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The only other thing that comes to mind is....
Discipulos osculo puella qui in ludum advenit (may not all be spelt correctly)! |
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Domina Faye, praestantem euge.
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On holiday in Malta years ago, they were having a bingo session around the hotel pool area.
The bingo caller mispronounced a word, and everybody laughed. The bingo caller took the hump, and snapped back, ''I can speak five languages how many can you speak.'' And a voice in the audience shouted - ''just the one, and it's the only bugger that matters.'' |
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Hey, Dr. Did you go down "The Gut", in Valetta?
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I know Valetta a bit Kenny but I don't know the Gut.
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Actually I was on the Ryanair site yesterday. Fly out to Malta 2 Oct £21.61, come back 9 Oct £26.71
That's less than £50 return from Birmingham.. |
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It is called Strait Street and leads downhill to the harbour for about 350 yards. Quite an experience (or it was in '74) Unbeknown to us the red light area.
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here it is, well past its heyday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEdy03NG20k |
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We've often walked down to the ferry point to cross over to Sliema, we must have gone a different way.
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I think the Grand harbour is on the other side of Valetta though.
So that explains it. |
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Did you do any business while you were there by the way Kenny?
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ha ha, no, the only time i did business was when me and the 2 pals went to a trotting donkey race and i backed the fav.
Was tempted though in all honesty. The Maltese girls were stunning. |
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We stayed in Sliema, and a girl at the hotel was celebrating her 21st. One of her friends was Dom Mintoff's neice who I got very friendly with if you know what I mean.
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Shocking behaviour kenny, no wonder the Brits have got a bad name abroad.
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It gets even worse,Dr. some years earlier, a Douglas constable threatened to put my pals and I on the first boat back to Liverpool the following day if we didn't stop singing so loudly.
Alioqui grata loqui tecum. Est scrinia, forma studere. |
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I was talking to a Maltese over there about five years ago who said he'd married an English woman and had lived in London for many years.
Now they've moved to live in Malta since England became a tip. He said what you need in Britain is a strong government, who aren't afraid to upset minorities for the good of the majority. I thought yes and Malta isn't doing so well these days since they joined the Euro. They're pricing themselves out of the tourist market with many hotels closed down. They've also got a problem with immigrants just like the rest of the EU shower. |
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I was looking at the new block of apartments where he lived and he invited in to look.
They lived on the bottom floor, completely shaded from the sun. It was a boiling hot day and as soon as I entered his place I went cold. I though what a place. Live in a warm country and have to put the heating on in the summer, while outside it's hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement. Buyers beware. |
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caveat emptor indeed, won't affect me, sadly destined to be hatched , matched and despatched in Bradford.
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Blackbarn is right, you can learn a language as an adult. Although I spent three years at school conjugating French verbs and declining Latin nouns and adjectives, I understood very little of either language.
Eventually, I went to work in France and learnt the language as a child does, by listening and repeating phrases without academic consideration of sentence structure. This is by far the best way to do it. Screaming also highlighted a useful function of having some knowledge of Latin and Greek as it helps understand English vocabulary especially scientific terms. |
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Wasn't there a bloke who taught celebrities and movie stars a quick way to learn a language like that Foinavon, they reckoned he had them speaking a foreign language in no time.
He said because the method he used was unorthodox and teachers weren't interested in getting people to speak a language without learning it properly, the technique was likely to die with him. |
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Seems to me you were learning a language there the same way you did in school foinavon
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What was the difference again?
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Now the question is how did you learn French just by being in France
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Maybe you knew the words , many of them , had been taught them in school
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Having said that I can read French , it’s much easier to read but you didn’t know you could speak French as well until you go there and live there
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I think you knew French before you went , but didn’t know you knew it
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French is an easy language to learn but it's completely pointless.
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I thought Spanish was easier
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Not entirely pointless my nephew speaks it and he’s married to a Spanish girl : )
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he was taught Spanish at his school I think , and worked in Spain
So again that seems to be the classic and easiest way to learn |
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I think I’ve solved it !
Maybe it’s the possibility of making friends , and making money that makes it easier to learn a language |
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Look at it this way.
Our parents teach us to speak, and they had no training in teaching. Yet a teacher wouldn't get us speaking as quickly as our parents did. Why is this? Possibly because our parents weren't concerned with grammar or stuff like that, they only wanted to get us communicating as fast as possible. They left the English lessons to the schools we went to. But what a start that gave us. |
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A lot of posts there lfc.
Let me explain. The little French I learned at school was useless, I visited France a couple of times before I went there to live and couldn't understand a word anyone said. If I painstakingly constructed a question, I couldn't understand the reply. Learning to conjugate a verb is not how people speak, you knew nothing about grammar when you learnt English, you listened, absorbed, then after a while you started to speak. You used the constructions, phrases and dialects of those around you. It was only after you could communicate effectively that you learned anything about nouns verbs or tenses at school. Living in an environment where I only heard French spoken I soon picked it up and spoke grammatically correct sentences by repeating what I had heard. It works and it works well. You notice that foreigners who come here to work in our shops offices and businesses soon pick up the language whereas some who stay in their own communities don't, even after decades. You need the exposure and the motivation to learn. |
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Yes Foinavon I agree completely.
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yes I understand that foinavon , the doc , and there is of course some truth in it
But quite honestly I think my theory is closer to the truth : ) |
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I will tell you why , I think the motivation is largely subconscious
What people are doing outside school is trying to make friends , get a job , make money have sex ( not in your case foin you were married ) But these are subconscious but very powerful forces And that’s why the brain makes sure you learn to speak |
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Thanks Dr, our previous posts crossed.
French is superfluous to most people but France is our nearest neighbour and if when you go there you can communicate in French you will have a better experience. I found the language not only useful in France but in Spain and Italy too where it is readily understood by many people. |
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When you are in a foreign country then your subconscious brain starts to register
It is something that is almost inevitable , it happens without you even knowing |
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The purpose of language is to communicate, lfc, which is where the motivation comes in. I wasn't married when I went to work in France by the way, it was a long time ago.
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yes that’s what I mean , it is the motivation
That is the difference , it’s not about teaching methods at all really It is simply an evolutionary drive , as a child that is to be feed and comforted whatever When you are older it’s money and work and friendship and of course sex That need to learn a new language to achieve these things is largely subconscious But that is what drives you to learn so quickly |