Text 21383, 87 rader
Skriven 2008-09-29 13:23:30 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 21365 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Languages
=================
29 Sep 08 11:11, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Sunday September 28 2008 at 13:02:

 RB>>> True. It's a little like the languages: similar in some respects,
 RB>>> but by no means identical. As mentioned, I'm fluent in German but
 RB>>> Dutch just "sounds familiar".

 RW>> I hear German spoken around here all the time. It's becoming to
 RW>> sound more and more familiar, like when my great-grandfather spoke
 RW>> it when I was a child.

 RB> I wouldn't count on the German people use in New Braunfels being much
 RB> like what is now spoken in Germany. The Texas-New York analogy you
 RB> cited in another message probebly comes closer in this case. Probably
 RB> something similar to the French spoken in Montreal and Paris.

Of course. The German used in my home town wasn't any different, but
immigrants knew what was being said, as did the Germans who had been there
for a while.

 RB>>> As for their knowledge of English - incidently, according to what
 RB>>> you have written up to now, I still don't know if the wife is
 RB>>> German or American - big deal.

 RW>> She was born in the states, but lived in Europe since her teen
 RW>> years. She met and married, then they both went to school in Germany
 RW>> and elsewhere in Europe.

 RB> I learned German when I was 18 and came to the country when I was 24.
 RB> Also born in the States. So you see why I stil remain sceptical about
 RB> these claims that the pair are somehow fluent in Dutch.

Maybe you had a barrier to learning it. She didn't. I would think that a
person who teaches German at a university must have a better grasp on the
language than even some Germans. It would be like the American English you
see written here sometimes. Bad grammar, spelling, etc...

 RW>> I suspect that being teens and living in Germany during the sixties,
 RW>> they were into what teens do, such as smoke marijuana. Where could
 RW>> you get that in the sixties; Amsterdam?

 RB> It was only legalized there later, in the mid-70s as I remember. But
 RB> stuff like that wasn't ever particularly hard to come by even in
 RB> Germany.

It's never been legalized here, yet it's available on any street corner if
you look for it. I think it was more prolific in the 60s.

 RB>>> But you still haven't mentioned how many years they both lived in
 RB>>> the Netherlands to learn Dutch.

 RW>> They're in their 60s and have been in the US for 10+ years. I don't
 RW>> know their complete history.

 RB> As an aside, why did they come to the States? That's a hard decision
 RB> to make, to uproot and emigrate in your 50's. And why Texas, of all
 RB> places?

I have no idea, but I'll ask when I see them.

 RB>>> Unless you're holding this back intentionally to get a rise out of
 RB>>> the European fido community, this claimed knowledge of Dutch simply
 RB>>> because someone is fluent in German is - for me - a myth.

 RW>> Could be the marijuana influenced their learning curve. :o)

 RB> As I note, I doubt it.

If you knew anything about the drug, you would know that it isn't possible
to be a user and learn at the same time. At least not to your best
ability.

 RB> Naturally, I can't exclude the possibility that these two are
 RB> linguistic geniuses like the former girlfriend I mentioned elsewhere,
 RB> who learned Hungarian from books and a few visits, but that was
 RB> something pretty remarkable and by no means the usual situation.

Rose Stone, or is that Well Stone, claims to be able to teach you to be a
conversationalist in a foriegn language in weeks.

                R\%/itt



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