| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: Where/how did you acquire proficiency in your (non-native) source language(s)? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Natasha Cloutier 
Netherlands
Local time: 23:23
Member (2023)
Dutch to English
+ ...
| Non-native source language | Feb 5 |
I'm a native of both English and French, and learnt Russian (it's rusty, but it's there somewhere!) and some Polish at university, and learnt Dutch by emigrating to the Netherlands.
| | | | | I married a Brazilian | Feb 10 |
We decided that we would speak Portuguese at home. He vowed not to correct me for two years, but I soon corrected myself.
[Edited at 2024-02-10 11:07 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:23
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Grew up in a bilingual country. So, I guess the answer is: school. My first school was also a bilingual school.
| | | | | Language school and immersion | Feb 11 |
When I arrived in Denmark I could smile nicely and say tak - thank you - but not much more. I had to depend on Danes speaking English, and my mother-in-law tried hard, while my new husband had to interpret for the rest of the family.
My husband found a language school which divided students up according to their backgrounds. I started in a small group who could all speak English and/or German, and were therefore familiar with the alphabet and a lot of the grammar concepts. It... See more When I arrived in Denmark I could smile nicely and say tak - thank you - but not much more. I had to depend on Danes speaking English, and my mother-in-law tried hard, while my new husband had to interpret for the rest of the family.
My husband found a language school which divided students up according to their backgrounds. I started in a small group who could all speak English and/or German, and were therefore familiar with the alphabet and a lot of the grammar concepts. It was still hard work, but we could make much faster progress when the teacher could explain in English and build on what we already knew.
Over the next year I progressed through about seven months of classes three mornings a week, but I had to take a couple of breaks when I reached a ´saturation point´. (The school recommended it, and advised students individually on when to take them!) After a certain level we were only allowed to speak Danish during coffee breaks, and the teachers pretended not to understand other languages.
Reading Danish was not too difficult, as I already had English, French, Latin and German at school, but the challenge is learning to speak it and understand what others are saying! Danish has more vowel sounds than most languages (except Swedish, and Swedish is completely different). But the soft, indistinct consonants between make it all sound like a series of long slurs, quite the opposite of German, which, once you know the rules, is by comparison easy to spell and pronounce.
Those seven months of formal training taught me the basics, and otherwise it has been immersion, reading, listening and self-training, deliberately checking as needed in the spelling dictionary (Reskrivningsordbogen) and successive editions of the handbook on usage (Håndbog i Nudansk). ▲ Collapse
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