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I've always heard pillow talk was the best way to learn. (Talking about his wife, not her grandmother)
I've been trying to learn Mandarin myself lately. It's actually not near as difficult as I imagined, although the tones are tricky. But then, this is the only language I've studied that didn't have European origins.
LOL on the wife, not the grandmother! As for pillow talk see the movie The Sleeping Dictionary.
Germans can understand Swiss German just fine, they just pretend they can't.
Spoken Mandarin is relatively easy. A smart person could learn enough to get through an interview in about 9 months of daily practice. Reading and writing is another story.
Germans can understand Swiss German just fine, they just pretend they can't.
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It depends. People from south Germany can adapt fast, but not everyone.
I met a guy from Lepzig in Zurich, he told me he understood only 10% of Zurich dialect.
How did he do? I get the feeling he struggled through it pretty hard. I don't understand Chinese, but I can get by with Japanese.
When my daughter decided to study languages, I advised her to take up a non-Western-European language because it would serve her better. She took Russian and Mandarin the first year, and then stuck with Mandarin because she said it was so easy, and Russian was so hard. She graduated with degrees in Mandarin and Linguistics. She now teaches English in Beijing. I guess "hard" or "easy" is a matter of perspective!
Germans can understand Swiss German just fine, they just pretend they can't.
Spoken Mandarin is relatively easy. A smart person could learn enough to get through an interview in about 9 months of daily practice. Reading and writing is another story.
If my experience speaking English to Germans was any indication, they tend to undersell. "Sprechen sie Englisch?" Then they get a little nervous and say "oh, a little". And then their English is freakin' perfect! Easier to understand them than a lot of people in UK/Ireland who claim to have invented the language
When my daughter decided to study languages, I advised her to take up a non-Western-European language because it would serve her better. She took Russian and Mandarin the first year, and then stuck with Mandarin because she said it was so easy, and Russian was so hard. She graduated with degrees in Mandarin and Linguistics. She now teaches English in Beijing. I guess "hard" or "easy" is a matter of perspective!
My kids started in a Mandarin immersion program in Kindergarten. They pick it up so fast starting so young. I've learned some helping with homework, and them teaching me.
As for dialects, that's nothing new, even in the U.S. Why do they need subtitles on "Honey Boo-Boo"?
If my experience speaking English to Germans was any indication, they tend to undersell. "Sprechen sie Englisch?" Then they get a little nervous and say "oh, a little". And then their English is freakin' perfect! Easier to understand them than a lot of people in UK/Ireland who claim to have invented the language
This is true. A lot of native speakers just break down the language and bastardize the grammar to the point of sounding like uneducated trash. Northwestern Europeans learn it young and in a formal way so they end up sounding way more intelligible in English than a lot of people you live around. Go figure.
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