I can read Greek (that is, I can pronounce the words even though I have no idea what most of them mean) and I have also attempted to learn to read Russian because I like a good challenge for my brain. It fascinated me that USSR became CCCP in Cyrillic.
I know a smattering of Swedish because I spent a month in Stockholm in 1969. I know a smattering of Albanian because my wife's parents spoke it (Tosk dialect as opposed to Gheg) in their home. I know a smattering of Spanish (maybe a little more than a smattering) because I live in the United States in the 21st century.
I studied French and Latin in school. I can say "How are you?" in Chinese and "Thank you" in Portuguese and "Goodbye" in Japanese and Italian and German. Speaking of German, I can also say Achtung! and Dummkopf.
When asked to demonstrate one's knowledge of French, one might hearken back to one's schooldays and say je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont which means I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are. But I have a friend in Sweden who made me laugh back in 1969 when he demonstrated his French ability by saying je me lave, tu te laves, il se lave, nous nous lavons, vous vous lavez, ils ses lavent which means I wash myself, you wash yourself, he washes himself, we wash ourselves, you wash yourselves, they wash themselves.
I'm still laughing.
The hardest part of learning Hebrew, by the way, is that there are no vowels in the alphabet, just consonants. You probably won't believe how vowels are indicated even if I show you.
I think Arabic also uses dots to indicate vowels, but I am not ready to tackle Arabic yet.
Maybe I don't have it in me to be a polyglot.
A quote from Robert Browning seems fitting here: "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"
But I am still going to do my best to learn to read Hebrew.
Have you tried Duolingo? It has Hebrew and it's free.
ReplyDeleteTasker, I tried Duolingo a few years back to try to learn more Spanish. I got bogged down in the grammar and never finished. I will check it out about Hebrew but not until I finish the current series of 11 lessons from Jonathan Frate, which are quite well done, I think..
DeleteYou read Greek? and now you're trying Hebrew? and there's all those other languages you know bits of. I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteI learnt a couple of phrases in Cantonese but pronounced them so woefully that nobody could understand and I gave up. I speak English and also the lesser known Strine
kylie, I can pronounce Greek; there's a difference. I am not quite as proficient (proficient, hah!) with Russian. Chinese and Japanese and Arabic seem impossible -- I'm surprised I even tackled Hebrew but I'm making progress.
DeleteI have a reasonable command of the English language in various guises. I could get by with tourist French, German and Italian. My head has far to many other problems with which to cope to try and learn languages I will never need.
ReplyDelete... far too many.... Silly me to do that on your blog of all blogs.
DeleteGraham, so then you're saying there must be a logical reason for the old dog to try to learn a new trick. I never let the lack of one stop me.
DeleteAbsolutely not, Bob. That was purely a reference to me and my head. What you and your head do is entirely up to you.
DeleteI was going to suggest the same as Tasker above. I've been using Duolingo for 5½ years and have learned quite a bit of Spanish by now + "smatterings" of others + improved my previous smatterings of even more.(I'm Swedish to start with, by the way, but learning via English on Duolingo.) I find myself struggling with different alphabets (like Russian) or very different grammar (like Turkish) though. (So far I haven't attempted any language like Hebrew or Arabic, or Japanese or Chinese etc - and kind of doubt I will.)
ReplyDeleteDawn Treader, welcome! (If you have been here before, it has slipped my mind). See my answer to Tasker regarding Duolingo. If you can be King Caspian, I can be Pippi Långstrump.
DeleteI thought you might enjoy this excerpt from a post of mine back in 2010:
I happened to be the only occupant in an elevator in the Sheraton Hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago in 1984 when a very blond family stepped in speaking something besides English to one another. As I had spent a month in Sweden fifteen years earlier (Feb. 1 to Mar. 1, 1969 - brrrrrr!), I knew they were Scandinavian, not because of their blondness but because of the lilt of their speech. I had managed to pick up a few Swedish phrases (Var finst der herrtoaletten?, that sort of thing), so after a few seconds of wondering whether my fellow passengers were Swedish or Norwegian or Danish, I took a chance and asked, “Har ni svensk?” (Are you Swedish?)
Their eyes lit up. “Oh, ja!” they said, and began speaking rapidly to me in their native tongue. I had no idea what they were saying. My floor had arrived, and as I left the elevator I said, “Förlåt, jag förstår inte svenska.” (Sorry, I don’t understand Swedish.)
I have always wondered what those very blond Swedes said to one another after the elevator doors closed.
(end of excerpt)
Bob, that reminds me of an incident many many years ago when I arrived at the Braunschweig end of the Transit Route through the DDR o Berlin. It was too late to drive through so I decided to stop in a hotel in Braunschweig. As I got to the Police Border Post I realised I didn't have a city map of Braunschweig so went into the Police Post and asked the very friendly Sergeant in my best Tourist Deutsch if he spoke English. "Nein" he told me "aber Ich spreche sehr gut Deutsch". We got along just fine and ended up with a police escort to a local hotel.
DeleteWell, "I don't understand" is probably one of the most useful phrases to learn as a beginner in any language... :)
ReplyDeleteWe've probably mostly come across one another on Graham's blog; at some point I must have added you to my Blogger reading list though, because that's where this post happened to pop up today and caught my linguistic interest! :)