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I don't see why it is much terrifying and why we should try and strive to keep our native language? If our native language is no longer, just let it go, and if you ever need it again, you will get it again, more quickly than if it were not your native language, that's all. Don't feel afraid and fixed. As long as you can communicate everyday with the people you want to talk with, the rest doesn't matter.

I disagree completely with you! But of course, that's not to say you're wrong to hold the stance that you do. I just think that a lot of people, including myself take pride in their heritage, including their language because it's part of who they are. I would like to pass my language onto my kids one day, to keep my language and culture alive, because I don't think many people want their language to one day become extinct. Plus nowadays, language skills really count for something across the globe. Prospective employers are very impressed to hear that you're multi lingual.  Spanish is one of the biggest and widely spoken languages across the globe. Language skills often open very unique and well paying opportunities. Quite why anyone would want to forget how to speak it, while most people are now paying to learn it, boggles my mind! But that's just me.

In all honesty @Trellum, chances of you forgetting your language are nil. I don't mean to pry, but I take it you're past your pre-teen age? If you are, believe me, your language is well embedded in your brain, and even if you don't speak it with fellow Spanish people in Holland, It's very highly unlikely to disappear. Equally, it's not possible that at the age you are, your proficiency in a language that you learn now as an adult is ever going to supersede your Spanish. It's a bit like riding the bicycle; it doesn't matter how long you don't ride, the minute you get back in that saddle, you know exactly what to do!

I must say I don't agree with you. You can easily forget something if you don't practice it for years. Sure, you will recovery, and when you will get back into the country with your old native language, yes, it is probable you will fully remember all the words you need over few weeks or months. But even somethings you may practice everyday may become suddenly forgotten and you can become middle-to-not-so-good level even if you was really good at it. It depends after all of how much time you won't hear the language in question.

Me, I think about 10-to-20 years cuts, I'm not thinking about bare 2 or 3 years. Sure, if it's only that, you're safe. But you forget also the trends and the new words that come in because of technology, that you would miss after a disconnection to your mother tongue.

We're talking about popular idioms? Here's a good one. "Tu me saoules !", basically meaning "You get me annoyed" (I am not sure it is correct English, but idioms is idioms!), and have probably nothing related to the fact of being drunk, is something you will hear often in French language when you are annoying in someone's else eyes. Yes, it's not something you would like to hear, but often, the idioms you need the hardest to understand...is the negative ones. Just so you don't look like someone lost because some throw words at you in their native languages (feels a bit easy, no?).

That's why I post about it. Please comment about the quality of the translation in your opinion (I think I'm correct, just not perfect) and about other idioms that feels negative in French and you would like to know more about.

Sometimes I feel like myself I'm repeating the same words, but maybe I'm not. Every language is specific, meanwhile they share things as well. For example, the English language is used as a communication language between many countries and the main reason of learning it would be probably either that, or because you would go for UK, US, Canada, or any other English-speaking country (there's a lot, think about it).

Now, for French, it's less straightforward, there's only ~70 million of French speakers worldwide. So, what would be the purpose of learning French? Why are you doing that? Hobby? Real purpose for your future?

I got used to it in English,  but it was weird at first the the adjectives didn't have an ending based on the gender of the thing being described. I kinda liked that actually. Now with Dutch I've noticed they often use  ''hij'' to refer to something like a car, when in English we often use ''she'' for example to refer to a car or any other inanimate object''   It's odd.  You get used to this kind of things eventually

Honestly, I don't usually saw anytime in English, or rather heard, "she" for talking about cars. I heard about "it", a lot of "it", but "she", maybe for tuning (too much) enthusiasts, but no more. That's why I'm surprised to hear that: can you explain a bit more where you heard that, in what context?

I'm not sure we are all "on the same page" in terms of what we're referring to.

I agree a point of interest when comparing different language is the emphasis they put on gender. For example, Spanish has specific endings when the subject is male and female. English is quite simple in just using pronouns. And then, some languages, like Chinese, it's rather ambiguous, especially when spoken.

I think having a language structure that allows for more information is not a bad thing, it might be more confusing for learners but overcoming this difficulty, I think, they will appreciate it more.

And in reply to the "one question," certainly you can simply ask to clarify anything. But if the information was there to begin with, it expedites the exchange.

The thing is, this "one question" fallback is, a fallback. Meaning that it is not the first solution you should use, but it is the solution you would use if you need clarifications. Often, the context gives enough information about the gender of the person (the name may gives that information, or when the person will use he/she, and you catch it). That's why I find it questionable, because my philosophy is more and more what's useless should be thrown away.

One thing important is as well to know the differences with languages and if they are worth or just make it more complicated. After all, a good language is a language having more of the easiest principles to follow and meanwhile stay nice to hear, write, and so on. And that's what happens there: is getting gender-based sentences important?

I mean, does it gives much information to have information about the gender? In English, for example, do you often miss the gender information? Do you find it missing and you would need it to understand better the sentence? Myself, I'm not often in situation where I hardly need that, because only one question helps to understand the sentence after all, while it removes all the hassle.

It is often told that French has a more various vocabulary than English. Can't talk about other languages because I don't know much what people thinks of the vocabulary compared to French, but what I can tell is that the vocabulary influences how you will learn the language and its complexity. Because, a rich vocabulary, it's basically means two things:

Many words who shares the same meanings (synonyms)

Some words have a more precise meaning that what you would use in English, where you would rather use multiple words to convey the meaning.

Doesn't matter the reason, it is harder to deal with a richer vocabulary. First thing: do you really think it is an benefit? For the learner, for the language, and for how it affects the learning?

The second thing: do we have really a more rich vocabulary than English? Compare two books, one in English, one in French, do you find many differences?

On 27.9.2015 at 2:11 AM, humanoid said:

In theory, it sounds like an interesting idea. there are a few pitfalls though. Firstly, this technique is of little use to someone who doesn't have a very good grasp of that particular language.

Secondly, different languages have a different syntax. As an example, I might say "Florence's dress is green". Translate that into French then translate that back into English and you'll get "The dress of Florence is green". Whilst that is a perfectly good literal translation, it does not follow the rules of the English language and is not something we would naturally say.

Reverse Translation

I think your post exactly shows the reverse, and I think the same: it is more helpful for beginners than for someone experienced, even if it is still useful. And to be honest, I think you didn't got exactly the reverse way.

Basically, for example, your target language is Spanish. So, you first think of your sentence in your native language, in English. Then, you write your translation humanly in Spanish, and then you do automatic translation from Spanish to English. In general, the translator will only do weird sentences when either your structure is too much complex (and then, why would you need reverse translation?) or you are doing something wrong. However, you have to check yourself with your Spanish knowledge what's going wrong.

For me, I think my biggest weakness at the moment is more with my learning process than the language itself. I have been going at this for so little time that I can't really evaluate my own progress effectively yet, but I do know that I have had several false starts with learning Polish. I need to make sure that I can actually commit and get past this initial hump of starting to learn. At the moment it feels like there's so much to do, and I have no idea where to start, so it's very hard to keep going. I just need to have the determination to get going, and I know it will start to get easier. Especially as I know that when I get to a good enough level, I will be able to start having conversations with my dad in Polish, and that'll help a lot. But until then, it's a big challenge just to get going.

As I often say, to avoid the false starts you talk about (and I think I know them as well, even if it's not about language), the success is to tie it with something  or someone you like. If you start to try to be in forum speaking in Polish, or in communities speaking that languages, or finding resources, movies, texts or so on you think you might like in that language, then it will work because it would be less harder to direct yourself to something you like rather than to something you just dislike because learning a language is complicated and looks like a work sometimes.

Learning Nihongo/Japanese is difficult when it comes to the listening portion.  The biggest weakness that I have is being able to comprehend verbally what is being said.  Sometimes I have a tendency to get lost in the spoken language.  Though I don't have a problem with the grammar aspect, I find it really difficult to grasp the language when I am on the receiving end.  In fact, during my midterm and final examinations, my knowledge of grammar is quite acceptable, but my listening skills are not yet attuned.

I see, well, about the listening problems, it is not the rarest issue I heard of, and I guess what helps is the experience of listening: seeing often subtitles, trying to know exactly what the person is trying to say, I mean each word should be available in your head, even the smallest one, because it's not because a word is small in its length that it is not important for the sentence's understanding. But if you are at the stage you understand people speaking slowing, you're rather at the end than at the beginning of the process.

I can't say I've really had this issue with native speakers. The only problems I really encounter is when I ask someone a question on French or German and they reply to me in English! I know people are just trying to be helpful but I want to practise my languages whenever I can. Maybe they just want the chance to speak some English themselves, who knows?

I guess more they are doing the wrong thing but they intend to do right. I think in their mind, English is the main world communication language and maybe they don't know how to say this sentence either in French or German. After all, when you don't know any of these languages, how could you answer?

That's horrible, and is likely to put some people off continuing with their learning! Luckily for me, I've never had it happen to me. I'm not even sure what I'd do if it did happen, I'd probably be so appalled I would just walk away. Not everyone will be like that, though.

I think it is a main problem for any new learner, especially at the school. I already heard about stories where people felt shy for learning language on school because their pronunciation wasn't correct and others found out that absurd.

That's really very rude of them to mock you when you're just trying to know more about their language. I guess there's really no magic recipe to handling those kinds of people/situations. Well, I think you have just got to find a decent person whom you can really trust with your learning, or probably you may just want to do your own research.

The thing is, it may be a cultural problem, as @CorieHens brought it up. And when it is a cultural problem to not know the main language of a country, it's where it's hardest. It is not that much when you know many will be cooperative, but when you don't find one, you feel out of luck, even if there's some ready to cooperate out there.

And here we go, another rule about the French language. Carry on, it may be hard to understand, given languages has different characteristics. Once again, explaining what it is before I explain how to remember what to use is important, because I personally hate to use something I don't understand myself.

So, "ou" & "où". An example of sentence: "Tu préfères de la salade ou des frites ?", or in English "Do you prefer salade or fries?". "ou" means basically "or" in English, used between two choices or more.

Meanwhile, "Tu es où ?" means "Where are you?", and "C'est ici où je me sens bien" means "It's here where I feel good". You would have guessed yourself, "où" means rather "where", but it can be used once again for locations. I think it is used also for time, but can't find examples so far. Help is welcome!

One thing you might find confusing in French is where to put "a" and where to put "à". But before focusing on where and how to remember where should we put them, we should rather take a look first on what it means. After all, that's better to know what you write.

So, this "a" is often placed like "Il a un ordinateur", meaning "He has a computer". "a" basically means "have", and not "one" or "unity" of something. But that's not the same meaning for "à".

When it comes to "à", you may see it rather in a sentence like "Je vais à la plage", meaning "I go to the beach". "à", rather means "to" or "at", and can be used for the time (for example, "Je viens à 11 heures", "I come at 11:00") or for location.

One way to remember what you should use: inside your sentence, can you replace "a" with "avoir" (roughly "have" in English)? If yes, use "a", otherwise use "à". It works. You can't have 11 hours. You come at 11 hours.

This has yet happen to me, and I use English on a daily basis.  But then again, I live in a Spanish speaking country right now, I hear Spanish everyday!  So maybe this is why my English is on par with my Spanish.  I am a bit afraid that when I move abroad I will start  forgetting Spanish more and more D:

If you hear Spanish (which is your native language) everyday, obviously, you are in a good shape for keeping your native language around, because as long as you need it I guess you will keep it around. You may miss the newest expressions if you fail to communicate enough with people, but that wouldn't go further, as long as you maintain everyday communication in your native language. However, I don't specifically recommend keeping the native language.

I am dealing with this right now. The thought of being unable to speak in your native language is rather terrifying - it's the language I grew up on and I thought I would always be perfect at it, but that's not the case. Whenever I meet other people from my country and they talk to me, I would ask them if they could talk in English instead. This usually results in my being outcasted from groups, as the reason why they reach out to other people from their country (especially in foreign countries) is so they could communicate with ease.

In my case, it's even worse because I am in no way adept in English - sure, I get the basics and all, but I still struggle sometimes, especially with the grammar. This, however, means that there is no language I'm completely fluent on, and that is another terrifying thought.

My only suggestion would be to try to communicate in your native language at least an hour a day. Find local forums, and post there. It doesn't seem like much, but it helps you maintain your fluency in the language - or get better at it, if yours have deteriorated really badly.

I don't see why it is much terrifying and why we should try and strive to keep our native language? If our native language is no longer, just let it go, and if you ever need it again, you will get it again, more quickly than if it were not your native language, that's all. Don't feel afraid and fixed. As long as you can communicate everyday with the people you want to talk with, the rest doesn't matter.

Une discussion moins simple que la dernière fois, pour la rendre plus intéressante, enfin j'espère. L'âge d'une personne permet de savoir des choses sur une personnes, et de pouvoir s'imaginer la vie de cette personne. Bizarrement, on a besoin de s'imaginer la vie d'une personne pendant qu'on lui parle. C'est peut-être pour se sentir proche d'elle.

Seulement, ça peut aussi être un problème. Des fois, on a des préjugés stupide et une fois qu'une personne vit ces préjugés, c'est nul, parce que c'est désagréable de communiquer avec des gens qui se trompent sur vous, qui pensent du mal de vous, parfois. C'est dommage. C'est pour ça que je vous demande votre avis sur ce sujet.

I think more the language is rare inside your country, more they are concentrated into big cities because they feature more people with the same language inside a same place, even if they are not much in %. The absolute numbers matters more here. But then.

If you really need to find one nearby yourself, I would rather advice you to look out for events or to online communities like this one where people speaks your target languages, even if some focused only on one language works as well. Sometimes you will discover these hidden language town, because they can't be popular even if someone is behind that.

It would be clearly a big move. I already see some people here being against it, but let's talk about that idea: what about trying to make everyone speak a main language for the whole world, instead of trying to speak the main language of rather your country, limiting yourself to talking only to the people of that country?

I mean, in some countries really aware of their population, they are honest with themselves: they are not enough, so they proactively make children learning English additionally of their main country language. They already know that outside of the border their language won't help and if they don't want to be a closed market, they have to do that.

But it seems other countries with more population are rather against that thought. Also, I am more advocating for forgetting or putting on the background the learning of the main country language, in favor of a main language for the whole world.

What do you think of that?

I could not follow what you mean by expressions. Are these the idiomatic expressions or the expressions of feelings and expletives?

It would be better to observe how these expressions are being used in real life situations. Sometimes, grammar books are giving us more than we can chew and for all we know they are not even practical to use and make us sound so foreign and odd.

I mean more idiomatic expressions, where a string of words means something, meanwhile the words itself does not mean anything. Example in French: "On ne mets pas la charue avant les boeufs". Itself, you may think they talk about veal and beef, but in reality it just tells that you should do the things in order, and not out of order. And this is certainly not the less understandable example for a translation standpoint.

But getting expressions of feelings is another interesting topic we should probably talk about soon!

When I said "formal", I meant there were no idiomatic expressions, colloquialisms or slang words taught at school. Nothing to do with the actual rules of the language.

I don't much agree with you. If you focus on media, it will look correct, but in the real-usage French, you would see idiomatic expressions as well, people not obeying to rules at all and doing shortcuts that even native speakers of another "county-equivalent" can't understand.

How could they be similar?  English is a Germanic language and french is a romance one, they belong to two very different language families, so the only similarities one could ever find is similar words with similar spellings to English, but that's it.  To me the closest language to french is Spanish and Portuguese.  My only advice for you is to be careful with the false friends you will surely encounter, if you do that you will be fine, always check a word when in doubt!

Well, they can be similar despite of that, because they still share some words, even if French & English is not "similar", they are not fully apart as you say, despite its german origins. Sure, for some words, you see some link between German words and English words, but you can see also few French or Latin words inside the English language. So I know it is the official classification right now, but when you compare to language like Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, English feels rather similar to French and other languages. Just it is not the closest, really.

I mean, try to compare German with French, you will find English more close to French than German is.

Doing so might break the association of words with the right sound, or emphasize it, it depends. I guess it would be more disturbing than helping for you, because the main benefit of this way to learn is to be almost worry-free: you just passively learn as you watch, smoothly. If you start to do much efforts, your entertainment will start to be an effort and will no longer entertain you, pushing you to other activities or to watch it rather dubbed in your native language. So don't overthink it.

I would still continue to have the subtitles on, not because you shouldn't disable the subtitles after awhile, but because 60% is not enough to be entertained. You will miss probably half of  the jokes and half of the story (or, well, 40% of the story), which is pretty huge.

Okay, right now, with only the title, you don't really understand what I try to mean. But you will quickly get it, don't worry.

Language towns are more cultural towns than really focused to a language, even if they feature both. For example, there is often a Chinatown in metropolitan cities and bigger, and I think here people talks Chinese as well. I guess it exists for few other languages.

Given what counts for language learning is immersion as well, these towns are the typical and more representative example I can find without paying an airline ticket and going to a country speaking your target language. What do you think of this idea? Does it work? Do you try to get immersed to make your learning more efficient?

When you are using translation tools online, you might easily use it and think of doing conversations using this tool, as long as it is written and online, since often, translation tools are a free service for personal use and it works in real time, letting you know more and more the language because of the little help of the translation.

But now, what about the life not online, but in real life, when you have need of translation and you are outside. How translation can be used outside, in public environments like streets, or restaurants where you are in community? What tools can you use and did you already tried to use tools in these circumstances?

English and French is not similar, because English is a more "apart" language than French is from Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian. If I recall correctly, all the four languages features a difference because of the gender, but English does not really. English is also simpler than French or even West European languages in general. But they share the latin roots, generally.

French is considered a Class I language in America.  Basically, it's really easy to learn if English is your native language.  In my experience, I was reading [read: wading through thick mud] a full-length French novel within five months, and that was even with a ton of other languages on my plate.  If French is the only language or one of a few languages, with dedicated studying, I don't see why you couldn't have the same results (but I'm not you; you know your abilities better than I).

As far as similarities, English borrows [read: forcibly removes at knifepoint] a lot of words from Latin, which is the root of French, Italian, Spanish, etc.  Starting out, you will see a lot of familiar-looking words which is good for building an initial vocabulary fairly quickly.  But, as with most languages foreign to English, there are the unique agreements between nouns and adjectives, subjects and verbs, masculine and feminine, that English just doesn't have.  It's a fact of life and the sooner you accept it as just part of the language (and most non-English languages), the better it will be.

As with any language, you only get out what you put in.  Basically, how bad do you want it?

You get the metric wrong about the time needed. You said you succeeded on five months with other languages on your plate, but studies clearly states that the more language you learn, the more you get used and approach better the hassle of language learning, and the less time you will need. So even if having multiple languages means divide your time for each language, it will also speed you up.

It depends on where you go. Canadian French still uses some English words (Likely with the exception of Quebec). However, Paris and non-English speaking francophone countries are unlikely to use the English sounding words; as these were developed usually as ways for a settler to become more communicative in more primarily English speaking places like the US. At least, that's the theory. Either way, if you went to somewhere like Paris, France or somewhere like New Orleans, Louisiana then you'd get two very different versions of the same language.

Depends what you qualify as "English sounding". You may hear few English words here and there every day. That's about the frequency of English words you can hear, and they are mainly linked to technology, because French equivalent looks absurd, and often, in innovation, you borrow the word from the innovating country and for Internet, the innovating country is United States, with its English - US language.

I can't find wronger affirmation than that. You don't especially need to live in a country where the native language is your target language, yes, but you need to go deep and try to immerse yourself into that native language for succeeded to learn it appropriately. Sure you can succeed to get some reference without it, but if you really target to be in the end, proficient in that language, immersion is more than needed.

So passive learning might work in the way it does not especially involve a lot of exercises, but you need a purpose and you need to have a lot of that language, in order to integrate all its varieties in your mind.

It is a good start. Watching every TV shows with subtitles would be better to not be only in one style of vocabulary, because you don't use the same words in a talk show rather than in a TV serie, itself not the same than a TV game show. Also, it is a method tested by many countries with a not strong enough language, basically governments knows that without knowing other languages enough, they will stay isolated in a creepy way for their economy, so they broadcast content with subtitles.

However, it will help you more for pronunciation and vocabulary than initial learning of English. Having some bases can help. But you can still give it a try.

No, I won't ask you to build a newspaper right now. Rather, newspapers are one of the middle-to-complex writings you will find. The most complex are the French literature which features many complex words even some native speakers doesn't know exactly the meaning without looking to a dictionary. Depends of the literature, obviously.

However, the newspaper style of writing and vocabulary is going to be much used if you have to meet other persons than native speakers. Anyone speaking you to a formal but modern way will probably have a style close to the newspaper style. Meanwhile, because it features a somehow broad vocabulary, it is not easy to get it.

How is your understanding of French newspaper right now? Do you have questions about the most recurring words that makes you problem?