Stupid Guest Tricks

Alyssa3467 wrote:I've tried this. More often than not, they continue speaking Spanish. I've even tried "I speak English; tôi nói tiếng Việt; je parle français" to no avail. =P

next time try yiddish. or klingon.
maybe one of those nice screaming languages,
like russian.

I have a friend who could teach you some Hungarian. That is an amazing language. I have tried to learn the language in several different ways, but at the end of a lesson I have not picked up a single thing. Any other language I at least get something out of it. I even tried Pimsleur which works pretty well for me most of the time. After eight times listening to the first lesson, I could not remember ANYTHING. Absolutely amazing. So any Hungarian who learns English has my absolute respect.

The way my Hungarian friend described it to me, there is no similarity between Hungarian and English, so there is nothing to latch together in your brain.

What about Gaelic. I'd love to learn some of that.

Big Wallaby wrote:I have a friend who could teach you some Hungarian. That is an amazing language. I have tried to learn the language in several different ways, but at the end of a lesson I have not picked up a single thing. Any other language I at least get something out of it. I even tried Pimsleur which works pretty well for me most of the time. After eight times listening to the first lesson, I could not remember ANYTHING. Absolutely amazing. So any Hungarian who learns English has my absolute respect.

The way my Hungarian friend described it to me, there is no similarity between Hungarian and English, so there is nothing to latch together in your brain.

try rosetta stone.
I am learning latin with that.
Want to confuse latinos? speak latin to them.

My favorite is Chinese Pod. It's actually produced in Shang Hai, and they do a great job. It's a podcast that they put out, with tons of lessons in the novice, intermediate, expert... and I think a couple other levels. Literally hundreds of lessons to choose from. It's completely conversational and easy to follow. I understand there is a Spanish Pod out there too.

Rosetta Stone doesn't keep my attention very well. My ADHD gets really, really lost. That wouldn't be a problem, except that I tend to follow it!

drcorey wrote:try rosetta stone.
I am learning latin with that.
Want to confuse latinos? speak latin to them.

That reminds me of a story mom once told me. She used to work at Lockheed in Burbank--the "Skunk Works"--and there was a Mexican-American family there that thought they owned the place. They would hold picnics and barbeques that were the talk of the workplace, and they only invited very few of their non-Latino co-workers to one of these bashes. One of mom's co-workers was a Vietnamese fellow who went by the initals of T.V., because nobody could pronounce his name. Anyway, one day T.V. went up to mom and asked her if she wanted to go to one of this family's BBQs, said he knew when they were being held. See, this family didn't broadcast these events, only telling those they wanted there or who was invited by someone else. T.V. usually got invited, and could bring one guest. But the way he knew of these when this family all spoke in Spanish was because, being Vietnamese, he had also learned French. French and Spanish are two of the five Romance, or Latin-based languages; because of this, T.V. could understand everything this family said. They never figured out how people knew about their events, never suspected T.V. as the one who understood them.

drcorey wrote:next time try yiddish. or klingon.
maybe one of those nice screaming languages,
like russian.

Or a combination of mouth noises, :)