future didn't end there.

 

[whyun]

I once read (or heard) a while ago about a Russian official and a Chinese official communicating in English.

 

[weh3]

I met a Sudanese fellow in Paris once with whom I was conversing in French. His French was quite as good as mine, and we were understanding each other clearly.

Since most Africans in France are from francophone countries, I asked whether French was one of the national languages of the Sudan, to which he replied, "No, it's English."

I suggested we speak in English then, since it seemed that we would feel more at ease.

Upon switching to English, I found that he had such a thick accent, small vocabulary, and minimal grasp of the grammar that I suggested we go back to French so that we could understand each other.

Two anglophones in France speaking French because they could not communicate in English!

William