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Is cooking a part of your language study?


SpringBreeze

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Is cooking a part of your language study? For example, if you are studying French, would you purposefully cook a french meal?

I do this sometimes. I'll put on French music, take out French recipes written in French, and prepare an entire meal. Sometimes, I even add a French bread, wine, and dessert. I will then sit at my table and eat the meal listening to some more french music. What about you?

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Yes! I love cooking and same way I collected books from different cuisines around the world, once that I start learning a language I like to read those same recipes in their original language and cook the dishes to see if they taste the same.

Many times a foreign recipe is translated based on a local setting, substituting not just measures (in example metrical system, celsius degrees. etc.) but also products that are not available as local food, but as importations.

Hence try the original recipe in the original language is away challenging and yet rewarding :D

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What a great idea! I had never considered doing this before. Now I'm wondering if there is a Chinese version of my favourite cooking book, "How To Cook Everything". There just may be...

And hey, if I misunderstand, I'll wind up with some really crazy dishes maybe? Heheh.

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Is cooking a part of your language study? For example, if you are studying French, would you purposefully cook a french meal?

I do this sometimes. I'll put on French music, take out French recipes written in French, and prepare an entire meal. Sometimes, I even add a French bread, wine, and dessert. I will then sit at my table and eat the meal listening to some more french music. What about you?

Uhm trying to learn Dutch really hard, and soon I'll be cooking dutch food for my boyfriend, so I guess the answer is yes :)  I'm going to be traveling to the Netherlands soon, and will be eating authentic dutch food... so I guess this while be a very complete and immersing experience.  I'll surely learn a lot dutch while I'm there :)  As for other lanugages... not sure :P  I'd love eating calofornia rolls while watching my favorite animes tho :P

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What a great idea! I had never considered doing this before. Now I'm wondering if there is a Chinese version of my favourite cooking book, "How To Cook Everything". There just may be...

And hey, if I misunderstand, I'll wind up with some really crazy dishes maybe? Heheh.

True! And this shows off that cooking while studying a language can be really fun :D

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I love to cook and am trying to learn Spanish; I haven't tried any Spanish cooking, mainly because I'm really into Italian and Chinese cooking right now.  I do love Spanish and Mexican cuisine though and I'm sure that I will try cooking some of it in the near future.

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I do this sometimes, although, I don't really do it literally to aid in my language learning, just to help immerse me and give some extra motivation or reminder as to why I'm learning the language in the first place. Often, I'd watch Japanese shows while I eat ramen or other Japanese foods, and it definitely enhances both the meal and the show. :D

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I love to cook, so yes, deinitely.  Cooking a meal is a great way to get in touch with a culture.  I've never tried following a recipie in the language I'm trying to learn.  Sounds like a great challenge.

Oddly enough, I learned a great deal of the Spanish that I know while working at a Mexican restaurant.  As a result, food is one of the main topics I can talk about in Spanish (I'm pretty good at speaking it, but I'm by no means fluent).  I also like to order in Spanish when I go to Mexican and Spanish restaurants.  Ordering food is a pretty simple conversation, so it's a great way to keep your language skills sharp without getting in over your head. 

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Maybe not so much a part of the study of the language, but the study of the culture. I suppose maybe it might teach you a word or two, or about slang and terms in the language. Plus, good food is good food!

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WOW!!! I never thought about this! This is such a wonderful idea! I can see myself now cooking up some Japanese recipe that I found online in a steamy kitchen, Fist of the North Star playing on the television, chewing on some interesting Japanese snack I bought online, all the while I'm getting drunk off of sake and orange juice......yeah I can see it now.

For real though, this is an awesome idea. I think I'm going to have to think of some other everyday activities that I can turn into great immersion experiences. I'll let you guys know what I come up with. Thank you so much for the idea!

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Cooking is one of my passion and since I married a different nationality it is part of my study in learning their language that I will also study how to cook their foods. And I am glad that since I migrate here in their country I had learned how to cook some of their Korean dishes and now I had adapted already to the taste of their foods which are all delicious and some spicy foods.

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I've never thought about this as a method in language study but it's pretty great! A lot of the reason people learn new languages is because they want immerse themselves in a new culture.

Looks like I need to pick up a Japanese cookbook!

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That's quite a new concept. I don't even know how to cook at all, so I don't think that it's possible for me to try out this one. But it's interesting idea though, it also aids you in getting more immersed to the culture of the language that you're learning.

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Food vocabulary is about the extent I've learned. In Spanish class we were taught a lot about the culture, which included day to day cuisine as well as holiday foods. But never anything specifically geared towards cooking.

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  • 3 years later...

I think, while you would need to know the names of their basic foods that they eat on a regular basis, I don't think learning how to cook their foods is all that important when learning the language. Cooking is more cultural than language.

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