Question for English speakers

[carlosvilas]

I have a weird question for the native English speakers of the forum!

Are there any other languages that you think you may be able to understand even if you didn't take one single lesson on them?

For example, I've never studied Italian or Portuguese but when I talk with people from those countries I'm able to figure out what they're saying, probably because the roots of the three languages are the same. But it doesn't work with German, or Chinese

Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

I'm so curious about it!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by carlosvilas

I Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

In a word, no. Definitely not German. Even though English is classified as a West Germanic language, more than half the vocabulary is derived from Latin, often via Old French. This has the result that the distance from related languages (the nearest being Frisian) is too great to understand them without learning.

[poli]

Sometimes I understand British

As a speaker Spanish, you will find simple Italian
understandable, and Catalan and Portuguese readable.

Unlike Spanish, native English speakers may understand some words of French, Spanish, and German--especially French, but the differences are great. I agree with Peri in that most native English speakers are hopelessly lost in understanding other European languages, but Anglos with excellent vocabulary understanding may comprehend many words from the romance languages.

[Elaina]

Good Morning!

The disadvantage to asking that question to the native English speakers in this forum is that eventhough we/they are native English speakers we/they all speak/understand or have been exposed to Spanish so that Italian, Portuguese or any other similar language is undetstood to a certain degree.

I do grasp a little of German, Polish but only because I know people that speak those languages and again......I was exposed to it already.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by poli

Sometimes I understand British

[poli]

Here's an example of what and English-only speaker with a little bit of itelligence may understand from simple Spanish text:

"Si tiene problemas para leer el texto en inglés, le ofrecemos asistencia de idiomas. Para obtener ayuda, por favor llame el número de servicio al cliente que figura en su tarjeta de identificación."

These are words any halfway intelligent English speaker would understand:

problemas, texto, inglés, ofrecemos, asistencia, idiomas, obtener, por favor, número de servicio, cliente, figura, identificación

With those few words (some of which are false cognates) an English speaker my get the gist of the text.

The French version fares the best with a few more cognates than the Spanish translation. The German one however surprised me becuase it falls behind the Tagálag translation believe it or not.

[Premium]

It's just like German and Dutch, i'v never been to the Netherlands or so but i understand them well.

[JPablo]

I am native Spanish speaker... but given that I speak some English... I'd say that I was never able to understand people talking Coptic...

I was able to figure out some of the Latin in Church prayers... and some Julius Caesar letter...

I am able to follow Portuguese/Brasileiro, Italian, French... and I realized I am a lot more fluent in Catalonian than I thought...

I can follow Venezuelans (con sus "vainas"), Colombians, Mexicans, Chileans, Argentinians and Uruguayans... even people from Grana'a,

I can follow Old Spanish (Cantar de Mio Cid...) original version, edited by Colin Smith...

I know Swedish people may be able to understand The Canterbury Tales, better than British people... I guess Old English was closer to Swedish than to current English...

Interestingly enough I know some Swedish people who know British English better than many natives... (well, I guess that's questionable...)

Anyhow, there you have my 2 cents...

[carlosvilas]

JPablo, wow, you can understand almost all languages known to mankind

[JPablo]

Ha-ha... Not really...

If you read "The Professor and the Madman" (a very nice novel by Simon Whinchester on the Making of the OED, the Oxford English Dictionary) and check on the Curriculum Vitae of the first Editor of that dictionary, (James Murray) you'll be duly impressed...

[caliber1]

I worked with a guy from Jamaica and he'd sometimes talk on the phone in what I believe is calle Creo? I could understand the main idea of the conversation. I also speak fluent pig Latin

[Villa]

Originally Posted by carlosvilas

I have a weird question for the native English speakers of the forum!

Are there any other languages that you think you may be able to understand even if you didn't take one single lesson on them?

For example, I've never studied Italian or Portuguese but when I talk with people from those countries I'm able to figure out what they're saying, probably because the roots of the three languages are the same. But it doesn't work with German, or Chinese

Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

I'm so curious about it!

When I was 20 years old I spent a month on this extremely remote Sottish island called Benbecula in the outer Herberdi Sottish islands. Girls from all over the different islands came to a dance we had. They spoke what sounded like was broken English with a heavy heavy Sottish acent. I could understand them mostly. Now were they speaking Scottish or was it a dialect of English or what? So is Scotch the closes languages to English?
And of course these girls would be speaking a very rural dialect of Scotish at that.

I have read and or been told that the English language would be very close to Dutch if it were not for the Norman French invasion of England in 1006 when the French language went into English. Somewhere between 40 to 60% of English vocabulary is Latin based because of this.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Villa

Now were they speaking Scottish or was it a dialect of English or what? So is Scotch the closes languages to English?.

They would have been speaking Scottish Gaelic, or a mixture with English. The Gaelic languages have very little in common with Germanic languages other than being Indo-European, so no, Scottish is not close to English.

[AmuletoTailandes]

Germanic Latin and Greek PLus Gaelic have seemingly different etymologies and believed to have different roots.
I speak german, Spanish, Catalan, Thai, English, Italian and understand french Dutch and Maltese (arabic based language). I am a 14 year student of Pali Sanskrit and Ancient Khmer, can read Khmer (ancient) and Laoatian and also Tamil.

I have seen that although A person who knows italian will follow spanish, or an englishman will find the right way to line up words in a phrase easier in french than in german (which is backwards order to english for construction of sentences in grammar), that person will not be able to follow germanic based or Gothic based languages or Gaelic Celtic based ones such as Nordic or french.

Although these massive differences in the three or four major language barriers we have with hundreds of languages within each groups (romanian spanish italian etc in one latin basket) etc

But as i studied one of our oldest languages of 5000 year old texts
i found out something that is unified to all these 3 or 4 differing language groups

they all arose from the indus river and the Hindu vedic Sanskrit language
trai Mas means in Thai a special blessing made on amulets.
It really comes from Pali 'dtrai Maas'
meaning three months
the word trimester is english with roots in latin
trai mas and tri mester
three months
the blessing ceremony takes three months of rainy retreat by the monks to bless the amulets in their hut each evening
the rainy retreat is 3 months long

so drei monate = 3 moths german
tres mois = french
tres meses
tre mesi = italian
three months
tri mester

in sanskrit
1 = ek
2 = twee
3 = tree

twee - deux - two - due - dos - duo - twee (Dutch) twenty

someone who learns two languages in each of the major 'hard to find the connection between' groups, and then studies Pali Sanskrit, will see the big picture, where our languages came from, and how all etymology developed and changed into groups as time passed and peoples distanced each other

now when we see the word traimas and trimester, and think of all the 2500 years of pali and 5000 years of Sanskrit between then and now, and the similarity between english that came after hundreds of culture invasions and human evolution and language changes, is still so similar to its ancient root word, that one must stand and astound oneself at how this has managed to remain so deeply present within a series of ever changing and developing languages

I understand Spanish better than speak Spanish

This is a myth. If you speak any Spanish at all your ability to speak Spanish will always be better than your ability to understand; which is probably true for all languages. The reason is simple. The Native Speaker of any language will always have a much larger and varied vocabulary than you not to mention all the dialects, slang, idiomatic expressions and accents that are out there just waiting to make comprehension harder than speaking. When you speak Spanish you are in control of the word choice; when you are listening to a Spanish speaker the opposite is true, thereby making understanding much more complicated than simply speaking.

So why do some people think they can understand Spanish better. The fact is there are literally thousands of words that are similar and/or identical in Spanish and English. What the person is hearing is something like this.

Blah, blah, blah, a word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize.
OR
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, CONTROL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, STUDENT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OEPRATION

The words: Control, Student and Operation exist in Spanish and English

It is because of these words that exist in both language that the new student is fooled into thinking their comprehension is better than it actually is.

Originally Posted by carlosvilas

I have a weird question for the native English speakers of the forum!

Are there any other languages that you think you may be able to understand even if you didn't take one single lesson on them?

For example, I've never studied Italian or Portuguese but when I talk with people from those countries I'm able to figure out what they're saying, probably because the roots of the three languages are the same. But it doesn't work with German, or Chinese

Does it happens to you with English and any other languages, as for example German or something?

I'm so curious about it!

[Villa]

Originally Posted by William Murphy

I understand Spanish better than speak Spanish

This is a myth. If you speak any Spanish at all your ability to speak Spanish will always be better than your ability to understand; which is probably true for all languages. The reason is simple. The Native Speaker of any language will always have a much larger and varied vocabulary than you not to mention all the dialects, slang, idiomatic expressions and accents that are out there just waiting to make comprehension harder than speaking. When you speak Spanish you are in control of the word choice; when you are listening to a Spanish speaker the opposite is true, thereby making understanding much more complicated than simply speaking.

So why do some people think they can understand Spanish better. The fact is there are literally thousands of words that are similar and/or identical in Spanish and English. What the person is hearing is something like this.

Blah, blah, blah, a word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, another word I recognize.
OR
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, CONTROL, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, STUDENT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, OEPRATION

The words: Control, Student and Operation exist in Spanish and English

It is because of these words that exist in both language that the new student is fooled into thinking their comprehension is better than it actually is.

Molto interessante Guillermo. Ma che ne dici di questo? Ops, I was thinking in Italian. You got me to thinking about the order a person learns a second language/new language or even a first language. The order of learning a language is:
Also you could think of it as the normal way or natural way of learning a language is:

1. understanding (for understanding a language you have to listen to the language a lot)
2. speaking
3. reading
4. writing

So according to this theory a person must be able to understand a language before she/he can speak the language. (Not counting saying catch phrases of course but actual conversation.) Then before you can read a language you need to be able to know how to speak a language and then to be able to effectively write a language you have to be able to know how to read the language.

Of course this does not mean you can not use written language as a guide to learning a language but you can't pronounce the words well without knowing how to speak the language.(try reading French out loud without knowing how to speak French.)Spanish and Italian for that matter if you don't speak them.) Spanish and Italian have similar vowels sounds making them some what easy to read as compared to French with it's silent letters and different vowels sounds etc. etc.

Along with this there is what they call "the silent period" of learning a language. A time when the words are just not coming automatically out of your mouth. Normally for an English speaker in a total immersion or semi-total immersion situation this silent period lasts anywhere from 3 to six months. During the silent period you should be listening to your second language constantly and of course also studying the language. This has happened to me with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Originally Posted by Perikles

They would have been speaking Scottish Gaelic, or a mixture with English. The Gaelic languages have very little in common with Germanic languages other than being Indo-European, so no, Scottish is not close to English.

Hola Perikles. Gracias for responding to me.

Was doing some searching on the internet and found this below. Not saying it's true but what do you think of it?

"Scots is closest to English, in fact you could say it's an English dialect, though it has more Scandinavian words like bairn [from Viking times] than standard English.
English is a Germanic language. After Scots, the closest is probably Dutch, then Low German, then High German.
Gaelic and Welsh are completely separate - they are Celtic languages. Welsh is called p-Celtic and Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are q-Celtic. Words that begin with a p- in Welsh often begin with a c- in Gaelic. But none of them are close to English at all. Hurray!"

Also I remember reading somewhere that if the French Normans had not invaded England or conquered England in 1066 then English would today be a lot like the Dutch language. Have you ever heard of that? Therefore maybe Dutch is the closest language to English. Also have you heard before that 1066 is the most important date as far as how the English language was effected? Latin French went into English and somewhere around 40 to 60% of English vocabulary comes from Latin by the way of French. And of course since Spanish, Italian and Portuguese come from Latin they also have these same cognate words related to English as French does.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Villa

"Scots is closest to English, in fact you could say it's an English dialect, though it has more Scandinavian words like bairn [from Viking times] than standard English..

Well, it depends what you mean by Scots - I was assuming a Gaelic influence or even root.

And I agree about 1066. Thank god the Normans won!

[Villa]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Well, it depends what you mean by Scots - I was assuming a Gaelic influence or even root.

And I agree about 1066. Thank god the Normans won!

jajajajajajajajajajajajaja...hahahahahahahahahahah a... I laughed twice.
Once in Spanish and then again in English.
De todas maneras estoy 100% de acuerdo contigo amigo. Gracias a Dios por los franceses! jajajajajajajajajajajaja...

A proposito/BTW Perikles. I have a very good book for learning Spanish that's based entirely on this 1066 French into English concept. The book is called "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish." It has an interesting preface to it that goes like this:

"At this very moment you already know several thousand Spanish words even if you have never seen or heard a Spanish word before. You are not too aware of these words simply because they have not been pointed out to you. In this book I;m going to show you how easy it is to lern Spanish by showing you how much you already know. (All because of 1066.)
For instance, have you ever seen these Spanish words that look like English:

popular, capital animal hotel, radio, conductor, probable cable, actor ideal flexible, central, medicina, optimista, dentista, presidente, importante, restaurante, artista, confusion, atractivo, dramatico, Pacifico, Atlantico, permanente etc. etc.

The book goes on to pointing all these thousands of words out to you in groups according to their ending such as tion=cion, al, ble, ic, ent, ant, cal=co and on and on. They it teaches you Spanish phrases/sentences and verbs this way. All this posible because of what happened in 1066.

[JPablo]

@Perikles
Yes, but remember that battles were not won by the people who were right... but by the people who were left.

[Villa]

Originally Posted by JPablo

@Perikles
Yes, but remember that battles were not won by the people who were right... but by the people who were left.

jajajajajajajajajajajajaj...for those who don't understand that hahahahahahahahahahaha...

Good one amigo JPablo. Speaking of 1066 and the French that one is a double entendre?