How many here are bi or trilingual?

Radrook

Radrook

Senior Member
Location
USA
I speak and write both Spanish and English fluently although English is my primary language. Of course I can understand and read a lot of Portuguese and Italian. I also know smattering of Romanian which I began studying in order to understand the songs of the then child singer Cleopatra Stratan.


Romanian being a Romance language as well, of course, helped considerably.

For example
English house
Casa = Romanian
Casa = Spanish

 

Last edited:
Alizerine said:
I learned French which helped with Spanish but have forgotten most of it. It comes in handy for reading menus and doing crossword puzzles. I tried an online course in Spanish a couple of years ago but at this age it was a chore.
Click to expand...
I did the same as you with Spanish. I wanted to learn it but I found it difficult to learn it at my age as well.
 
Alizerine said:
I learned French which helped with Spanish but have forgotten most of it. It comes in handy for reading menus and doing crossword puzzles. I tried an online course in Spanish a couple of years ago but at this age it was a chore.
Click to expand...
Yes it is a chore to learn another language. Especially if there is very little in common between the one that we speak and the one that we want to learn. One obstacle that many non-English speakers face is the way that we spell our English words which doesn't always match the pronunciation. Never bothers us because we learned to recognize the word-meanings as children despite their spellings. But to non- English speakers trying to learn the language, it must seem like an unsolvable puzzle sometimes.
 
Rossana said:
I used to be fluent in 4 languages (French/Dutch/English and Italian) however, I lost practicing these different languages through the years.
I can follow a conversation in Spanish or Portugese (through my knowledge of French and Italian) but cannot speak it.
Click to expand...
I imagine that the similarities between Dutch and English were helpful just as the similarities between Spanish and Romanian were for me.
Dutch and English: Language Similarities and Differences

Strangely, my kids can understand Spanish but can't speak it.​
 
Last edited:
Radrook said:
I imagine that the similarities between Dutch an English were helpful just as the similarities between Spanish and Romanian were for me.
Dutch and English: Language Similarities and Differences

Strangely, my kids can understand Spanish but can't speak it.​
Click to expand...
Yes, indeed.
Going back to the English prononciation: if an English word is new to me, I might mispronounce it, then I spell it so that someone can rectify it for me.
What I find difficult in English is the spelling of certain words that are similar in French but are spelled differently in English.

Of course now that I am looking for examples, I am unable to think of one! A vowel like "o" can be replaced by "a" or more frequently the same word will be a double consonant in one language but only one consonant in the other.
In those cases, I will often have to check my spelling using a language or another.
 
AnnieA said:
I took two semesters of German in undergrad and can still ask "Do you have a pencil?" and can tell you my name. :p Signed up with Pimsleur a few weeks ago for Latin American Spanish.
Click to expand...

They teach a general version? You see, Latin American Spanish can vary significantly from country to country. For example, when I was in Chicago associating with Mexican Americans, I kept using the word coger, pronounced coher, which I understood to mean to take. In contrast, Mexicans use that word to mean to have sex. I kept being told to watch what I was saying.

Another example: Most Latin American countries use the word for insect to refer to an insect. But in Puerto Rico, it refers to the male sexual organ. Fights can break out over such misunderstandings.

Also, pronunciations can vary significantly among Latin Americans. For example, Caribbean Latin Americans were predominantly influenced linguistically by Spaniards who immigrated from AndalucĆ­a and the Canary islands. In fact, they are often mistaken for Canary Islanders when they visit Spain because of it.


So they pronounce Spanish much differently from Argentineans who had a different immigrant pattern, and from Mexicans who pronounce Spanish differently from all other Latino Americans. So I would occasionally check the words I learn for other meanings.
 
Last edited:
Radrook said:
They teach a general version? You see, Latin American Spanish can vary significantly from country to country. For example, when I was in Chicago associating with Mexican Americans, I kept using the word coger, pronounced coher, which I understood to mean to take. In contrast, Mexicans use that word to mean to have sex. I kept being told to watch what I was saying.

Another example: Most Latin American countries use the word for insect to refer to an insect. But in Puerto Rico, it refers to the male sexual organ. Fights can break out over such misunderstandings.

Also, pronunciations can vary significantly among Latin Americans. For example, Caribbean Latin Americans were predominantly influenced linguistically by Spaniards who immigrated from AndalucĆ­a and the Canary islands. In fact, they are often mistaken for Canary Islanders when they visit Spain because of it.


So they pronounce Spanish much differently from Argentineans who had a different immigrant pattern, and from Mexicans who pronounce Spanish differently from all other Latino Americans. So I would occasionally check the words I learn for other meanings.
Click to expand...
..and Spanish in Spain is very different to the Spanish in Mexico.... or any of the Latino countries...
 
Radrook said:
They teach a general version? You see, Latin American Spanish can vary significantly from country to country.
Click to expand...

It's general. I don't think it's feasible to incorporate all countries into one program and since I'm starting from the ground floor, that isn't an issue.

From what I've researched ...even if I complete the program, I still (zero gifts for languages) will still struggle to understand a conversation between native speakers at their normal rate of speaking. I should, however, be able to converse with native Latin American Speakers individually at a basic level. Pimsleur users recommend following up with movies, podcasts etc. in order to understand languages at the pace of native speakers. That's where I would think study of different countries would come into play.
 
I used to be fairly fluent in Latin, but you don't run into many 2,000 year old Romans. I've had both high school Spanish and French. I can say, " The book is in the library". I am so amazed at people who can switch languages. I don't know how they do that. I noticed that Europeans can make do in several languages. And for some reason, Germans seemed to be better at it.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I am so amazed at people who can switch languages. I noticed that Europeans can make do in several languages. And for some reason, Germans seemed to be better at it.
Click to expand...

Me too! My Swiss cousin by marriage was fluent in five when younger. Sheā€™s a native Swiss German speaker and could speak all four languages of Switzerland in addition to English. Said that being here so long, sheā€™s lost all but English and Swiss German.
 
hollydolly said:
..and Spanish in Spain is very different to the Spanish in Mexico.... or any of the Latino countries...
Click to expand...
But not so different that it prevents mutual understanding or communication. Similar to how we Americans can still understand the English, Irish, Scots and even the Jamaicans. Here is an example of the slight differences.

Also, the Spanish in Spain varies from region to region. For example, the Spaniards of Castile do not speak like those in AndalucĆ­a do. Spaniards from the Canary Islands speak Spanish similar to how the Caribbean Latinos do. Also, not everyone in Spain speaks Spanish. For example the Catalans don't, and The Basques don't. The Galician's speak a different dialect as well.
Languages of Spain - Wikipedia

Spanish (81%)
Catalan (8%)
Valencian (4%)
Galician (3%)
Basque (1%)
​
 
Last edited:
Rossana said:
Yes, indeed.
Going back to the English prononciation: if an English word is new to me, I might mispronounce it, then I spell it so that someone can rectify it for me.
What I find difficult in English is the spelling of certain words that are similar in French but are spelled differently in English.

Of course now that I am looking for examples, I am unable to think of one! A vowel like "o" can be replaced by "a" or more frequently the same word will be a double consonant in one language but only one consonant in the other.
In those cases, I will often have to check my spelling using a language or another.
Click to expand...
So what is your primary language?
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I used to be fairly fluent in Latin, but you don't run into many 2,000 year old Romans. I've had both high school Spanish and French. I can say, " The book is in the library". I am so amazed at people who can switch languages. I don't know how they do that. I noticed that Europeans can make do in several languages. And for some reason, Germans seemed to be better at it.
Click to expand...
El libro esta en la biblioteca.
The book is in the library.

Libreria = book store

Well, the way I did it was this way. I began learning English at age eight going on nine. My parents had only spoken very basic Spanish to me. So I needed to be placed in special class with a tutor in order to be able to participate in regular classes. Yet I was considerably hindered in understanding the teachers and I only gradually managed to catch up at approx. age 14. That is six years later. I expanded my vocabulary by reading comic books with a dictionary by my side and later via becoming a voracious reading the Bible and JWs literature such as the Awake and Watchtower Magazines and other Bible Study literature.

Interestingly, Spanish had become my very limited secondary language. But at age 23 I learned how to read and write and speak Spanish when I joined the Jehovah's Witness Spanish congregational in search of a JWS Latina wife. That was a tough struggle since I had never been formally educated in Spanish. The written Spanish words were initially a jumble on the pages and the spoken Spanish words sounded strange and I had trouble since I had never heard such words spoken by my parents. But eventually I became reasonably OK at it. So that's the way it happened with me. Then later I briefly delved into Italian and into Romanian.
 
hollydolly said:
quite a bit more different than that actually..
Click to expand...

.
Such differences among Latin American dialects still don't prevent communication. That's because of the preponderance of the common Spanish words that we share..
​
 

Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top