Re: Learning languages

On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 12:13:23PM -0800, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> It's kind of a challenge to learn several languages in
> the same time, or nearly. To be more precise, it's
> VERY hard to have to manage in a foreign language for
> some, say, weeks, or months, and then suddenly to have
> to speak another foreign language. It looks like the
> brain decides that it should either think in the
> native language, either in "the" foreign one, so if
> you tell him (it?) that "the" foreign language is no
> more the same, it feels quite disconcerted.
I have the same experience with Malay (Bahasa Malaysia). Although it was
supposed to be the "official" language when I was in school back in the
Far East, I guess I never really learned it except as a "foreign" tongue.
After a few years here in Canada, I met some Korean friends and picked up
some Korean words from them. In the meantime, my Malay had rusted away
through disuse. When I went back to Malaysia recently for a visit, every
time I groped for a Malay word the Korean word would come to mind first. I
had to really watch my tongue so that I wouldn't blurt out a Korean word
when speaking Malay. :-)

[snip]
> Something else also happens sometimes: when you are in
> a foreign country, you sometimes read a book (before
> sleeping, for ex) that is, neither in your native
> language, neither in the country's language. If the
> book is a good one, the next day you think about
> sentences you read (or deciphered), and you think them
> in yet another language, and you have to make a
> considerable effort to determine what was the original
> language in which you read it, and retranslate it.
[snip]

Reminds me of the time I was learning Attic Greek... everytime I wanted
to say a Korean word, a Greek word came out instead (in Erasmic
pronunciation, no less!). Very embarrassing.

What's even more scary, though, was that my Greek eventually became rusty
through disuse (since I didn't really follow up on it after taking the
course), and recently when I was telling my dad about the neat features in
Greek, every time there was a hole in my Greek vocabulary, my brain
supplied the Ebisédian word instead. Truly scary. :-)

(P.S. Yes, Ebisédian is much more influenced by Greek than might appear on
the surface.)


T

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