When simultaneous interpreting, you do just "put your mind in that setting" and concentrate on processing what's coming in extremely fast, anticipating and guessing for things that occur in different orders in your target language. It does take a lot of concentration - if somebody asks me a question in English while I'm interpreting for a Japanese-speaker, I will block out one of the two speakers.

But translation...if it were just a matter of X = TREECONCEPT = Y, then machine translation would have been perfected long ago. In fact, you not only have different syntax to deal with, you have different ways of handling the actual concept. So in one language, a person "catches" a cold, and "is" in a sick condition; in another language the person is "dragging" a cold after them and has "become" the state of illness...the first pair is easy, since the "cold" is a noun in both cases, but the second pair involves an adjective in one language and a noun in the other...and that's just a very easy example involving clusters focused on a single word.

If the basic concepts were pre-language or in some way isolated from language, maybe, but I suspect that human beings can't actually manipulate concepts without language. (Notice I said "manipulate", you can raise up a visual image of a cup of coffee and take steps to get one, for example, but that's an extremely primitive intellectual function!).

Talking of coffee, must go and make breakfast!

On the idea of what triggers you to speak one language rather than the other...

After five years of oboe lessons in French, I still read the music in English in my head and have trouble both understanding a rapid series of notes given to me in French and naming them myself in French. Because my children are learning music in French, I try to use the French names when helping them practise (although I don't know how much help I really am as they have got used to me regularly using the wrong names).

Anyway, I went to the concert organised by Skylark in Leeds in January and to my utter amazement found that when I was rehearsing with people in the morning I kept wanting to use the French note names

I wonder whether my doubts about speaking and writing German are unfounded. Someone sent me a message on facebook in German the other day, I did my best to reply but did say I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense! It seems to be ok though

This week there was an email sent round about opportunities for visiting scientist placements at Météo-France. Unfortunately they're after people with post-doctoral research experience. I wonder if I'll ever reach that stage in my lifetime in my own language, never mind another...

My mother tongue is English. I am currently learning French and German at school, but will be giving up French next year. I would love to take both up to GCSE, but we don't have enough choices, and I couldn't give up Music

I am half Indonesian (my mum is from Jakarta) but I can't speak it. When I was very young (2 or 3) we lived there for almost a year, and at that time I could speak both languages equally easily - well, of course a 2 year old doesn't know many words, but I knew about the same amount of each. My first sentence was in Indonesian.

In the last term at school the choir has sung 3 songs, in 3 different languages - Al shlosha (Hebrew), Bist du bei mir (German) and Straighten up and Fly right. My German did help with learning the words but it was a bit depressing, I think the translation of the first bit is "If you were with me, I would go with joy, to my death" - or something like that. Of course I could be completely wrong! Unfortunately, the conductor was a trainee music teacher who couldn't speak German, and it was very very obvious when she sang it to us.

One day I will learn Italian and Spanish. (wishful thinking!)

I have the same problem - when my teacher says "No, si" I think he's contradicting himself rather than telling me to play a B!

Ah! I just did that with my Junior Guildhall choir!

I do love it when this thread gets resurrected

I have been living in Turkey for five years (although I came here for the first time about 15 years ago for a year to teach EFL - which is when I met my Turkish husband).

Now, despite living and working here I'm really slow in learning Turkish. At home we only speak English in order for my three children to be bilingual. My husband insists on us speaking English together as he finds my Turkish annoyingly slow and inaccurate. At work of course I have to speak English as I am an English teacher.

I feel stupid! I can get by, and I understand far more than I can speak. But without taking lessons (no time)and with only minimal practice opportunities available to me, how much can I expect to improve in the future? I am not a good language learner (although my pronunciation is good) and I can't speak any other languages. Any ideas from successful language learners?

Well, obviously I speak English! I studied French at school up to CSYS, but haven't used it since and have largely forgotten everything I learnt. I like to think I could pick it up again relatively quickly if I made the effort, but I'm not sure how true that is!

I studied German for a year when I was 12 (it was either that or another period of PE: the idea of extra hockey was not appealling!). I wanted to carry it on as I was actually better at German than French, but we had to study French up to the end of Standard Grade and I knew I would just get them muddled if I studied both, no matter how different they were!

I sang in a Gaelic choir for four years as a child, but as almost everyone else in the choir went to the Gaelic School and spoke the language fluently, we were never given the translations, and not much time was even spent on the pronunciation. So I just tried to learn the songs by ear, with the result that I could sing in Gaelic, but neither read the lyrics nor have any clue what I was singing!

I also took Russian classes for a semester at uni, but the pace of the class was so incredibly slow (I learnt the alphabet in a few minutes prior to starting the classes, I just found it so easy; but the rest of the class took two months of classes to learn it!) and the textbook so poorly laid out and illogical in terms of the order we learnt things that I just got bored and didn't learn anything much. However, when I went to Russia on holiday, I did try to speak a little, with my phenomenally advanced vocabulary of about twenty words. A lot of people clearly thought I was fluent probably as a result of a combination of them not being used to foreigners making an effort and my accent not being too bad. In fact I got mistaken for a local a lot, which caused problems when people tried to strike up conversations with me. I had to say "Ya nye panimayu, ya plokha gavaryu pa-rusky: ochen plokha" (I don't understand, I speak Russian badly: very badly) a lot!

I have been living in Italy for the last 3 years. Like you I work entirely in English and have few opportunities to practise (English hubby, so no opportunity to try at home either!). I realised that the only way to improve is actually to do it (speak!). Being immersed in the language will help your comprehension, as you've already found, but won't be a fast way to learn to speak. After all, you can't learn to play the piano just from listening to lots of piano music, even if it helps with other related skills (recognition, knowing if you've got it right or not...).

Like you I hoped that I'd just pick it up as I went along but this happened so slowly that in the end I took formal lessons for a couple of terms, and that made a huge difference. Maybe you could try to get a few lessons - it really does speed up the process.

But now according to BBC news, Language GCSE could be compulsory.

I grew up speaking English, but I'm [rather] fluent in French.

I am nearly fluent in some topics in Spanish, but at the moment I'm having some serious fun with languages as I'm learning pieces with English, Spanish, Italian, Latin, French, German AND Norwegian at the same time!! The good thing is that I can see my sightreading in German and French has definately improved in the last 6 months...

Don't throw away your French revision notes / phrasebooks just yet!
Good Moaning, World! French to be official language of London 2012

I've long thought that German should be compulsory for organists, even though one eighteenth-century wit remarked that life is too short to learn German

I used to have tourist level skills in French and German and did them both at AS level 5/6 years ago. I have not bothered with either since and as such my French is very rough around the edges and my German... well, we don't talk about that anymore >.<

I speak Japanese to JLPT N2-3 standard for anyone who knows what that is. For those that don't it's a 5 level multiple choice style exam designed for foreigners living in Japan. N1 is the highest, N5 is the lowest. My Kanji skills are N2 level, my general language knowledge more around N3. I can definitely read and write at a higher level than I can speak. If I ever go to Japan, I will have to pretend to be a mute!

I absolutly agree with this

My mother tongue is English but I also speak Esperanto, rusty French (passed A-level years ago), some Russian, Latin and have been learning Chinese for about 15 years.

If you don't know it, do read Mark Twain's witty and affectionate essay on the trials of learning German, "The Awful German Language". e.g.at
http://www.bergerwerbung.at/files/Potpourr..._Mark_Twain.pdf

His rueful conclusion was that German
"?.. ought to be gently and reverently set aside
among the dead languages, for only the dead have
time to learn it."

I've only spent 11 years on it so far, living in the country and full fluency still seems the other side of eternity!
But it's a lovely language, despite many people's preconceptions, and beautiful to sing in.

It's rather easier to sing in than English. And I'm English, and my German is restricted to saying 'hello' and 'goodbye', and ordering drinks!

Only another 19 years to go , then, according to Twain!!

Thanks for the link - I've spent a very happy 15 minutes laughing!

It is a beautiful language and I love the grammar. It is fantastic to sing in and sounds wonderful.
I'm in love with it!
The problem that I find is that the more I learn, the more errors I notice when I am speaking... grrrrrr.
But I am getting there and it is getting better all the time.

What I find odd is that I have been mistaken for German... now, I know I speak terribly incorrect German, so I've come to the conclusion its simply that we're more aware of our own mistakes. When I speak English, aloud, however, I'm not really concious of how often I mangle my sentences, slip into dialect, not finish a train of thought...

By constrast, every sentence I speak in German is fairly carefully formulated (except when it just pops out, which happens, alas, rarely). This means I notice when it goes wrong (or my verbs end up in very Denglish locations). The Germans (or Austrians etcetc) listening to me, however, are used to hearing (and speaking) mangled, spoken-German, so are actually less aware of it that I am.

That's a theory, anyway.

Of course, the other option, is that they're all just veryvery polite, and humouring me!

This has happened to me and I think that I speak mangled German too. However if you listen very carefully to Germans or Austrians or Swiss speaking German you can often spot errors with cases and genders. In Austria they very rarely use the accusative case with a verb of motion, using the dative for everything instead.
Another reason I think I get mistaken for German is because I am in Austria and the accent is wildly different and so people often think I am from Northern Germany because my speech is a lot clearer than the average person around here speaking the local dialect. On the other hand I have been mistaken for an Austrian and a Bavarian by North Germans and when I said I was English they were very surprised and said I had quite a strong Austrian/Bavarian accent.

Some of you already know, that German is my native language and I love it. It is a beatiful language but I was always told it is terribly hard to learn for people from other nations.

My sister, who migrated to Canada once said, German is so marvelous imprecise for her, and somehow I think she is right.

Beside german, I can speak a mangled english with canadian accent and that's it. I also learned french in school, but it was never good. I also know a few words on greek, a language I really like (especially to listen to). And I can understand a little netherlands if people talk slowly.

I'm jealous of you people who are mistaken for native speakers! The only time I'm able to fool people (in French) is if I go into playful mode and put on a terribly stereotypical accent. In day to day speech however, people generally know I'm English after a minute or so.

Mainly because I actually know how to use the subjunctive.

I get asked quite often if I'm Belgian (but never French).


What's even more infuriating is when they tell you you've got it wrong when you know that it's perfectly correct.

And along similar lines when I use a local word like "chocolatine" (instead of "pain au chocolat") in another part of France I get told that I'm using an English word.

I think it's a pity for us in England that the first (& often only) foreign language we learn is French, because it is so difficult for a lot of us to pronounce, and when pronounced badly, it is apparently almost unintelligible. I think it is quite rare for a non-native French speaker to be mistaken for French. As others have said, this does happen eg with German - a friend of mine was married to an Austrian and was often mistaken for a (subnormal, she thinks!) native German speaker from another region - perhaps because it is easier to pronounce, perhaps because there are such strong regional variations.

Another difficulty with French is that lots of people try and speak it. I have found that although my French is much better than my Italian, in Italy I get "rewarded" for trying - people are really impressed you make an effort, and are patient and flattering - which has not been my experience in France. I did however make a minor breakthrough in French pronunciation when I decided to talk like a hammy extra on "'Allo, Allo". That really is the Way Forward!

At the moment I am trying to learn ancient Greek and that is quite a challenge (when people ask me why, my excuse is that it is slightly more useful than Sudoku). Anyone else struggling with it? I'm in my 3rd year, not that you would know.

PatC

Let's all learn Esperanto and talk to the world!! I am a qualified Esperanto teacher and offer a 12-lesson introductory course to anyone who is interested. How it works is that we send you lesson 1 which you study and return together with a stamped addressed envelope. I will then check your lesson 1 and return it to you together with the next lesson in your envelope. This continues until you finish lesson 12, at which point you will receive a certificate of course completion. The course covers all the grammar and a basic vocabulary. After that, we can recommend further courses but really all you will need is a dictionary to increase vocabulary because you will have learnt all the grammar. A tutor will also be available (free!) for telephone conversations and any questions. The course itself is FREE, apart from the stamped addressed envelopes. For more information, or to request lesson 1, please PM me with your full name and postal address.

Do you speak fluent Soduko?

When my younger daughter was about six she had a DVD of something (I've now forgotten what) which you could watch in lots of different languages. After she'd watched it lots of times in English and French she worked her way through all the other languages and decided that the language she really loved was Shopi and that this was the language she wanted to learn when she was older (my elder daughter had just started Spanish at school).

For those of you who don't know (like me at the time - I had to go and look it up) Shopi is a Bulgarian dialect.

My finest hour abroad (I may have mentioned it before) was when I was asked by a couple of stunning young Italian ladies, in Italian, the route to the nearest beach. I answered in Italian and was thanked for the info. One young lady asked me which part of Italy I came from, and I admitted that "sono Inglese".

She then spoke in pretty good English and said that my accent was good.

Boy, was a middle aged man flattered!

Ancient greek is really a challenge, even more than german I think. Over here you have to do a degree in ancient greek if you study theology. As my husband is good in latin and ancient greek I realised it helps a lot in understanding of foreign words.
Funnily once a greek woman I know said, whe should go to greece with my husband being good in ancient greek, because they need teachers for ancient greek over there.

My parents once asked for directions in Greek and got a reply in German!

I can only pass for Japanese on the phone - brown hair and blue eyes are a bit of a giveaway in the flesh! And I suspect that it only works on the phone when the other party is a bit deaf...

When I was in high school, I was delighted to have a French customer approach me and ask if I could speak French. I responded with more enthusiasm than style, but somehow we managed to find what she wanted...laxatives! Definitely made all my study worthwhile ...maybe?!

I speak a little Polish and have weekly lessons. Living here does make it a lot easier to pick up. Annoyingly, when my Polish girlfriend lived in Scotland with me, she was constantly being asked where she learned Polish as her English was so good. One friend remarked it was better than mine. She wasn't kidding.

Once, when I was working in Paris, a young couple stopped me and asked (in French) for directions. I started to tell them, also in French. After about two minutes of my rambling the girls said "You are English aren't you? So are we!"

Anything like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRfRaSSjsa0...be_gdata_player

Oh my g0d. My life has found its way onto YouTube.

This is amazing!!!

Bengali (*technically* my first language, but nearly lost now... ) and Spanish (studied in school for years since I'm American, but not very efficiently/effectively) for me ... I would love to become properly fluent in either! (or both )

I wonder if Tripbod might be a way of finding such contacts, or is early music too specialised an interest?
Friends in foreign places