The University Thread, AKA The Virtual Blend Student Union Options

[Pianotastic]

I'm Pianotastic, and I'm trying to kid myself into thinking I'm still a student (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Guitar_tempo]

Hi, I'm Hayley and I'm a first year undergrad measuring the salinity of water and making pretty A1 posters on why Ben nevis is higher than Snowdon... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Absolutely DREADING the 3,500 (makes me regret this uni malarky already!) report after Xmas (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)
but getting very excited about the prospect of a house and not halls next year! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Dugazon]

Hi, I'm Hayley and I'm a first year undergrad measuring the salinity of water and making pretty A1 posters on why Ben nevis is higher than Snowdon... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Absolutely DREADING the 3,500 (makes me regret this uni malarky already!) report after Xmas (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)
but getting very excited about the prospect of a house and not halls next year! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

... and you were born the year I started Uni, which makes me feel very old. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I also did the posters, maps and measuring. Was happy though to see the back of it, I guess I only picked Geography as one of my subjects because I was interested in music ethnology and thought it was a good idea at the time (don't know what I was thinking).
Then again, it maybe was: I always got work with my local council when I was an unemployed musician, especially in noise control, which most people, including myself, found hilarious. Thankfully didn't last too long, and music worked out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[BerkshireMum]

... and you were born the year I started Uni, which makes me feel very old. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I realised this October that it was 40 years since I matriculated! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

You're-as-old-as-you-feel (ancient!) BM (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

[freda_bloogs]

I've never felt older than I am now.

[Dugazon]

I'm hoping to look at L1 language attrition in late bilinguals.

That's interesting, hope you succeed. For purely selfish reasons - I'm sure my German really sucks meanwhile (mind you, so does my English syntax every now and again), and I've only been away for 6 years. I had to host an event in German a couple of months ago, and I really struggled. It was quite embarrassing actually... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

And typing on an iPad occasionally sucks as well, typos everywhere, hope I found them all now...

[freda_bloogs]

I'm hoping to look at L1 language attrition in late bilinguals.

that's interseting, hope yousucceed. For purely selfish reasons - I'm sure my German really sucks meanwhile (mind you, so does my Eglish syntax wvery now and again), and I've only been away for 6 years. I had to host an event in German a couple of months ago, and I really struggled. It was quite embarrassing actually... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

Coming from Germany, however, I don't know if you'd qualify as a late bilingual given what wonderful language teaching you get over there. I heard horror stories about my German teacher's Abitur!

We're the group that gets overlooked in my opinion. Everyone always looks at bilingual children. Forget the kids, look at the adults. We have to go through more to get good! We all know that the kids can do it without effort and be better than us. Pssssh. Where's the science in that?!

Ok, rant over.

[Dugazon]

What horror stories?

[freda_bloogs]

She would tell us how she would be examined in front of the rest of the class at a very young age. That sounded horrific to me!

Edit: The way that I phrased that also makes it sound horrific. Not the effect I was after.

[Dugazon]

I think that's sort of unusual though, we had written and oral exams, the latter only in front of two examiners though.

I started learning English at the age of 10 though, that's true (they start even younger these days), but when do you start calling someone bilingual? I certainly had a good grasp of the language before I moved, but I was far from bilingual I guess...

I only started French two years later, but oh.my.goodness, it's horrendous these days. I understand virtually everything, but speaking? Bleurgh!

[freda_bloogs]

There's another fascinating question! Who is bilingual and who isn't? We're in danger of hijacking this thread but it's something I will happily discuss until the cows come home (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Dugazon]

Ach, they can tell us to stop, until then, I don't care (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I'll try to keep typos to a minimum, but my sausage fingers don't always hit the right keys on this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

I would say, as a pure layman, that one is only bilingual, or multilingual for that matter, if one speaks the languages in question with roughly equal fluency. And although I speak far more than two languages to a certain extent, I would never call myself multilingual. The only ones that are roughly even at the moment are German and English. With German at danger to become less fluent actually, although it's L1. I think in English, but I still count in German - someone once told me this was an almost surefire way to find out L1, but I wonder if this is still true after decades. I can keep you posted (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[freda_bloogs]

So in order to be bilingual you have to attain a level of language that is equal to that of your native tongue? Does that mean then that as my English gets worse, I don't have to be quite as good at French to be deemed bilingual? Surely that defeats the object! In many respects, I wouldn't say that I'm perfectly fluent in either language. I don't know if this is due to me learning to think and therefore not being quite so hasty in my speech or because I have twice as many words in there to deal with. I'm working on an experiment at the moment that's looking at inhibition as a predictor for language ability. I wonder if I'm not a very good lexical inhibitor, meaning that my English slows as I select the right word. I don't know. Unfortunately I can't be tested as I'm not a naive subject (and the materials are for AmEn/Fr speakers).

Some say that only true bilinguals are those who've learned from birth, pre-critical period (which Lenneberg says is about 12). I want to disagree with that. I'm throwing in with a model developed by David Green. He posits that it's only to do with time. If you spend as much time on an L2 as you have with your L1 then you can become equally as proficient. The thing is that it is difficult to catch up as you get older - if you start learning, say, German at age 18, then English will always have an 18-year head start on you. However, if you start at 4, there's only a 4-year gap. Adults will find it harder to stop using their L1 altogether, meaning overall less practice time even when they attempt to try to close the gap, whereas children have less reason to keep hold of a language.

Basically, I'm not giving up hope just yet!

[heslop01]

Probably fill supermarket shelves or pull pints like so many graduates.

Are you being comforted by this thread, btw? because I don't think I would be! It's full of people with more degrees than you could shake a stick at, and the message seems to be "stress?! Wait 'til you're on your 3rd PhD!" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

Granted, but also at the same time I have uncontrolled seizures and can't sleep a lot because my form of epilepsy along with the medication.

I have plans for the work I want to do, I want to work in the music industry in Europe, being an avid lover of speaking foreign languages and already being able to conversationally speak in French, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese and a high level of Spanish will be of very much use to what I want to do.

[Dugazon]

So in order to be bilingual you have to attain a level of language that is equal to that of your native tongue? Does that mean then that as my English gets worse, I don't have to be quite as good at French to be deemed bilingual? Surely that defeats the object! In many respects, I wouldn't say that I'm perfectly fluent in either language. I don't know if this is due to me learning to think and therefore not being quite so hasty in my speech or because I have twice as many words in there to deal with. I'm working on an experiment at the moment that's looking at inhibition as a predictor for language ability. I wonder if I'm not a very good lexical inhibitor, meaning that my English slows as I select the right word.

My OH always says my English is better than that of many native speakers, so we might have a point here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Just joking of course. Since I am not a linguist, I can't really word it precisely anyway...
And we have another question: When is the command of a language deemed fluent? And don't children who grow up as true bilinguals sometimes have major fluency problems in both languages, and they are sometimes even deemed being "slower" than their peers - which they aren't of course, because they virtually learn double the words, or sometimes mix and match them in a wrong way, also depending on their emotional connection, or simply another one that makes sense.

I noticed that my English syntax is sometimes German, but my German syntax is anglicised now. You would think if I am aware of it, I could change it, but it's hardly possible to process it that quickly, at least that's what it feels like. So the languages are in a weird continuum, neither one works perfectly. I sometimes think this might actually be a problem of being bilingual.

The hosting nightmare was essentially down to the fact that I sometimes couldn't think of the German word quick enough, probably because I had mainly talked about the subject in English recently. To avoid awkward silence, I tend to keep on talking and paraphrase, which doesn't always get results apart from really complicated sentences and weird Denglish. It's worse though in stressful situations like that, which makes me think that psyche definitely plays some part in this as well. You would think though you might resort to L1 under stress, but for me, that's strangely not the case anymore.