BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » POLL: Other Languages

Davina · January 12, 2013 4:06 pm

Also not exactly the most useful of words to be able to drop into conversation is it.

Mary Me · January 12, 2013 4:11 pm

Not really

Mell92 · January 13, 2013 11:32 am

Wow, that's horrible
When my pupils do that, I'm like: "Euhm...Why don't you try that again? And really try this time."
When I hear them speaking Dutch, I just go "Hmm, what was that? What a funny language! I don't understand!" And then they get the message

Wolfhound · January 13, 2013 5:46 pm

Mary Me wrote:
I must say, the reason that I can interact with people in english, isn't the school.
The reason is me being active in english speaking forums and me watching movies and interviews in english.
Our english class is very useless. I mean, teacher asks a question and most of the answers begin with "Ja, also ich denke..." And our teacher is not very consistent when it comes to vocabulary query.
Example?
Teacher: "English word for Abtreibung?" (abortion)
Student: "To make the baby away?"
Teacher: "Right. Next."
I sat there and was like Da faq?

Well, this sounds like a nightmare of a teacher, doesn´t it ? I myself am a language teacher and I can´t figure out what reasons a collegue can have for such an approach.

Mell92 · January 13, 2013 5:54 pm

Yeah, especially saying that wrong answers are correct That just ain't right...

Mary Me · January 13, 2013 6:11 pm

Wolfhound wrote:
Mary Me wrote:
I must say, the reason that I can interact with people in english, isn't the school.
The reason is me being active in english speaking forums and me watching movies and interviews in english.
Our english class is very useless. I mean, teacher asks a question and most of the answers begin with "Ja, also ich denke..." And our teacher is not very consistent when it comes to vocabulary query.
Example?
Teacher: "English word for Abtreibung?" (abortion)
Student: "To make the baby away?"
Teacher: "Right. Next."
I sat there and was like Da faq?
Well, this sounds like a nightmare of a teacher, doesn´t it ? I myself am a language teacher and I can´t figure out what reasons a collegue can have for such an approach.

I'm only looking forward a new teacher... That was a medium-heavy shock for me.

ancientsgate · January 14, 2013 3:47 am

Mary Me wrote:
Our english class is very useless.....our teacher is not very consistent when it comes to vocabulary query.
Example?
Teacher: "English word for Abtreibung?" (abortion)
Student: "To make the baby away?"
Teacher: "Right. Next."
I sat there and was like Da faq?

I imagine your English teacher is not exactly fluent in English, eh? I suspect this is true of a lot of foreign language teachers, especially here in the States, where most of us speak English and nothing else. The vast majority of us would be clueless enough that a Spanish or French or German or Whatever teacher could tell/teach us most anything, and we wouldn't know the difference, whether it was right or wrong. [Coming back to edit this to apologize to any language teachers reading this-- I have the utmost respect for the teaching profession. But I do suspect that some foreign language teachers in the US, those who have a degree in the language from a university but not much real-world experience, might be still less than fluent--- that's all I meant to say.]

I am a native English speaker, something for which I'm profoundly grateful, since English so dominates the world (or at least the world I frequent at home and on the internet). I studied French for 4 years in school (hated it, hated the teacher, hate, hate, hate, never could get my big fat English-loving tongue to pronounce all those light little words correctly, and the idea of male and female nouns was nonsensical to me-- I mean really, why??). Then I studied German for 2 years, and our teacher was as near to a native speaker as an American could get-- she'd lived there, etc. That class was fun. At least my heavy English tongue wrapped its way around the German words pretty well.

Unfortunately, I've forgotten more French and German than I ever learned, I swear. Unless you use it, it dries up and blows away.

Last edited by ancientsgate (January 14, 2013 3:52 am)

Mary Me · January 14, 2013 8:37 am

That was awkward just now.
Getting up early in the morning, hurrying to catch the bus, only to arrive at school and to see that my first two lessons fell out. Meeh :/
Okay, fine, then I must soon return to my english lesson. I hope we get back the clause.

ancientsgate wrote:
I imagine your English teacher is not exactly fluent in English, eh?

Apparently she isn't.

ancientsgate wrote:
Unfortunately, I've forgotten more French and German than I ever learned, I swear. Unless you use it, it dries up and blows away.

It's a pity.
I know this very well from French.
Although I'm actually quite good in this subject, I can not really express in this language.
I fear that in ten years I wont have the ability to speak even one word in french.

The Doctor · January 14, 2013 10:28 am

Mary Me wrote:
... to see that my first two lessons fell out.

lol - I take it this is a literal translation attempt?

I have also been known to commit this faux pas

Davina · January 14, 2013 12:23 pm

Falling out...of bed...of love...with someone?

What did you make of feminine, masculine AND neuter then AG? Italian is rather fun in this respect too.

Mary Me · January 14, 2013 1:00 pm

Oh. Whatever. Very bad attempt.
I tried to say, the lessons have not taken place (This is what Google Translator says, now I'm confused), because the teacher wasn't there.

ancientsgate · January 14, 2013 1:09 pm

Mary Me wrote:
Oh. Whatever. Very bad attempt.
I tried to say, the lessons have not taken place (This is what Google Translator says, now I'm confused), because the teacher wasn't there.

We would say classes-- the classes were canceled because the teacher wasn't there. I think that's what you meant. ??

ancientsgate · January 14, 2013 1:12 pm

Davina wrote:
What did you make of feminine, masculine AND neuter then AG? Italian is rather fun in this respect too.

What a nightmare. Why do they do that?? Seriously! Of course to native speakers of the languages that use noun gender, using the correct gender sounds right, and using the wrong one sounds just plain stupid, lol....but we poor students, who had to memorize what was what, awful! The whole idea of noun gender is unknown to English speakers-- and thank god for it. heh

Last edited by ancientsgate (January 14, 2013 1:15 pm)

Mary Me · January 14, 2013 1:25 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
Davina wrote:
What did you make of feminine, masculine AND neuter then AG? Italian is rather fun in this respect too.
What a nightmare. Why do they do that?? Seriously! Of course to native speakers of the languages that use noun gender, using the correct gender sounds right, and using the wrong one sounds just plain stupid, lol....but we poor students, who had to memorize what was what, awful! The whole idea of noun gender is unknown to English speakers-- and thank god for it. heh

Today I was complaining about how stupid the two different genders in french were...
... until I noticed that in german we use even three

Classes? Okay, then this is probably what I was trying to say.

By the way, one question: Would you consider the expression "to speak one's mind" as common speech?

ancientsgate · January 14, 2013 1:46 pm

Mary Me wrote:
By the way, one question: Would you consider the expression "to speak one's mind" as common speech?

Sure. It can have shades of meaning. It can be a matter of plain-speaking and just saying what you think about something, maybe to just make your thoughts clear or to finally get everything said out loud. Or it could have a slightly more negative shade of meaning, when you tell someone off-- another expression that's similar is to "give someone a piece of my mind." If you post a couple of sample sentences using the expression, we could tell better if using it is right or not. You know, if you want.

Mary Me · January 14, 2013 2:15 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
Mary Me wrote:
By the way, one question: Would you consider the expression "to speak one's mind" as common speech?
Sure. It can have shades of meaning. It can be a matter of plain-speaking and just saying what you think about something, maybe to just make your thoughts clear or to finally get everything said out loud. Or it could have a slightly more negative shade of meaning, when you tell someone off-- another expression that's similar is to "give someone a piece of my mind." If you post a couple of sample sentences using the expression, we could tell better if using it is right or not. You know, if you want.

I think it was something like "I feel better, when I can speak my mind."
Anyway, my teacher wasn't familiar with this expression.

ancientsgate · January 14, 2013 2:31 pm

Mary Me wrote:
I think it was something like "I feel better, when I can speak my mind."
Anyway, my teacher wasn't familiar with this expression.

Yes, it's a real English expression. Maybe not one used that much, but fairly common. Anytime you're wondering, you can google something like meaning of speak my mind, and you should get an explanation. Try here:
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/speak+mind

Mary Me · January 14, 2013 2:37 pm

ancientsgate wrote:
Mary Me wrote:
I think it was something like "I feel better, when I can speak my mind."
Anyway, my teacher wasn't familiar with this expression.
Yes, it's a real English expression. Maybe not one used that much, but fairly common. Anytime you're wondering, you can google something like meaning of speak my mind, and you should get an explanation. Try here:
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/speak+mind

Thanks!
Lol, my teacher asked if I was maybe trying to say "when I can speak to my mind", but that would be something of a different meaning, wouldn't it?

Davina · January 14, 2013 3:27 pm

'When I speak to my mind'...this phrase is just weird in English. We might well say 'speak to myself' or 'in my head I spoke to myself', or 'I gave myself a talking to' (meaning to tell yourself off).

Mell92 · January 14, 2013 3:30 pm

Mary, you have a funny teacher
If she'd meet mine, he'd give her a 'serious talking to' indeed ;)