Foreign languages (sign or oral)

sylbea

sylbea

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Hi all,

I am curious as to whether any of you, signers or oralists, know any other language besides your native language? If so, what are your reasons for learning it? Is it because of the changing economies in today's world, or an appreciation for languages? For example if you only know ASL and you want to go to France, where people use the French Sign Language (LFS).

For oralists especially as I am one myself, do you feel you have benefitted from speaking a foreign language (not only written), or do you often have difficulties in particular because of your deafness and, if at any at all, limited speech ability?

Personally I am one to enjoy languages and wanting to learn more French as I have been entertaining the possibility of living in France someday. I appreciate any perspectives on this matter about languages.
 
took Spanish, Latin, German, and Chinese (writing) in high school/college years.

Czech is hell of a challenge, its Western Slavic and not built on Latin. Whole different set of buttocks. But I came to learn to appreciate the language, because it is so logical and algorithmic, you can read unknown written words. At least its Latin-based alphabet rather than Cyrillic. Generally, its easy, but the real hassle is the memorization part. Though I feel fortunate because i hear its extremely difficult to speak Czech for foreigners, lol, especially the ř tongue roller. I do find it somewhat easier to read lip in czech, at least from my experiences/few encounters with deaf people here- i relied on lips rather than signing (because signing is pretty different). Muž (man) sign is basically the same as ASL lie/lying sign on the chin, lol.

Anyway, I have a fancy way of learning new languages. Dunno if i am interested in learning new sign language though
 
i do some french,i like to go to this lovely cafe in paris run by deaf,on each table there are FSLsigns You expected to use rude not to people from all over the world cosmpoltian place.many european deaf use it
 
Wirelessly posted

My first language is English, then Spanish and ASL. I grew up with Spanish and ASL came later after meeting deaf people in church.
I did take French 1 in college not by choice.
 
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Wirelessly posted

I am a indian and india is multilingual

......

so here we have to go to go to english medium schools as thats the most widely spoken official lang....

Nxt comes hindi our national lang...

U have to take a second lang and i took french ....

Then i also learnt my regional lang which is tamil....and watch other telugu and malayalam movies....

And as people are into world movies there days....i picked up some korean and spanish words....

Lastly ASL and ISL are also on the
list

Also sanskrit that the ancient language of my country.....that was my 3rd language back in school....
 
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amaranthine said:
Wirelessly posted

I am a indian and india is multilingual

......

so here we have to go to go to english medium schools as thats the most widely spoken official lang....

Nxt comes hindi our national lang...

U have to take a second lang and i took french ....

Then i also learnt my regional lang which is tamil....and watch other telugu and malayalam movies....

And as people are into world movies there days....i picked up some korean and spanish words....

Lastly ASL and ISL are also on the
list

Also sanskrit that the ancient language of my country.....that was my 3rd language back in school....
Click to expand...

bolded #1) Yeah- i read somewhere that India speak some 20+ languages in its divisional 23 regions.

bolded #2) eew, Frenchy. I find the language somewhat a leech of sort, also culturally (they're arrogant ****s...)

bolded #3) Are you associated with LTTE? lol, just joking. Um I think. I don't blame you, i have some family members in KKK/Nazi/Aryan Nations circles back in the states.

bolded #4) Almost had a minor in Sanskrit. but then i changed my minors (and majors...) too often.
 
Wirelessly posted

Besides that fact that im laughing to ur LTTE joke....im actually amazed at your knowlegde of india....

Well yeah thats true...we have 28states and official languages for all....and 1800 regional langs thats including once with only vocal and no writing scripts ....ha just like ASL or Any other sign ,we just talk and talk...indians love to talk and live for bollywood and cricket!!!!

Awwww thats not true....back here french is considered most romantic...even the very idea of it;-);-):-P

and lol....about the ltte....in my place its the headquaters of all the activities...wether the rebelions or the activists all happen here....i reacenly participated in a beach rally for the civilian rights of the people there like 2weeks back or smting....there is always things happening here with ltte's matters of concern;-);-)


That so cool.well the truth about sankrit is its a lang which is not spoken now and some people think it was nvr spoken and mabe it was only a written language...i loved sanskrit infact i u cud track down the roots of all our languages in india and it would be sankrit......
 
amaranthine said:
Wirelessly posted

Besides that fact that im laughing to ur LTTE joke....im actually amazed at your knowlegde of india....

Well yeah thats true...we have 28states and official languages for all....and 1800 regional langs thats including once with only vocal and no writing scripts ....ha just like ASL or Any other sign ,we just talk and talk...indians love to talk and live for bollywood and cricket!!!!

Awwww thats not true....back here french is considered most romantic...even the very idea of it;-);-):-P

and lol....about the ltte....in my place its the headquaters of all the activities...wether the rebelions or the activists all happen here....i reacenly participated in a beach rally for the civilian rights of the people there like 2weeks back or smting....there is always things happening here with ltte's matters of concern;-);-)


That so cool.well the truth about sankrit is its a lang which is not spoken now and some people think it was nvr spoken and mabe it was only a written language...i loved sanskrit infact i u cud track down the roots of all our languages in india and it would be sankrit......
Click to expand...

Yeah, about LTTE- I took The Theory and the Practice of the Politics of Terrorism class at GMU, and professor showed a video of LTTE woman coming in a room with explosive packages. Her head went off and everything (or other guy, cant remember).

Frenchy.. uggh. the reason i mentioned it is because English and French always resent each other.

about Sanskrit- yeah, it is dead language just like Latin. I always find it interesting because of its word connections to European mythology, and whether if Sanskrit was actually an Indo-European-Aryan-etc language.

I remember i was reading a certain book of drugged Aldous Huxley when he was writing about Sanskrit language, pretty great
 
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Wirelessly posted

Well ltte is basically a tamil terrorist group in srilanka....well they have a lot of demands and terrorism in and around india too....people here are either ways u noe....like in my college their is a whole group for it and a whole a lotta people againt...its onky when a sudden news about them bursts....then things run outta control...man and yeah i think ints one group that has equal women terrorists in them...!

Also i thought the french and english were so inunion with each other ...the liberty statue and the history.....forgive me but im really bad in world history....but the last time went to paris i heard that the americans love to travel to paris and that the visas wer easy .....lol....i thot that was pretty cool;-)!!!
 
amaranthine said:
Wirelessly posted

Well ltte is basically a tamil terrorist group in srilanka....well they have a lot of demands and terrorism in and around india too....people here are either ways u noe....like in my college their is a whole group for it and a whole a lotta people againt...its onky when a sudden news about them bursts....then things run outta control...man and yeah i think ints one group that has equal women terrorists in them...!

Also i thought the french and english were so inunion with each other ...the liberty statue and the history.....forgive me but im really bad in world history....but the last time went to paris i heard that the americans love to travel to paris and that the visas wer easy .....lol....i thot that was pretty cool;-)!!!
Click to expand...

bolded #1.) Not limited actually. They are well encouraged. Like the FCOs (Fighting Communist Organizations)- hence the Red Faction Army of Germany. Not sure if its founder was a woman. '

bolded #2.) And yeah, Americans do love to travel to so-called Paris out of their fantasyland about Trojan wars, but whatever. Visas may be easy in France, not so much in the rest of Europe though.

About union crap, though- since you suck at history, lol- you should read shakespearean plays. Um, it was the frenchy Norman invasion in the first millennium AD that changed the Old English into Middle English (mostly laws, although technically still Germanic one). Then Shakespeare changed all that.
 
Natively anglophone and brought up without ASL unfortunately. Took several years of Spanish, even in university, and took an accelerated semester of Catalan. On a dialect continuum, Catalan would be between French and Spanish.


Posted from Alldeaf.com App for Android
 
As for your other questions, I was an ambitious child and wanted to learn several - German and French and Japanese. Obviously I've fallen quite short lol. Obviously my limited hearing is an issue; as I'm quite far from native-like fluency these days, misunderstandings are considerable (La sordeza me sigue por cualquier idioms y cualquier callejon). For me it was the written part that facilitated learning more so than oral. With Spanish, I could see a word, and knowing it's meaning, usually find words in English of similar origin thanks to considerable Latin input, reinforcing my understanding. This became doubly true after some linguistics courses which helped illustrate the phonological and orthographic changes a Latin parabola undertook as it became a Spanish palabra.

Examples- Latin apiculum, Spanish abeja, English apiary. Formica/hormiga/formicarium. Folio/hoja/(port)folio


Posted from Alldeaf.com App for Android
 
Lukin said:
took Spanish, Latin, German, and Chinese (writing) in high school/college years.

Czech is hell of a challenge, its Western Slavic and not built on Latin. Whole different set of buttocks. But I came to learn to appreciate the language, because it is so logical and algorithmic, you can read unknown written words. At least its Latin-based alphabet rather than Cyrillic. Generally, its easy, but the real hassle is the memorization part. Though I feel fortunate because i hear its extremely difficult to speak Czech for foreigners, lol, especially the ř tongue roller. I do find it somewhat easier to read lip in czech, at least from my experiences/few encounters with deaf people here- i relied on lips rather than signing (because signing is pretty different). Muž (man) sign is basically the same as ASL lie/lying sign on the chin, lol.

Anyway, I have a fancy way of learning new languages. Dunno if i am interested in learning new sign language though
Click to expand...

Lukin, if you do indeed speak Czech and not just write it, props to you for taking on what you call a challenge of a language. How did your experiences in Spanish, German or Chinese classes go? German and Chinese are known for being tonal languages and they can be especially difficult for us who aren't naturally acquainted with phonics, or even in general.

Your fancy way, hmm... I'm guessing it seems intensive. Does it involve lot of reading and trying to sound out every word until you get it right?
 
caz12 said:
i do some french,i like to go to this lovely cafe in paris run by deaf,on each table there are FSLsigns You expected to use rude not to people from all over the world cosmpoltian place.many european deaf use it
Click to expand...

That's cool. Is this lovely cafe by any chance called Cafe Signes? I would love to learn FSL, or the more proper term - LSF (Langues des Signes Francais). Where did you learn it?
 
Rio said:
Wirelessly posted

My first language is English, then Spanish and ASL. I grew up with Spanish and ASL came later after meeting deaf people in church.
I did take French 1 in college not by choice.
Click to expand...
How does it feel speaking Spanish as your second language compared with English? Did you always work hard to be fluent in both?

I was raised oral too, and I've been thinking about learning sign language so that I can finally interact with other deaf people without having to speak. I've been meaning to make French my second language since I've always liked learning it, but speaking it has always been challenging and it requires a lot of dedication.
 
Lukin said:
About union crap, though- since you suck at history, lol- you should read shakespearean plays. Um, it was the frenchy Norman invasion in the first millennium AD that changed the Old English into Middle English (mostly laws, although technically still Germanic one). Then Shakespeare changed all that.
Click to expand...


Have you seen how many foreign languages that have influenced English today?

Could be an analogue of how Proto-Indo-European languages influenced each other and Sanskrit is one of them.
 
fulminty said:
Natively anglophone and brought up without ASL unfortunately. Took several years of Spanish, even in university, and took an accelerated semester of Catalan. On a dialect continuum, Catalan would be between French and Spanish.

Posted from Alldeaf.com App for Android
Click to expand...

Understandable that you find Catalan challenging, since it's a hybrid of Spanish and French. Still, props to you for actually learning such a language. How did you manage it in such a short time?

fulminty said:
As for your other questions, I was an ambitious child and wanted to learn several - German and French and Japanese. Obviously I've fallen quite short lol. Obviously my limited hearing is an issue; as I'm quite far from native-like fluency these days, misunderstandings are considerable (La sordeza me sigue por cualquier idioms y cualquier callejon). For me it was the written part that facilitated learning more so than oral. With Spanish, I could see a word, and knowing it's meaning, usually find words in English of similar origin thanks to considerable Latin input, reinforcing my understanding. This became doubly true after some linguistics courses which helped illustrate the phonological and orthographic changes a Latin parabola undertook as it became a Spanish palabra.

Examples- Latin apiculum, Spanish abeja, English apiary. Formica/hormiga/formicarium. Folio/hoja/(port)folio


Posted from Alldeaf.com App for Android
Click to expand...
Ah, takes me back to when I tried learning Cantonese and Japanese when I previously lived in Hong Kong, but fell short too. They're both tonal languages which definitely are not my suit.

So, in order to compensate more for your difficulty with phonics, you relied on sight-reading and writing. If I too have the same difficulty in listening and speaking, would you suggest that I do the same with French, as it's a Romance language?
 
amaranthine said:
Wirelessly posted

I am a indian and india is multilingual

......

so here we have to go to go to english medium schools as thats the most widely spoken official lang....

Nxt comes hindi our national lang...

U have to take a second lang and i took french ....

Then i also learnt my regional lang which is tamil....and watch other telugu and malayalam movies....

And as people are into world movies there days....i picked up some korean and spanish words....

Lastly ASL and ISL are also on the
list

Also sanskrit that the ancient language of my country.....that was my 3rd language back in school....
Click to expand...
That's quite a variety you've got there, amaranthine. How did you manage to learn those Indian languages assuming you were mainstreamed and learning English at the same time?

I took French too as a core class in high school. I had the choice between Cantonese (one of the official languages in Hong Kong) and French, and I chose the latter because it seemed easier as a Romance language and not as tonally intensive as Cantonese.
 
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