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Do/did your parents learn languages?

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yaboycon
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 1 of 28
24 December 2011 at 5:27pm | IP Logged 
I watched that youtube series from Dr.Arguelles about the different language series. He mentioend his dad being a polyglot in a few of them. I imagine this is where he drew his inspiration from?

Do your parents learn languages or did they at one time? Are your parents, brothers, sisters multilingual? Did it inspire you?

My mother spoke zulu before she could speak English and my dad spoke afrikaans before he could speak English. However English is their native language. They don't speak these languages around the house and I imagine they have lost a bit over the years. My mom can still speak zulu though. When we go back home she can speak zulu to the maid for example. My dads parents arent even of dutch origin so I have no idea why or how he learnt afrikaans before English. His parents dont speak it around the house. I dont really know what happened there. So basically their multilinguism never really inspired me and they never actively learnt a language.
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anjathilina
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 2 of 28
24 December 2011 at 6:16pm | IP Logged 
When he was in his forties and I was in jr. high, my then-monolingual dad decided to
learn Russian. Suddenly the house was filled with Russian music and movies, and Russian
friends my dad suddenly found somehow. :) My interest in languages had started before
that, but that certainly made an impression. Dad continues to work on perfecting his
Russian.
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yaboycon
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 28
24 December 2011 at 6:27pm | IP Logged 
anjathilina wrote:
When he was in his forties and I was in jr. high, my then-monolingual dad decided to
learn Russian. Suddenly the house was filled with Russian music and movies, and Russian
friends my dad suddenly found somehow. :) My interest in languages had started before
that, but that certainly made an impression. Dad continues to work on perfecting his
Russian.


but you do not studdy russian yourself? You have no desire to?
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 4 of 28
24 December 2011 at 6:29pm | IP Logged 
My dad was born in 1943, had maybe three years of English in school (back then...), but has been actively interested in anglophone music and movies ever since, and corresponds regularly with people from USA and UK. My mom has studied some German in addition to English.
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Bao
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 Message 5 of 28
24 December 2011 at 6:41pm | IP Logged 
Mother's side of the family. The women of my father's side are bi- or trilingual as well. During my primary school years, my mum studied Spanish at university and she had a boyfriend who was more or less fluent in seven languages. (Sadly, that is about the only good thing I can say about him.)

So, I didn't grow up using several languages but I did grow up believing that it was more or less natural to learn several languages.
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NickJS
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United Kingdom
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Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese

 
 Message 6 of 28
24 December 2011 at 6:56pm | IP Logged 
I don't think my parents ever studied any languages, my brother apparently studied German
for quite some time though. Other than that I think I'm the only person in the whole of
my family with an interest in languages.

However I mainly grew up with bilingual friends all my life though, but my parents did
not, so I do not think they ever felt the need/urge to learn a language. They still
manage to inspire me though by taking an interest (sometimes).
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mikonai
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Speaks: English*, Italian
Studies: Swahili, German

 
 Message 7 of 28
24 December 2011 at 7:01pm | IP Logged 
My parents learned Swahili in six-month intense language school in order to be
missionaries. Unfortunately I wasn't old enough for the whole time we were in East Africa
to pick up very much, and honestly I wasn't really interested at the time (We were there
for four years, though, and I was only ten when we arrived back in the States). They
still speak it now and then around the house, if they don't want us kids to readily
understand what they're saying, or else if a friend from Africa calls.

I can't say whether or not it made me want to learn a language or not, but Swahili is
definitely on my hit list now, and it probably doesn't hurt either that my mother is a
Speech Language Pathologist and loves usage of the English language, so I've grown up
with the enjoyment of the language I already do speak, with all of its oddities.
1 person has voted this message useful



anjathilina
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin
Studies: Hindi

 
 Message 8 of 28
24 December 2011 at 7:35pm | IP Logged 
yaboycon wrote:
anjathilina wrote:
When he was in his forties and I was in jr.
high, my then-monolingual dad decided to
learn Russian. Suddenly the house was filled with Russian music and movies, and Russian
friends my dad suddenly found somehow. :) My interest in languages had started before
that, but that certainly made an impression. Dad continues to work on perfecting his
Russian.


but you do not studdy russian yourself? You have no desire to?


I did study Russian back in the day, inspired by my dad. It's a beautiful language and
I love the Cyrillic alphabet. But my high school didn't offer Russian, so I took
Japanese, loved it, went to Japan as an exchange student... and since then the people
I've encountered and places I've been have led me to be more interested in other
languages. I doubt I'll get back to Russian, because there are so many other languages
I want to learn that have edged it back in my list, but you never know!


1 person has voted this message useful



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