Learning languages of immigrants around you

General discussion about learning languages
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chove
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby chove » Tue Oct 30, 2018 8:19 pm

Not sure if it's what you mean but I recently realised I'd rather know "community languages" than "foreign languages" as such. I hear a lot of Polish around here (Scotland) and I think I've overheard Spanish once since I started learning it. I'd like to be able to communicate with people, especially if they themselves have problems with English, to make things a bit easier for them. I'm probably never going to travel much, either.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby Decidida » Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:12 am

I always find discussions interesting about native speaker reactions to language learners.

I can only speak from my experiences, but some, if not many, native speakers are annoyed with the majority of language learners rather than impressed. Native speakers seldom want to provide free tutoring, or have to engage in less efficient interaction.

A severely marginalized population that speaks a rare language is often more impressed with language learners, not just because it is rare and they are surprised, but ... the heart and purpose of the language learner is often very different than the gym rat that expects another client to stay later at the gym and help him with his homework before leaving.

When we learn the words and phrases the immigrants struggle with, and switch to their language for their benefit, it is different than serving our own purposes. Knowing the names of less common fruits and switching to the immigrant language to list the fruits in the bottle of juice. Certain words sound almost identical in the dominant language, and using the words in the immigrant language to clarify.

Our heart is evident.

Also people will help us more after we have shown ourselves worthy in their eyes. There are people that take time with me and even push me, because they think me knowing their language will further their own goals in life for themselves and others that they care about. As I progress through both my main studies and my language studies, people believe that I am actually going to graduate capable of doing something.

And as I said in a previous post, switching into a person's language when they are overwhelmed and making it easier for them to speak and listen.

I'm so frustrated at times with my progress. But the days that I am most frustrated are those that push me to try harder instead of giving up. Damn it is hard to look into eyes that tears are threatening to spill or are spilling and not be able to speak what I want in the person's language. Sometimes all you can do at that point is place your hands on each others hearts and just be there, without words.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby Decidida » Thu Nov 01, 2018 10:17 pm

Every language has its little tricky issues. In Creole, the third person pronouns are all the same: "li". He, she, and it are all "li".

A friend used "he" today instead of "it". It changed the whole context of the question. My answer was ... , let us just say it was honest. LOL. I though he asked something, and I just shrugged and truthfully responded.

As we tried to figure out where the conversation went SOOOO wrong, I quickly figured out he had meant "it" and not "he". Yes, he is so far ahead of me in the local dominant language and I am unlikely to ever reach an equal level in his immigrant language, but my awareness of his language helps.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby fcoulter » Fri Nov 02, 2018 12:35 pm

I live in Florida. Like most of the United States, the second most spoken language in Florida is Spanish. The exceptions are interesting, with Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Vermont reporting a different second most spoken language. But the vast majority of second language speakers in the United States speak Spanish. As such, Spanish is the next language I plan to learn. (This is subject to change, depending on vacation plans, etc.) This is probably a justification almost all Americans have for learning Spanish. Additionally, a lot of good retirement countries speak Spanish, which is a great secondary justification for me.

(You may not be able to tell, but the links are to JPGs on my OneDrive account. Trust me....)

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap-BinL3eT0Ag-FDxKqO2trMYoLHcA

What's more interesting is what happens to the list if you exclude both English and Spanish. There's a lot more variety out there. For Florida, French Creole shows up next. I'm not sure if they mean a bunch of Cajuns moved down here because our gators are bigger, or if they mean Haitians moving over. So if I had to make a choice, I'm going to assume Haitian Creole. So that will be the language I learn after Spanish (assuming no life or vacation plans get in the way).

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ap-BinL3eT0Ag-FE8lYa-zzoqUF9yQ

These images, as well as some other maps of language distribution in the United States, comes from an article in Slate Magazine.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby jonathanrace » Fri Nov 02, 2018 12:56 pm

My GF is Vietnamese and living with Vietnamese housemates. Because of this I'm exposed to the language quite a bit atm. I've not really tried to learn anything (beyond thank you and hello) but I do find myself wanting to imitate the noises and sentence flow. I joked that I'm learning the language the natural way like a baby, just copying random noises here and there and slowly attaching them to meaning :)
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby SGP » Sat Nov 03, 2018 10:35 am

Xenops wrote:Of course I’ve been tempted by any language I’ve come across: I just have to limit my number at some point.


Any idea on how to prioritize (i.e. what languages to learn or to take a closer look at, and what languages to ommit)?
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby Xenops » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:56 am

SGP wrote:
Xenops wrote:Of course I’ve been tempted by any language I’ve come across: I just have to limit my number at some point.


Any idea on how to prioritize (i.e. what languages to learn or to take a closer look at, and what languages to ommit)?


I confess that this is a difficult question, and it depends on the individual. Shoot, I'm still trying to figure out how to limit my wanderlust. ;) This might be worthy of a new thread.

Since I just got a full-time job again, being busy again is acting as a natural limiter on my ambitions. After much prayer and contemplation, I concluded that while Spanish and French are "easy" languages, I don't have the drive at this point to continue with them. I also don't need them, especially if my goal is to move to Japan in the future. Japanese, in contrast, gets higher priority in default: it's a language I will need, and I have the interest to continue the language. I don't know what will happen with Scottish Gaelic: I certainly don't need it, but being a heritage language, and my decades-long desire to learn a Gaelic language, still has me consider it.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby Decidida » Sun Nov 04, 2018 12:55 pm

fcoulter, thanks for the maps!

It is important to look at individual cities, too, to see what language is 3rd after English and Spanish. It is amazing how commonly Haitian Creole is spoken, and how few resources are available to study it. It is seldom offered by 50 language providers, and often is only available by 100 language providers. The Earthquake resulted in Haitian Creole being offered by a few more language instruction providers, but still instruction in the language lags way behind the number of people that speak it.

Because people are so quick to study Spanish, it makes sense to take a long hard look at the next most commonly spoken language. If you are in a city, or a very rural area, that next language might not match the state's next most common language.

I found this searchable database that lists the universities that teach less commonly taught languages.
http://carla.umn.edu/lctl/db/index.php
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby fcoulter » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:09 pm

Decidida wrote:I found this searchable database that lists the universities that teach less commonly taught languages.
http://carla.umn.edu/lctl/db/index.php


My wife is a college professor, so we occasionally talk about things that universities could do better. One of those areas is in languages.

The university that my wife teaches at offers courses in French, German, Spanish, and Russian. In other words (other than Russian), the same courses as every other university. I've wondered why universities don't form language consortium. Find and develop the resources to offer one of the lessor known languages. Then, using modern communication technologies, offer the class at multiple universities. You may only be able to get five students for Lithuanian at your local university, hardly enough to support an actual class in Lithuanian. But with webinar technologies, you could offer the same class live at twenty or thirty universities. And with that broad a reach, you could very well end up with enough students to justify the course, or even a minor or major.
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Re: Learning languages of immigrants around you

Postby fcoulter » Thu Nov 08, 2018 1:28 pm

fcoulter wrote:The university that my wife teaches at offers courses in French, German, Spanish, and Russian. In other words (other than Russian), the same courses as every other university. I've wondered why universities don't form language consortium. Find and develop the resources to offer one of the lessor known languages. Then, using modern communication technologies, offer the class at multiple universities. You may only be able to get five students for Lithuanian at your local university, hardly enough to support an actual class in Lithuanian. But with webinar technologies, you could offer the same class live at twenty or thirty universities. And with that broad a reach, you could very well end up with enough students to justify the course, or even a minor or major.


Just a quick update. I talked to one of the Poltical Science professors who works with the Russian Studies Department at Stetson. We're already doing this to a minor extent. By teleconference, we're letting Embry Riddle students take Russian, while they're doing the same thing for Stetson students for Arabic. (Embry Riddle is primarily an aeronautical university about twenty miles from Stetson. While narrow in focus, it is very strong in the areas it offers.) I suggested that the Russian Studies Department should look at increasing their offerings to other universities that don't offer Russian. Among other things, it would mean that the Russian Studies Department would be bringing in additional revenue to the university, which might keep it off the chopping block.
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