My somewhat asocial tendencies, and immersion in more technical subjects left me stunted in using both english (due to only using it to consume media) and my native tongue (my not being sociable the general factor, and the inability to even name the concepts I am otherwise immersed in (and which I would much prefer to talk about) also contributing (this is sort of necessary: english has two orders of magnitude more speakers that my native language, and if we take class/occupation or what have you, this is even more extreme with e.g scientists. I wouldn’t even dream of finding a textbook on ‘findings in chemistry up until 2015’. I am of the understanding that in the Arab world, for example, they tend to co-opt french as a language for studying sciences, but in my country, language became entangled with national identity, (more so than for the Scotish, anyways) and I see no chance for that to happen anytime soon)
I find it unlikely that I would ever expand my native vocabulary to be communicative in more technical fields, and secretly wonder if local scientist actually speak english among themselves.
But I also desire social interaction, which I am currently hard pressed to do with either. If I were to simply focus my efforts on english conversational abilities, (a language shift is long overdue, anyways, right?), how would that go down with others?
I find the ability to understand it to be a rather good shibboleth (even more so if the type of text is considered), but if I am not, I can not expect others to be conversant with it, either.
Fellow LW-ers of the non-english speaking world: if a native started speaking to you, and insisted on continuing to do so in english, would you get the incessant urge to smack him in the head?
Would you consider it elitist? I find unnerving parallels with the nobles who spoke french among themselves.
And on pronunciation, how do you get that to a level where it is not a sore to the ears anymore? (I must mention that I had a logopedist involved in this even for my native language)
And generally, what would you do to improve readability, comprehensibility of your texts? How much does that overlap with that of the spoken word? If not much, what would you do for training the latter? With a focus on conversation, and not on giving speeches.
I would enjoy having more opportunities to practice spoken English. But I would have to trust the other person to speak correctly, so they are not teaching me their mistakes. Non-English native speakers talking to each other has a risk to propagate “false friends”.
I am much better at writing English than at speaking. It helps that I can “cheat” by using Google Translate in the few difficult cases. But also because I have much more practice writing, and in conversation I sometimes realize I am actually not sure how the word is pronounced… or I just pronounce it my way, and the see the confused look on the other person’s face.
Fellow LW-ers of the non-english speaking world: if a native started speaking to you, and insisted on continuing to do so in english, would you get the incessant urge to smack him in the head?
I live in Germany and I do from time to time use English to speak with friends who are natively German. But nobody of them cares about German national identity.
As far as I understand many people who do care about their national identity wouldn’t just switch to English because it goes against their political beliefs. Two average Frenchman would feel like traitors for switching to English with each other.
And on pronunciation, how do you get that to a level where it is not a sore to the ears anymore? (I must mention that I had a logopedist involved in this even for my native language)
Have you thought about using text-to-speech software to create texts on the computer? I would guess that trains proper pronunciation because otherwise the computer won’t understand you.
My somewhat asocial tendencies, and immersion in more technical subjects left me stunted in using both english (due to only using it to consume media) and my native tongue (my not being sociable the general factor, and the inability to even name the concepts I am otherwise immersed in (and which I would much prefer to talk about) also contributing (this is sort of necessary: english has two orders of magnitude more speakers that my native language, and if we take class/occupation or what have you, this is even more extreme with e.g scientists. I wouldn’t even dream of finding a textbook on ‘findings in chemistry up until 2015’. I am of the understanding that in the Arab world, for example, they tend to co-opt french as a language for studying sciences, but in my country, language became entangled with national identity, (more so than for the Scotish, anyways) and I see no chance for that to happen anytime soon)
I find it unlikely that I would ever expand my native vocabulary to be communicative in more technical fields, and secretly wonder if local scientist actually speak english among themselves.
But I also desire social interaction, which I am currently hard pressed to do with either. If I were to simply focus my efforts on english conversational abilities, (a language shift is long overdue, anyways, right?), how would that go down with others? I find the ability to understand it to be a rather good shibboleth (even more so if the type of text is considered), but if I am not, I can not expect others to be conversant with it, either.
Fellow LW-ers of the non-english speaking world: if a native started speaking to you, and insisted on continuing to do so in english, would you get the incessant urge to smack him in the head? Would you consider it elitist? I find unnerving parallels with the nobles who spoke french among themselves.
And on pronunciation, how do you get that to a level where it is not a sore to the ears anymore? (I must mention that I had a logopedist involved in this even for my native language)
And generally, what would you do to improve readability, comprehensibility of your texts? How much does that overlap with that of the spoken word? If not much, what would you do for training the latter? With a focus on conversation, and not on giving speeches.
I would enjoy having more opportunities to practice spoken English. But I would have to trust the other person to speak correctly, so they are not teaching me their mistakes. Non-English native speakers talking to each other has a risk to propagate “false friends”.
I am much better at writing English than at speaking. It helps that I can “cheat” by using Google Translate in the few difficult cases. But also because I have much more practice writing, and in conversation I sometimes realize I am actually not sure how the word is pronounced… or I just pronounce it my way, and the see the confused look on the other person’s face.
I live in Germany and I do from time to time use English to speak with friends who are natively German. But nobody of them cares about German national identity. As far as I understand many people who do care about their national identity wouldn’t just switch to English because it goes against their political beliefs. Two average Frenchman would feel like traitors for switching to English with each other.
Have you thought about using text-to-speech software to create texts on the computer? I would guess that trains proper pronunciation because otherwise the computer won’t understand you.
Elitist, probably, annoying, depends on what they have to say:)