At 08:47 31/03/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Orjan Johansen wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 28 Mar 1999, Tom Wier wrote:
>>
>> > Orjan Johansen wrote:
>> >
>> > > Who's pretending? It happens frighteningly often that I can only
remember
>> > > the English word for something but not the Norwegian one. Although I
>> > > think the opposite still happens more commonly. Of course it depends
>> > > heavily on the subject matter.
>> >
>> > Wow -- it's that bad? What percentage of the Norwegian population
>> > can speak English fluently? I think I can perhaps grasp why so many
>> > Scandinavians and Hollanders worry about the future of their=
language...
>>
>> Oh, don't worry, it's just me spending far too much time on the Internet.
>
>I can see a point here... I've found myself reading bits in Englsih or
Swedish,
>understanding enough of those bits but being unable to translate them into
>Spanish... sometimes because there is not direct translation (the domain
of the
>foreign word is not quite the same of any Spanish counterpart) sime times
because
>I don't know the word in Spanish (afterall I read a good amount of
technical stuff
>in English first, not to mention culture specific terms) but many times=
what
>happens is that I have temporally forgotten the Spanish word... even when
it is
>quite a common word.
>
>I'f found myself switching language like changing enviroments in my mind,
when I'm
>into the Englsih enviroment I forget my active Spanish. I remeber taking
English
>courses in Sweden, whith Swedish classmates and Swedish teacher, the
classes where
>supossed to be totally in English but Swedish wasn't forbiden and many=
times
>either the teacher or any of my classmates would ask me in Swedish, I
remember I
>had not truble understanding the question but when I wanted to answer my=
mind
>didn't find the way, because it was switchen into English but after the
question
>where in Swedish my mind was aimed to answer in Swedish and all that became=
a
>mess.
>
>I wonder if anybody has been in this conjuncture before.
>
It happens to me all the time! For example, when I read the posts from
this list :) ! In fact, when I speak with French people, it would be very
difficult for me to translate what I say in English at the same time. On
the other hand, I find it very difficult to translate from English to
French. I just don't find the right words!
Another thing that happened to me some years ago. I used to study German
with a "Teach Yourself German" book. It happened that I met Germans during
my holidays, and we became friends. One evening, a friend of their, a
German girl who could not speak French, came for the week-end. They talked
to her in German, and I realized that I understood nearly everything that
they said, whereas I never had studied oral language (I hadn't bought the
cassettes with the book)! The strangest thing is that I wasn't able to say
even a short sentence in German! I was able to understand it, but not to
speak it. Strange, isn't it?
>>
>>
>> Greetings,
>> =D8rjan, sleepless in Trondheim.
>
>
>
>
>--
>Carlos Th
>
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/9028/
>
>Luh=EDz=F9langk=FBr=EB puh=EDz=F9langy=EFm=EAr=EB
>Luh=EDz=F9langk=FBr=EB puh=E9v=F9lay=EFm=EAyih=EDz=F9
> -- Hangkerim proverb
>
>Vec=FBr=EBrangk=FBr=EB
> -- Hangkerim proverb
>
>