Israel

[jukel123 8,483]

Last time I was in Spain I was talking to a young girl,19. She was a waitress in a restaurant and had perfect English and Spanish. She spoke English better than me, and certainly with a quicker thought process!

 I asked her how she became so multilingual,( she spoke several languages other than Spanish , English and Polish, though only enough to get by.) She just said I've got to make money, Ive a child back home and to do that I have to be able to understand customers. The only tuition  she got was through language videos on Youtube. Sometimes you have to admire the grit of people.

 

[paulus 26]

My mother spoke fluent Welsh, I can manage the words Scarecrow, potatoes, shut up and that big long word, spent 3 years in Germany, Can order food, beer, say hello and goodbye. Multi lingual me Lol  

[mackem 27,199]

6 minutes ago, jukel123 said:

Last time I was in Spain I was talking to a young girl,19. She was a waitress in a restaurant and had perfect English and Spanish. She spoke English better than me, and certainly with a quicker thought process!

 I asked her how she became so multilingual,( she spoke several languages other than Spanish , English and Polish, though only enough to get by.) She just said I've got to make money, Ive a child back home and to do that I have to be able to understand customers. The only tuition  she got was through language videos on Youtube. Sometimes you have to admire the grit of people.

 

The clip is from the SCMP (I used to know a bloke who wrote travel articles for them).The importance of education,the kid needs to eat so skilled-up to super polyglot status.

 

[mackem 27,199]

9 minutes ago, jukel123 said:

Last time I was in Spain I was talking to a young girl,19. She was a waitress in a restaurant and had perfect English and Spanish. 

I was in Chamonix the ski-resort earlier this year,went into a really nice restaurant,waitress greeted us in perfect French,I heard her speak Spanish,she is from Essex,proper Essex accent,went to work as a chalet maid 15 years ago during ski-season and never left.

 

[mackem 27,199]

6 minutes ago, mackem said:

The clip is from the SCMP (I used to know a bloke who wrote travel articles for them).The importance of education,the kid needs to eat so skilled-up to super polyglot status.

 

 

[jukel123 8,483]

5 minutes ago, mackem said:

The clip is from the SCMP (I used to know a bloke who wrote travel articles for them).The importance of education,the kid needs to eat so skilled-up to super polyglot status.

 

I read an article which explained that children who are brought up bi- lingual. Have a huge advantage in later life. It somehow expands the brain and makes future learning easier for such kids.

That  Cambodian kid must have a mind like quicksilver.  Fantastic. Somebody from. Microsoft should sign him up!

 

[mackem 27,199]

Just now, jukel123 said:

I read an article which explained that children who are brought up bi- lingual. Have a huge advantage in later life. It somehow expands the brain and makes future learning easier for such kids.

Both my kids are bilingual,one of them is sharp as a blade,his fiancé is also bi-lingual and was a deans honour lister in Uni.

The other one thinks he is clever but isn’t,he is a lazy f****r.

 

[jukel123 8,483]

19 minutes ago, paulus said:

My mother spoke fluent Welsh, I can manage the words Scarecrow, potatoes, shut up and that big long word, spent 3 years in Germany, Can order food, beer, say hello and goodbye. Multi lingual me Lol  

I know it's embarrassing isn't it. I can get by in Spanish but on a very basic level. Whenever I get back from a foreign holiday . I am so angry I've been so dumb abroad that I get stuck into YouTube language videos, and then apathy and laziness take over.

[paulus 26]

28 minutes ago, jukel123 said:

I know it's embarrassing isn't it. I can get by in Spanish but on a very basic level. Whenever I get back from a foreign holiday . I am so angry I've been so dumb abroad that I get stuck into YouTube language videos, and then apathy and laziness take over.

Portuguese is the one i struggle with the most, Spent hours learning it and then forgot it in seconds. My mother spoke without a hint of  Welsh accent but if she spent some time there she would have a Welsh accent for a week or so, I remember once walking into a pub and they all started speaking welsh, Until my mother turned around and gave them a gobfull in Welsh, Lol

[mackem 27,199]

49 minutes ago, jukel123 said:

 Whenever I get back from a foreign holiday . I am so angry I've been so dumb abroad 

I lived in HK for a few years and had the opportunity to learn Cantonese,I didn’t bother as I found it an ugly language,I can curse fluently,and once got a free Chinese takeaway in a UK Chinese after I wished the owner happy new year and asked for my Lai see.I learnt a Filipino dialect (binisaya) in HK,it was easier and had a lot of Spanish influence.

[jukel123 8,483]

12 minutes ago, paulus said:

Portuguese is the one i struggle with the most, Spent hours learning it and then forgot it in seconds. My mother spoke without a hint of  Welsh accent but if she spent some time there she would have a Welsh accent for a week or so, I remember once walking into a pub and they all started speaking welsh, Until my mother turned around and gave them a gobfull in Welsh, Lol

I quickly adopt an accent. I live in Scotland and when I am with jock mates,I pick up their accent subconsciously. I speak to my English friends completely differently. My Mrs says I am a sell out lol. But I can't help it, its the quickest way to get people  to understand you. She will be ages on the phone trying to get a scot on the other end of the line to understand her. Sometimes I snap and say give  me the phone and then talk Jockspeak and am understood immediately. 

The very first thing I notice about a fellow brit is their accent. Its always a good icebreaker asking what a person's accent is.

[Greyman 28,850]

My grandkids are 3 and 4 and both speaking Spanish they have picked it up from my daughter who is learning it from a phone app, kids are like sponges and will pick languages up quickly if we bother to teach them 

[Greyman 28,850]

40 minutes ago, paulus said:

Portuguese is the one i struggle with the most, Spent hours learning it and then forgot it in seconds. My mother spoke without a hint of  Welsh accent but if she spent some time there she would have a Welsh accent for a week or so, I remember once walking into a pub and they all started speaking welsh, Until my mother turned around and gave them a gobfull in Welsh, Lol

Dos desperado porthavoir got me by over there even if I can’t spell it lol 

[DIDO.1 22,844]

23 minutes ago, jukel123 said:

I quickly adopt an accent. I live in Scotland and when I am with jock mates,I pick up their accent subconsciously. I speak to my English friends completely differently. My Mrs says I am a sell out lol. But I can't help it, its the quickest way to get people  to understand you. She will be ages on the phone trying to get a scot on the other end of the line to understand her. Sometimes I snap and say give  me the phone and then talk Jockspeak and am understood immediately. 

The very first thing I notice about a fellow brit is their accent. Its always a good icebreaker asking what a person's accent is.

Unfortunately kids are loosing their accent in a lot of places. My youngest probably picks part of his accent up from YouTube

[chartpolski 24,296]

I think it's only common courtesy,(how's that, Keith ?), to learn a few words or phrases when abroad, it can go a long way.

It can go slightly awry at times though; when flying, I try to find out the nationality of the cabin crew, usually by listening to them talk to each other or they sometimes have a little national flag pin on their uniform. On one long haul Emirates flight I practiced my pidgeon Spanish  on a steward, ordering drinks and thanking him. He kept me well supplied and was very attentive, when I was leaving the plane, I said goodbye in Spanish, he said with a smile, " by the way, I'm Italian" !

On a more successful occasion, I was visiting the Freeman hospital in Newcastle and a Fillipina nurse asked me how I was; I replied " mabuti, kumasta ?" She was ecstatic that someone would answer her in Tagalog, it made her day !

Cheers.