languages-am I an old fogey

[miggy]

DS1 (10/yr6) has had exams this week and I have helped him to revise. He has done French since yr1 and latin since yr4 with an equal amount of time devoted to each on a weekly basis. Latin is taught "the old fashioned way" ie this is a verb and this is how you conjugate it, plus sentence construction and learning great chunks of vocab. French is taught "the trendy way" topics such as saying hello, things in the classroom,my family- these seem to have been repeated ad nauseum since yr1. As a result, he can translate and construct fluent sentences in latin and given a dictionary can make a good go of translating text. In french, he can say phrases, like "I am 10" but has no idea which word means what, how to conjugate verbs etc-he couldnt even tell me one french verb! It doesnt matter in the great scheme of things, he is only 10, but it seems such a waste. Is the old fashioned way better? or perhaps his french teacher is rubbish. Just a bit sad as we visit France often but have yet to get to ancient Rome!

Of course, I meant post-1500-ish!

Picking up on Sari's point about her degree course, I happily trotted off to do modern Languages at Oxford, and had a really nasty shock when I got there. The course was far more rooted in literature than I'd expected, and i like literature.! Unfortunately the unis that offered more appealing courses were mainly post-92, so I ended up doing psychology instead. Have been thinking about this as my boss has come and ranted about his desire to close down the uni's modern languages department!

ks you have just made me laugh so loudly one of the students told me to ssshh.
I was once with a friend in a pizzeria in Normandy who asked the waiter if there were any condoms in her pasta (preservatifs, she was very additive-conscious).

ks - a new Italian restaurant has just opened near me called "La Figa". Italian speaking residents of the area are up in arms!

My biggest language error.

Was asked by my boss in Japan how I had come to school that day. I decided to be clever and rather than use the normal word for bicycle- jidensha decided to use the slang- charinko. Except I got it wrong and said "chinko de" which means- yep "by penis".

\link{http://icthewharf.icnetwork.co.uk/thisweek/news/page.cfm?objectid=13771315&method=full&siteid=71670\here's the story ks)

here's the story ks

I think you need both conversation and grammar. School/university languages do not equip you for day to day life. When I lived in Eastern Europe, I found I could have a long debate about economics or regional development, but was stuffed when I needed some bite cream and antiseptic cream from the pharmacy. I ended up miming a wasp, to the hilarity of the pharmacist.

Oh, and my Polish teacher told me the only way to learn a language properly was to sleep with someone of that nationality But I wouldn't recommend that under the age of consent!

Incidentally, we have the "KidSpeak French" and I think it is crap. My DDs have learnt a lot more French from the video "Salut Serge".

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Oh dear - don't meet your definition then ks. I used to speak German pretty fluently. Spent a year working there and can speak High German and a very strong dialect too. ... BUT I could never understand/appreciate the sense of humour! I would 'get' about 1 in 10 jokes.

I think for English speakers it is easier to get the pronunciation perfect - or very close - for Germanic languages than for French, Italian, or Spanish - as there are so many extra sounds to learn. So it tends to be much quicker to spot an outsider.

Sorry, Bloss. I think they were just flattering you. I don't believe you can ever speak another language without an accent unless you have lived in that country for many years and have a natural gift for learning languages. I have lived in this country for over 10 years and I still have a (charming!) swedish accent and always will have. I have never met an English-speaking person in my life who has no accent when speaking another language.No shame in an accent though. I also think you have to live in the country to learn to speak the language like the natives. If you are taught in school, you are normally taught by people who don't speak the language they teach that well themselves, and you tend to speak a bit like "a book".

Regarding accent, it also depends where/who taught you the language. I spent my teenage years living in Germany (not on a base) and speak Hessisch without an accent. I also started learning Russan while I was in Germany and continued when I returned to Scotland. When living in Russia, I was always placed as a foreigner, but one from the 'Pribaltikii', the Baltic States. So if you speak Russian with a Scottish/German accent then you may sound like an Estonian...