Bi-lingual?

asechrest

asechrest

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asechrest
My girlfriend is Mexican. We've dated for 6 years. I know a pitiful amount of Spanish considering my access to someone who speaks beautifully in Spanish. Now that I'm a pilot, I'm itching to learn something new. So I'd like to learn Spanish. I'll be studying on my own for a number of months, then requesting of my girlfriend that on certain days of the week she only speak to me in Spanish.

I'm using Duolingo (and the associated Android app), and it's pretty cool. It seems like I'll have plenty of study material for a while just using this resource.

For those of you who are multi-lingual, any tips, whether a referral to a good learning source or general advice?

--


Also, as an interesting aside: while using the Duolingo app, I was given a Spanish sentence to translate into English. It was something like:

Ella bebe vino, pero no bebe cerveza.
Click to expand...

This one's easy. I translated it quickly and without much thought:

She drinks wine, but does not drink cerveza.
Click to expand...

Wait a sec. I translated the whole thing to English, as I was supposed to, except for the Spanish word for beer, which I left as "cerveza." After some contemplation, I realized why. I've spent so many years around my girlfriend and her family, hearing the word "cerveza" (and drinking the same!) and associating it with beer, that I no longer translate it to English in my head. When I hear "cerveza," I picture a beer in my mind's eye. I intuitively know what it is, without "the middle man" of a translation to English getting in the way.

It occurred to me that in some ways my fluency in English is detrimental to my learning of Spanish. Every new Spanish word I learn I have to translate to the language I know before understanding it. My chain of thought is a three-step process: Spanish word -> English translation in my head -> understanding. And each Spanish sentence I construct begins with some mental effort involving English in my head.

At least in part, this must be why children have an overwhelming advantage at learning language(s). There's no "middle man" of a first language to contend with.

I wonder if there's a way I can attempt to learn some Spanish "organically" (for lack of a better word), without thinking about the English translation? Perhaps study, repetition, and fluency is what does that?

Discuss!
 
They say the way to know you are fluent in a language is when you do math in the second language. You have moved on from the extra step of translating and are now functioning in the second language.
 
JoseCuervo said:
They say the way to know you are fluent in a language is when you do math in the second language. You have moved on from the extra step of translating and are now functioning in the second language.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm a long way from that point! Are you bi-lingual?
 
Only partially in Latin. But I haven't used it in four years so I might not be able to read and write it anymore.

About all I can do right now is: Puella sub arbore legit --> Girl reads under tree

I've been looking into Chinese and Japanese. Almost took a Japanese class last fall. Might help me in some future aviation / non-aviation jobs.
 
ARFlyer said:
Only partially in Latin. But I haven't used it in four years so I might not be able to read and write it anymore.

About all I can do right now is: Puella sub arbore legit --> Girl reads under tree

I've been looking into Chinese and Japanese. Almost took a Japanese class last fall. Might help me in some future aviation / non-aviation jobs.
Click to expand...

I took Japanese for two years in high school (1996ish, plus or minus 2 years). I got to spend a month in Japan as part of the class. Had a blast, and didn't want to come back. I consider Japanese to be a difficult language, especially the written language. I love the culture, though.

I consider Spanish to be the most pragmatic language for me to learn currently. I date a Mexican, I live in America, and my profession is sales.
 
The best way by far is immersion. After a month, you'll be able to converse with toddlers. Three months and you'll be fluent. But that means NO English, and hanging out where Spanish is spoken by everyone.

That's probably impractical, but that's what it really takes.

Fluency means you think in Spanish, or switch off. If you're translating, you're not there yet.

Written Japanese is a massive kludge. Most of the nouns are written in traditional (pre-Mao) Chinese, but are pronounced completely differently as the two languages aren't even distantly related. And then there are three different phonetic alphabets.

I spent two weeks at a conference in Sapporo with a native Chinese colleague a few years ago. It was a very interesting trip.
 
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MAKG1 said:
The best way by far is immersion. After a month, you'll be able to converse with toddlers. Three months and you'll be fluent. But that means NO English, and hanging out where Spanish is spoken by everyone.

That's probably impractical, but that's what it really takes.

Fluency means you think in Spanish, or switch off. If you're translating, you're not there yet.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is the key. I can't get total immersion, but I can get closer than most Americans by virtue of living with someone whose first language is Spanish.

But I wonder if there's a way to "study" a second language, short of total immersion, that shies away from translation and instead toward "thinking" in the language. I obviously "think" in Spanish at least in one word: cerveza. "Cerveza" is just a word to me, wholly separate from the English word beer, even though it means the same thing. It's a refreshing way to understand it. It's as if it were a word for which there was no English translation. It just "exists" in my mind as a word that represents a mental image of a beer.

I wonder if there's a way to study so that I learn to associate things with a mental image rather than an English word?

Edit - [Clarity]
 
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asechrest said:
Yes, this is the key. I can't get total immersion, but I can get closer than most Americans by virtue of living with someone whose first language is Spanish.

But I wonder if there's a way to "study" a second language, short of total immersion, that shies away from translation and instead toward "thinking" in the language. I obviously "think" in Spanish at least in one word: cerveza. "Cerveza" is just a word to me, wholly separate from the English word beer, even though it means the same thing. It's a refreshing way to understand it. It's as if it were a word for which there was no English translation. It just "exists" in my mind as a word that represents a mental image of a beer.

I wonder if there's a way to study so that I learn to associate things with a mental image rather than an English word?

Edit - [Clarity]
Click to expand...
I think that is how the Rosetta Stone software works. If it was not so expensive I might try it myself. I studied Russian and German in college the traditional way and that was painful and slow learning. I would really like to learn Spanish. Has anybody tried the Rosetta Stone program?
 
MAKG1 said:
The best way by far is immersion...

That's probably impractical, but that's what it really takes.
Click to expand...

Short of total immersion...

Try watching or listening to Spanish language programming, concurrent with whatever else you do. At first it will be largely gibberish, but as you go on with whatever method you choose, it will start to sound more and more natural. News is good, because you may already have a handle on the context, and because they tend to speak more slowly and clearly than in a soap opera, let's say. Spanish is relatively easy because so many words have common Latin roots, most words ending in -cion are the same as English words ending in -tion, (immigration/immigracion for example) and pronunciation rules are far more consistent than in English.

Finally, I got a lot from reading a book in Spanish with a Spanish/English by my side. The book I chose was Kon Tiki. At first I was looking up nearly every word, but as I went on more and more started to be familiar through repetition. Irregularly declined verbs are a hassle, but rarely necessary to the general arc of the story. My experience was pre-computers, but computers should provide an elegant way to do the same thing.
 
Yeah, the only way to learn is to be immersed. Turn your home into a spanish only home. Only watch spanish programming. Read spanish books. Short of moving to Mexico for a while, you just need to be as immersed as possible.
 
Immersion, as others have said. Read books in the language that you are studying but select books about subjects you are familiar with (maybe fiction about the American frontier or west). and don't try to get every sentence perfect. Just blast through and read for understanding the story, not for perfection. After you've stumbled over the same word four or five times, look it up. Speak Spanish in your home every day, not just on certain days. Listen to Spanish broadcasts. Subscribe to a Spanish newspaper.
 
My wife comes from a French-English bilingual family...actually her mother's side of the family are only French and don't speak a word of English.

There are advantages to not being able to communicate with half your in-laws.
 
Asechrest, you are on the right track for learning Spanish. Another way to see it is not to think of Spanish as a second language but as an expansion of your current vocabulary. Like for "car" in English you can also say "automobile" or "coche" in Spanish.

Unlike English things in Spanish has gender which is confusing for an English native. At times an English native speaking Spanish sounds funny using the improper gender article or relationship

Spanish is an old well structured language. Unlike English the Spanish text conveys the exact pronunciation of the word. You do not need to heard the word to know how it is pronounced.

The Spanish language has not changed much on the last 500 years. You can read and understand perfectly the Christopher Columbus voyage logs 500 years ago.

Adelante con el Espanol

José
 
Piloto said:
The Spanish language has not changed much on the last 500 years. You can read and understand perfectly the Christopher Columbus voyage logs 500 years ago.


José
Click to expand...

As a side benefit, I've heard profanities in Spanish that make English profanity sound almost quaint!
 
My Spanish is pretty much limited to:

Mi tia es enfermo pero el camino es verde.

of course, that's slightly more useful than my command of Swedish:

Hej Raring, Jag har en tolv tums penis!

[points if you catch where either of those quotes comes from.]

A friend of mine was learning Japanese and one of the phrases in the book she was studying from translated to:

"Grandmother has fallen into the cesspool, again."
 
English is my second language. Unfortunately I don't have a first.

There aren't enough synapses firing on the right side of my brain to handle one language, much less two or more. I envy multi-lingual people.
 
According to the CIA World Facts Spanish is the most spoken language after Mandarin. But on my travellings around the world I found English to be the business and technical language. Knowing English opens your possibilities to a worldwide exchange of ideas with others.

However in Latin America Spanish and Portuguese are the dominant languages for everything including ATC. Some of the ATC phrases in Spanish are of maritime origins. Like "Apunte proa hacia San Fernando" = "Direct to San Fernando VOR". It makes you think you are sailing instead of flying.

CIA Language Facts
Mandarin Chinese 12.44%, Spanish 4.85%, English 4.83%, Arabic 3.25%, Hindi 2.68%, Bengali 2.66%, Portuguese 2.62%, Russian 2.12%, Japanese 1.8%, Standard German 1.33%, Javanese 1.25% (2009 est.)

José
 
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Total immersion, IMHO, is the best way to learn a language. It worked in two languages (three including my native English).
 
pilot_dude said:
Total immersion, IMHO, is the best way to learn a language. It worked in two languages (three including my native English).
Click to expand...
I agree but not everybody can take off 3 to 6 months to learn a new language. What's next best?
 
There are some terms acceptable to the English language but not for Spanish like:

"Software bugs" = "cucarachas en programa" or "fallo en programa"= "software failure"
"Computer mouse" = "rata de ordenador" or "apuntador de ordenador" = "computer pointer"

To avoid misunderstandings the English term is generally used in Spanish.

José
 
Many languages have borrowed words from other languages. English for technical stuff isn't uncommon in Spanish or even Japanese. Other idioms are rather amusing. Where it's not uncommon for someone to throw "C'est la vie" into English conversation I was surprised when in France they'll use "That's life" in theirs.
 
I had a Danish acquaintance a while back (part of an international team who spoke to each other in English) who said that he knew he had reached fluency in English when he realized that he was dreaming in it.
 
took spanish in high school and college, all I can say now is:

las cucarachas entran, pero no puedan salir.

pathetic, I know. my Mom is fluent in French, and as others have said, it was from total immersion. she does french crossword puzzles, types up letters in french, reads french books, etc.
 
JeffDG said:
My wife comes from a French-English bilingual family...actually her mother's side of the family are only French and don't speak a word of English.

There are advantages to not being able to communicate with half your in-laws.
Click to expand...

My husband is German and only a few in family can speak English. There are definitely advantages when I can pretend I don't understand what his mother is saying.
 
I speak English/Korean/Spanish/German. The only to become truly fluent is immersion. That said, for languages with similar constructs to English, [subject-verb-object] like Spanish, the best way is to become functional is to mentally picture the thing or activity in the new language. Don't really try to translate. That's how Rosetta Stone works, that's how watching their TV works, and that's how kids work. Though it's patently unfair how easy it is for kids....

i.e. if you do flash cards, the Spanish word and picture only, not the English word....

For languages with totally different constructs [Japanese/Korean/Arabic] immersion is really the only way...
 
Un cerveza, por favor

Ein Bier, bitte

Got to know the important ones here! :D

Now, I've had Rosetta Stone for several years (Spanish) and I really need to start using it. We go to Mexico for spring vacation just about every year.
 
tiger said:
I had a Danish acquaintance a while back (part of an international team who spoke to each other in English) who said that he knew he had reached fluency in English when he realized that he was dreaming in it.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty much bilingual English/French. I'm with the others--immersion is the best choice. But if you can get the basics down so that you can carry a conversation, even talking in a group of non-natives (especially if they're better than you) is great practice too. Whatever it takes to keep yourself using the language. I watch French TV and try to repeat back the new expressions or the ways they string words together so that it sounds natural to me. I even make myself look like a fool wandering around talking to myself in French.
 
I'm fluent in Mandarin and French, and have studied a bit of Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Italian.

The techniques for learning language are very similar to those for learning a musical instrument. Think in the language, use substitution drills, use expansion drills--but most of all, immerse yourself. Ask your girlfriend to speak Spanish ONLY. Ask her to be brutal and require you to respond completely in Spanish--no substituting an English word in the middle of the sentence.

You'll get it, as long as your really want it!

asechrest said:
My girlfriend is Mexican. We've dated for 6 years. I know a pitiful amount of Spanish considering my access to someone who speaks beautifully in Spanish. Now that I'm a pilot, I'm itching to learn something new. So I'd like to learn Spanish. I'll be studying on my own for a number of months, then requesting of my girlfriend that on certain days of the week she only speak to me in Spanish.

I'm using Duolingo (and the associated Android app), and it's pretty cool. It seems like I'll have plenty of study material for a while just using this resource.

For those of you who are multi-lingual, any tips, whether a referral to a good learning source or general advice?

--


Also, as an interesting aside: while using the Duolingo app, I was given a Spanish sentence to translate into English. It was something like:



This one's easy. I translated it quickly and without much thought:



Wait a sec. I translated the whole thing to English, as I was supposed to, except for the Spanish word for beer, which I left as "cerveza." After some contemplation, I realized why. I've spent so many years around my girlfriend and her family, hearing the word "cerveza" (and drinking the same!) and associating it with beer, that I no longer translate it to English in my head. When I hear "cerveza," I picture a beer in my mind's eye. I intuitively know what it is, without "the middle man" of a translation to English getting in the way.

It occurred to me that in some ways my fluency in English is detrimental to my learning of Spanish. Every new Spanish word I learn I have to translate to the language I know before understanding it. My chain of thought is a three-step process: Spanish word -> English translation in my head -> understanding. And each Spanish sentence I construct begins with some mental effort involving English in my head.

At least in part, this must be why children have an overwhelming advantage at learning language(s). There's no "middle man" of a first language to contend with.

I wonder if there's a way I can attempt to learn some Spanish "organically" (for lack of a better word), without thinking about the English translation? Perhaps study, repetition, and fluency is what does that?

Discuss!
Click to expand...
 
spiderweb said:
I'm fluent in Mandarin and French, and have studied a bit of Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Italian.

The techniques for learning language are very similar to those for learning a musical instrument. Think in the language, use substitution drills, use expansion drills--but most of all, immerse yourself. Ask your girlfriend to speak Spanish ONLY. Ask her to be brutal and require you to respond completely in Spanish--no substituting an English word in the middle of the sentence.

You'll get it, as long as your really want it!
Click to expand...

I played French horn (and mellophone) for 9 years, so maybe I'll get this whole bi-lingual thing at some point. :)
 
asechrest said:
I played French horn (and mellophone) for 9 years, so maybe I'll get this whole bi-lingual thing at some point. :)
Click to expand...

Apply the same principles your instructor used with you, and it definitely will help. I think learning to fly and learning a language are actually quite similar. You know ESL? English as a Second Language? And you know those who fly like FSL and those who fly like it is their "first language."
 
asechrest said:
I played French horn (and mellophone) for 9 years, so maybe I'll get this whole bi-lingual thing at some point. :)
Click to expand...

Hey, another horn player! I played for 8 years but have taken the last two or three off. I'm picking it up again when I have time and I'm loving it!
 
jpower said:
Hey, another horn player! I played for 8 years but have taken the last two or three off. I'm picking it up again when I have time and I'm loving it!
Click to expand...

Well, I've taken the last 13 years off. :D

So you're ahead of me. The last time I played was in college. Would love to play again, though. My music experiences are some of my best memories. I really enjoyed it from middle school on into college. Made All State band a few times, too!

French Horn is a challenging instrument, and that's part of the reason I liked it.

Last I checked, my former high school's once-proud music program is now pitiful. Sad.
 
There do seem to be a fair number of musician pilots….

I'm a trombonist (and I'm current -- rehearsing now for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), but in the pit orchestra, I'm very often playing a sort-of "2nd horn" role.

Flying isn't exactly like playing an instrument, but there are some similarities. Practicing the horn is a lot cheaper than practicing flying. And even really expensive horns are cheaper than beat up 152s.
 
I found that a person's attitude toward a particular language or culture may be as important as a persons aptitude for learning languages in general with regard to learning a specific language. I did well and really enjoyed learning German. I didn't succeed with a second European language (not Spanish). I realized later that where I grew up, things from that country were regarded as sleazy and over-priced. Visiting that country as a US military enlisted person, I didn't feel particularly welcome except for any money I might be willing to leave behind, and pronunciation of the language sometimes seemed akin to regurgitation noises. No wonder I didn't do well.
 
MAKG1 said:
Flying isn't exactly like playing an instrument, but there are some similarities. Practicing the horn is a lot cheaper than practicing flying. And even really expensive horns are cheaper than beat up 152s.
Click to expand...

It's an entirely different kind of flying, all together.
airplane_instruments_small.jpg
 
Gary F said:
I agree but not everybody can take off 3 to 6 months to learn a new language. What's next best?
Click to expand...
If memory serves me correctly the OP's girlfriend's native language is Spanish. One option is to have her speak ONLY Spanish when they are together.
 
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