Keeping more than one language alive and well

Perhaps, try it when you are feeling most relaxed and confident. If you are tired and/or stressed even speaking in one’s first language can be an uphill climb. I’m sure you are going interfere successfully with the interference!!

Justin

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Quick update on my mixing: If I found myself mixing German and Welsh yesterday when speaking with Brigitte I found myself today, doing German Course on Duolingo, in another temptation of mixing the languages. Instead of translating German words and sentences into English (as it is required) I translated them into Slovene. This went for about 2 or 3 sentences before I realized why the translations are all wrong. So, my mixing of languages goes kind of strange ways …

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I feel a bit guilty about starting the whole topic and then not contributing to the conversation, but I was a bit ill and found it hard to write something meaningful.
The biggest part of my problem with my languages, I think, is that the higher the level the harder the become to maintain and to improve. When you’re a beginner, you feel some considerable improvement after just one lesson or after reading a text - you never run out of words to learn and every new tense broadens your horizons incredibly. This is why I like teaching beginners and this is why it is so delightful to start learning a language. However, when you’re B2-C1 level (upper-intermediate-advanced, for those who are blissfully unacquainted with the CEFR bands), any improvement requires much, much more effort. I spent two hours today on English phonetics. Two hours, yes. If you add at least half an hour on grammar every day and about an hour on vocabulary activities, that’s 3,5. And I have Welsh and Italian to think about, too. This is the reason why I’m always trying to find some new ways to organize all this language learning.

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And the result is we understand you beautifully whereas I strain to understand a word that Cheryl Cole says . :innocent: …(Cheryl Fernandez Versini)

Justin

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I think that the result will be a terrible mixture of RP with Russian sounds, but we’ll see.

Stella, don’t worry so much about your accent. You speak English with a beautiful cadence and it comes through in your Welsh too. And most importantly of all, you are incredibly easy to understand. Speaking English like a ‘native’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While you’re so busy trying to minimise your Russian accent, there are so many native speakers out there learning how to acquire a foreign one! :smile:

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Beautifully said - and so true,

Justin

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I spent 25 hours on Russian phonetics today - yes twenty five hours!!

Justin

Thank you, you’re very kind. I myself love accents: Northern British accents sound lovelier than RP to me. But English language teaching is a world of very tough competition. A heavy accent is a disadvantage.

I wasn’t boasting, but just trying to explain how much effort it takes to maintain a language once you reach B2-C1. But I hope that people around are more intelligent than me and have invented ways to manage several languages without giving up on any of them.

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Stella - it was a joke at my own expense. And your linguistic accomplishments make my head spin. If I could achieve as much I would be very happy.
A huge number of English people find that “foreign” accents are very engaging, particularly when people are as articulate as yourself.

Good luck with your vocational goals - I’m sure that market is very competitive indeed. May you rise above the field;

Justin

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Sorry, I misunderstood you. Thank you:) If I figure out any good time-management tips, I will share, right now it’s either my English or my Italian that is suffering!

There was mention in a thread on what is fun about learning Welsh, from @seren about sending in her visa application yn Gymraeg. This led to a short exchange on languages. Is Gaelic allowed? If not why not? I think @JustinandEirwen were involved, possibly rooting for Cornish!
Now dwi’n byw yn Yr Alban. Road signs are getting around to being bilingual, at least in terms of places, but you don’t get the equivalent of “ARAF SLOW”
The proceedings of the Scottish Parliament are in English, there is no translation that I’ve ever seen for Gaelic (pronounced, here as ‘Gallic’, sorry, that would be English spelling, I should put, ‘Galic’!)
There seems more move towards the preservation of Scots!! I’m not sure if that’s what they call Doric?
I know in Aberdeen I heard something I could not understand at all being used by locals! My friend from Dundee seems to use words not common this side of Scotland!!
I can sort of see why it’s OK for kids to be taught in Gaelic, but it isn’t as ‘official’ as Welsh is in UK!!
p.s. To @seren Which English ‘th’ is hard for Belorussian’s? The one we write ‘dd’ or the one we write ‘th’? Just curious!!

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Both! We have no interdental sounds at all, in Russian or Belarusian. So you have to teach the students everything about how to pronounce these sounds, otherwise they pronounce them as “s” or “z”.
It’s also very hard for Slavic people to pronounce the vowels correctly, since in our languages the length of the vowel is not important - a sheep and a ship would sound exactly the same. I still make these pronunciation mistakes, after more than 20 years of learning English, so I frequently talk about sheep sailing the sea.

As to the Scottish Gaelic, I heard some years ago that the book-publishing in Gaelic is thriving and there are lots of books in the language for any taste. I hope it is actually so:)

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That is very, very common from most parts of Europe & lots of South America! Everyone understand it and realises why!! Although I do find your sailing sheep charming!
I hadn’t known about the interdental sounds! We did learn a way of sounding Russian when I did it at Uni, but you don’t notice what you don’t say!! I’ve forgotten now all the shch or tch…consonants in Russian not known in English! Last time I translated a paper must have been about 30+ years ago!
p.s. a lot of children learn in Gaelic in school, especially in the Western Isles, but also in Glasgow and possibly Edinburgh, so I’d expect publishing to flourish.
Also there is a National Mod and some local ones, although the one for Argyll seems to have died.

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:sunny: Thank you. All non-native speakers feel a bit self-conscious about their accent, me not excluded.

“Shch” and “tch” (щ and ш) are actually rather hard for all of my students who are learning Russian, together with the phonetic mutations of the final consonants (cod is pronounced as cot in Russian) and with our “broad” and “narrow” consonants! Maybe an Irish Gaelic speaker would find this easy, since they have something similar, but I don’t know any Irish Gaelic speakers willing to be taught Russian by me, so I’m not sure!

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To be honest, I’ve always been very lucky, having a mobile tongue and an ear for nuances. I’m not saying there is nothing I can’t say, just that usually I can. So I get obsessive…“What is the right way?”
I may have mentioned elsewhere a Sikh ‘d’ which friend told me was a slightly trilled sound. I tried it. After the second time, he said “You’ve got it!”. “No I haven’t!” I assured him. “I can still hear the difference! Say it again!” Next time I tried I did get it!

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Oh, that is a fantastic gift to have:) I have exactly the opposite! You must be rather musical too?

A friend of mine has found a pretty good trick I think.
He speaks fluent Spanish and French. He assigned different tasks or areas of life to every language. According to his personal associations with the respective language.
At first it sounded strange to me, but it really started to work out for me!!!

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  • one of the advantages being that if you lose all your teeth in a rough game of Ice Hockey you can still be understood :smiling_imp:

Justin

PLEASE, PLEASE - tell me the secret :wink:

Justin