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Can you still converse in all of those languages?
Ah, bel, if only. I was careful to say "studied formally". I can still get by in Spanish and French, an German is my best foreign language. The others I remember mainly grammar, but lack sufficient vocabulary. Tunica, I really don't recall much, though I studied it with Professor Mary Haas who gathered info on it from one of the last native speakers in the '30s and wrote a grammatical description which I must still have somewhere. I've always wanted to write up a little Berlitz-style foreign phrase book for Sanskrit and Hittite. Pardon me, which way to the library of Alexandria? that sort of thing.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Quote:
Mechan. Maybe you could learn the languages you want that way. It is much cheaper than paying for live classes. If you wish to do business in different languages, then you need the live classes, but if it is just to be able to converse, this is a great method.
Well, I've always assumed that learning by yourself isn't really successful.
Is it? Has anyone learned on their own and became really good in the language, almost fluent?
[insert signature here]
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Well, I'm only at the start of CD number three so I can't say for sure, but I learned enough to walk into a client's office last week and ask, in Spanish, if my buyer was in because I had an appointment with him at 2:00 p.m.
I knew the receptionist at this office speaks Spanish fluently so I piped right up with it.
As soon as I asked her she flew into a whole slew of Spanish, really quickly, so I asked her (in Spanish again) to slow down because I was only learning.
She said that my accent was perfect so she'd assumed that I spoke fluently.
The tone and accent I got from practicing with the CD.
Doesn't answer your question exactly, but I think the CD learning is a step in the right direction.
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Excuse the "definition" post in the middle of this thread folks...
zmj. I misunderstood the term "studied formally". I'd never heard it before, so I assumed that it meant that you had studied the subjects and knew them in their entirety (from A to Z so to speak).
But, from your response, I gather that's not what it means. Can you tell me what it does mean?
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I simply meant that I'd studied them with an instructor and in a classroom rather than on my own. I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to mislead you ...
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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So what is it with Latin in Finland?
Good question (and story), Marianna -- Finnish is not even an IE language, let alone Latinate!
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No worries zmj. You didn't mislead me at all. I simply misunderstood the expression since I'd never heard it before.
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So what is it with Latin in Finland? There's a Finnish professor, Dr Ammondt, who's released a CD of himself covering Elvis songs translated in Latin.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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That's a good question, Marianna. I really don't know. Probably one reason could be that, when I was in junior high (in mid-nineties), we were told that we'd have to learn Latin if we ever wanted to apply to medical school. Of course, that turned out to be completely bogus when we reached senior high, but most of my friends took the course anyway - just to understand the difficult words that inevitably come up when studying medical field.
Moreover, we Finns do study a lot of languages: an average Finn starts his/her English studies in the third grade (age 10), Swedish studies (the second official language in Finland) in the seventh grade (age 13), and one more foreign language in the eigth grade (not obligatory as Swedish and one foreign language). My third language was French, but I really do not remember any of it... The choices you make are dependent of the school district: in rural towns, you can't choose anything but English, but in bigger towns (like mine, 200 000 inhabitants), you can choose for example French to be your first foreign language. If you choose something else than English, you can start learning English in the fifth grade (age 11) and the other two languages follow in the same order despite of your first language. Consequently, you can study four different languages at the age of 14, and continue all of them throughout senior high school. One reason for the popularity of Latin in Finland could be that schools want to distinct themselves from other schools by a broader curriculum - some schools offer Russian and Spanish (which are not that popular in Finland), and other offer Latin or Greek...
Marianna, some Finnish words do originate from Latin, and some from English (some of those have roots in Latin), and sometimes it is easier to think of the Latin word to create the Finnish one, or vise versa. Maybe this somewhat answers to your question?
Oh, and zmjezhd, I checked the site you gave, and found it interesting. He also has recorded Blue Suede Shoes in sumerian(!). There's also a Finnish metal band (Amorphis) that has taken all of their lyrics from a the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, and translated them to English. A bit off topic, but thought it could be mentioned here also...
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Took 2 years of Latin in high school. Then in medical school picked up more Latin (and some Greek) vocabulary by reading the medical dictonaries. Outcome: better understanding of English and its roots; modest ability to read Spanish and Italian; some ability to speak both; less ability to understand them when spoken.
Yes! take the Latin!
RNB
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