On 6/29/07, Christopher Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Jun 29, 2007, at 12:26 AM, Tracy R Reed wrote: > I think the biggest problem people have with learning languages is > lack of practice and lack of total immersion. This tends to be more of an "American" problem. This is one of the reasons Europeans tend to have so much more success learning multiple languages. --Chris
The irony is that in my neighborhood you can hang out with any of twenty or so different linguistic groups. Want Spanish, talk with my land lord. Want Lao, go across the alley. The Chaldean christians who run the convenience store on the corner speak Aramaic. At the grocery store you have a choice of Tagalog or Spanish; the owners are a Filipino man married to a Mexican woman. The other grocery store is owned by and caters to African immigrants who speak mostly Arabic. And if you believe there is such a thing as Ebonics you can hear it in this neighborhood. In my house you have a choice of Kapampangan, Tagalog or English. Mostly I speak English, the kids speak Kapampangan with their mother and Tagalog or Taglish with their friends. The "American" problem is mostly with the native born population, especially old white folks, like me. It takes more than immersion though. It takes an effort. I still speak very little Tagalog. My street Spanish though is almost passable. Hearing though (any language) gets slowly worse. BobLQ "una cerveza mas, por favor" -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
