As so many of you must speak such a good English, I feel challenged to test my own ability. I haven’t been writing freely in English for a very long time, and I am really realising how much I’m loosing of this language which is my first L2-language, and one I’ve never considered much in any sense – it’s just there somehow.
Anyway, I thought it could be interesting to picture the situation that I live from a linguistic point of view. I speak mainly Spanish to my husband, some Catalan, but not much. My stepdaughter only speaks Spanish to me; she really seems incapable of switching as we started out speaking Spanish when we got to know each other. I only speak Swedish to my son, who at the moment only says about 6-7 words, all of them - except the first he started saying - in Catalan. (his very first word was “Titta” which means “look” and he has said it since he was nine months old). My husband only speaks Catalan to the children. My stepdaughter is learning some Swedish, and sometimes I say something to her in my mother tongue.
Whenever we have Swedish family or friends over, or when we visit Sweden and meet with people there – we talk English so that my husband and stepdaughter should understand. But – it is not at a very, very advanced level, and whenever necessary, we switch to Swedish or Spanish, and then I am the responsible of translating anything important. Sometimes it’s an incredible mixture between Swedish, Catalan, Spanish and English, and I sometimes turn to my best friend and explain thoroughly something, and she just smiles and says, Monica, nu pratar du spanska med mig. I sometimes don’t even notice that I’m not translating when I think I am…
Pd – I put in one post earlier that I am quite good in spelling. But, now I realise that I don’t “see” how to spell “husband”… Is it really with an a? Or is it husbund? No, that looks even funnier… It has to be with an a, then. Before I go to sleep I’ll look it up in a dictionary…
6 comentarios:
Me gusta la idea de que retomes el inglés en un blog. Además creo que nos ayudará muchísimo leerte en otra lengua, porque los otros blogs ya los estamos leyendo en catalán y español, por ende, leer en otra lengua nos hará mucho bien para agilizar nuestro cerebro.
Iré mezclando, quizas un día haré un post en sueco! Eso debe agilizar bastante, ¿no crees?
Sí, si us plau, un post en suec! I jo et repto a que entenguis el meu en llatí, tot un clàssic LoremIpsum! ;)
Monica, it is great you are writing in English. It is easier for me than reading in Catalan. I mean, I understand Catalan but sometimes I get lazy reading it (that doesn´t mean I want everybody to write in English or Spanish!!)What you were saying about losing your English... well, I must say it's happening to me too. The problem is that my English has not been always there, like yours. I had to learn it and after that I guess it became part of me after my experience in the US. There is a period in learning an L2 when you start to unlearn. That freaks me out because it is not only that I love that language, it is that teaching English is the way I get by in life... We need more input in English in this country!!!
Hola Monica!
Te escribo paradecirte que no podía estar más de acuerdo con lo que dijiste hoy en clase. Yo también prefiero la metodología tradicional, donde te dan una base gramatical antes de arrancarte a hablar.
Respeto que haya gente que prefiera saltarse la parte "aburrida".Ppero creo plenamente en que todos deberíamos tener nociones sobre la gramática, pues creo que ayuda a aprender segundas lenguas más rápidamente.
Hola!
Bueno, yo sí que lo veo así, pero - como me he formado en sistemas más tradicionales, realmente veo muy difícil llegar a aprender un idioma sin explicaciones gramaticales, o al menos, me parece que tiene que ser más lento! La combinación me parece atractiva, pero sin gramatica - no sé. Pero, quizas por que soy "destrozada" por la antigua escuela, y por eso la resistencia.... A lo largo del curso, quiza lo vea de otra forma (?aunque lo dude...?)
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