Always topical. Fire away...!

I'll go first.
French, German - learned in school and improved since here
Italian - learning on the fly. Mostly food and sweary stuff

Interesting fact: I learned Dutch at Migros whilst in Switzerland

I've been learning German since getting here - High G - try to make sense of the Swiss G. I can certainly navigate my way around with High G but want to become more fluent so I keep working at it. Tried an Italian evening class whilst living here but I bit off more than I could chew having to do it from German to Italian and I found it difficult to keep up with my classmates Swiss G. Did some French at school and have kept that going and can mainly feed myself if I'm in France but have lost the conversational skills - probably get them back quick enough if I spent any length of time there.

(The mister and I were working out all the different languages we could say '2 beers/coffee/bottle of wine please, thanks' we had about 12 between us)

I think you have to add Swiss German as a language. German alone is not enough in many places outside Zurich!

(I am talking about Bern, where it is even handy to speak the Bernese variant of Swiss German)

Learning German pretty swiftly. After 6 months I understand almost everything and can speak more and more every day (can conduct a two hour lesson in german exclusively). I am taking private lessons, which help greatly. The fact that I speak two germanic languages (afrikaans and swedish) helps too.

interesting fact:

My GF tells me that when I guess German that it tends to come out as Swiss german and that my ear seems to be more tuned in to Swiss german as well.

So, "I speak North East" is not an option then, Mr Lobster??

So far, 11 respondants, and looks like 50% of the 75% learn't German since arriving..... interesting statistic


(Dont you just love statistics - says whatever you want it to say)

hadawayanbollocks to you
if you wanted a name-change, you could've asked

DOH!!
Speed typing isn't all it's cracked up to be....

I typed a nice long message about speaking Rumantsch, Ladin, and Lombard Italian, but since the system logs me off in a short time, I guess I won't leave a long message about the dialects, similarities, differences, and what I speak.
Have a great day.
Dorio

Wow that's one old thread.

Dorio, have you checked the "Remember me?" box when you logged in?

I never tried to use the "remember me" on the entrance. I figured it was to just set my computer up for a kind of "Auto Password" log on. I usually don't check a box like that so that my computer stays more secure, in the event that someone was to log onto a system like this, if my computer was set to remember a password, they could log in and pretend to be me.

Thanks for letting me know that I can stay on without loosing the connection. I will use that function from now on.
Thanks,
Dorio

.................................................. .

Although I was born here, in the US, my family brought their countries with them to some extent. I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the culture, history, and especially the languages. Language and Culture are intertwined, as you mentioned. If one knows the language, even to a small extent, it establishes an ability to assimilate the culture.

What type of Rumantsch are you learning? Is it the artificially created Rumantsch Grischun? The one that's easiest for me is the Puter, ed eau crejo dapli bel !
Dorio

..................................

When you finish typing, Ctrl A to highlight the whole document, Ctrl C to copy it. Then, if you find you are logged out, it's still waiting for you on your clipboard to Ctrl V back into your fresh new field.

I had to learn that trick on MSN Groups where it was quite common to see a long post disappear into the virtual ether, wasting whole minutes of valuable argument time!

Anyway, back to the topic. I speak atrocious Hochschwitziduutsch, picked up by ear, having failed, repeatedly, to actually attend lessons I'd paid for upfront. After a long discussion with a very good Swiss friend last week, I've decided to forget speaking Swiss German until I've mastered my High German, and to do that I really need to put some effort in. My friend tells me I need to do an evening course. My wallet tells me otherwise. I've got books, of course, but I never look at them.

I learnt Greek by listening, and I'm crap at that, too.

I suspect that my friend might be right.

Bugger.

She's always right.

Thanks for letting me know about the Control Key stuff. That's what I ended up doing in order to save my work.


Interesting about the German. In my family we really didn't use any of the forms of German, but I always was interested in the fact that some words are similar, and even less are exactly the same.

When I was in Switzerland 2 years ago, what I found interesting was that I could understand the German spoken there more easily than that of Germany, itself. I found this interesting because I had no training in either of the two. Is it because Rumantsch and the Swiss German are in close enough proximity to one another that there has been enough influence? I really cannot say. I just know that it sounded easier for me to make it out. Now, I can't say that I would be able to read one or the other; probably not.

I use to listen to the Dutch World Broadcasting System on the shortwave radio. It was interesting to listen to their language. I found that I could understand even more of that than German. I also have a collection of "The Lord's Prayer" in different languages and dialects of languages. Danish and other Scandinavian languages seem to also be a good choice for someone looking for something that's easy or close enough to English.

I do see the relationship to the Romance Language family of languages, like French, for example. There are words that are different, but some that are the same or similar. Many of the Romance/Latin base languages share more in common with one another than they do with English, that's obvious.

The "old language" from 100 years ago that was spoken in the area of the Val Bregaglia and Valltalina of Italy was a mixture langauge, mostly Rumantsch. These areas today are mostly Italian, but when My family came over, they brought the old language with them. It is a mix, primarily of Alpine Lombard and Puter Rumantsch. I wish I had learned German as a child, but never had the chance. Now I'm focusing on Italian, Rumantsch, & Ladin. J'aussi parle Francais, mais pas bien comment Englais. Je ne scrive pas bien. I never have a chance to use it anymore, so I have forgotten a lot of it. Most American's think that all that matters is English, so I'm in the minority in America.

Here I am, posting a reply to "MYSELF", because I'm not sure how to re-read someone's message and respond to it more than once. I wanted to add some additional thoughts. Before I go into those, if anyone can tell me about how I can replay a second time to a message I already answered, that would be appreciated. Maybe it can't be done.......

Anyway, here are my additional thoughts about the langauges (Alpine / Romance): Although my family brought over it's language that was from over 100 years ago, and it was a mix that was not a 100 percent perfect match for Rumantsch/Ladin/or Lombard Italian, the area where my family is from is NOT Linguistically the same today! Based on Today's geographically, we have Lombard Italian to the south/west (and Lombard Italian does share MANY words with French and Rumantsch), we have Rumantsch to the North and North east, and to the east we have more Lombardes and the five (5) Ladin family members of Rumantsch, and just east of that is the Frulan/Furlan/Friulan (I've seen many spellings).

My language is a remnant of something that existed once in that area, but is only remembered by the few older folks. When I visited there 5 years back, I met a group of elder women in a small family-owned market. They were all speaking the old language. It was amazing to hear it. They were surprized that I spoke it, because somoene in his 30's or 40's shouldn't know the language, and then add to that the fact that I'm from the US. That really surprised them! It was the first and last time I ever heard a group of people speaking the exact langauge used by my family, other than my mom, and she's starting to forget it.

It was suggested to me that what I speak is Lombardes or Ticinese, but I visited the linguistic instatute that's located in Bellinzona. They let me look through many samples that they had of what they consider to be "Lombard / Ticino Dialect". To me, it was more like looking at Italian, or a strange version of Italian with French mixed in now and then. Truly, it had definite possibilities, but it had a strong Italian base to it. I was disapointed, because I thought that I would have found a perfect match to my language.

I continued my Research with the Lia Rumantsch, and they were the ones who helped me figure out that it's an old language, and more or less a sub-group of Rumantsch/Ladin. That's why I understand some part of Ladin, other parts of Rumantsch, but Italian is more difficult. NOW I have to decided which one I want to try to improve upon. I already know that I'm going to learn more Italian, Io besoigno, ma Io anche voglio parlare una lingua come gli mi genitorio. That's about as good as my Italian gets, and it's far from perfect.

With so many linguisticlly close neighbors, it's no wonder that we have a tremendous amount of shared words. I always wondered by the Italians had a terribly difficult time when I would speak to them. I never realized until I was older that our language was in many ways closest to Rumantsch. I can read my Rumantsch Bible and get a lot of it, but the Italian Bible is a lot more difficult for me. Eventually, I hope to get one in Ladin, that and a Ladin-English/Englilsh-Ladin Dictionary.

which ear ?