so do i
so do i
There is a person from the royal Gamedze family of Swaziland (I think a nephew or something--he's considered a prince) who studies languages in University and can speak fluently something like 10 or 11 of them. What makes this interesting is that when he was studying hebrew he became so inspired by Jewish teachings that he left the royal house and became a well known rabbi in Jerusalem!
In order of ability:
English (native)
Uzbek/Russian (tie)
Spanish (have forgotten most of it)
The following is somewhat off topic but I'm not going to begin a new thread:
I took four years of high school Spanish, yet upon arriving to college in the fall of 2002 decided to pursue area studies which fascinated me so I focused on post-Soviet Central Asia and began learning Uzbek (took another three years of Spanish to fulfill my requirements and be done with it).
At my university, I have witnessed the boom of post-9/11 security studies education. When I was a freshman the International Studies department had ~200 majors (maximum). When I graduated in June 2006, the number had ballooned to 800, with approximately 60-65% security track students coupled with either Chinese or Arabic. Now, there's nothing wrong with learning either Mandarin or Arabic. But the trend, as I've seen it, is for bright eyed students to enroll in either language believing that by just doing so they're entitled to a high ranking, classified government position upon graduation (it can be said that this sense of entitlement is increasingly found in all undergrad fields).
In sum, I'm troubled by students choosing to study certain languages because they're (arguably) chasing a veritable market fad.
I wonder why "Nagovisi" is called "Sibbe"? Your answer may or may not trigger some additional thoughts to this forum...
Fluent: Just english
Conversation level: Spanish, Mandarin
Basic (I'd estimate ~100 words): Japanese
Native languages: English, Spanish
Fluent (whatever that means): German
Conversational: Turkish, Hungarian, Polish
Currently trying to learn: French, Arabic
I learned all my foreign languages while living in the respective countries and didn't start learning a language until leaving college - speaking Spanish always got me out of any requirements in high school or college. Since I started studying Arabic and French independently without the opportunity for immersion, I've gained a great respect for anyone who can learn a language on their own. Comparing independent studying with immersion, grammar and vocabulary takes me three or four times as long to learn. More power to anyone that's taught themselves a language.
I too spent 63 weeks at the Presidio for Arabic. I loved it. 8 hour school day, translation (typically news casts) homework every night, chatting amongst fellow students in the afternoons and evenings. Professors spoke exclusively in language, so the total immersion concept was fairly-well implemented during the school day. We did learn Modern Standard Arabic, but were broken down into dialects for speaking and listening courses. Honestly, I know it's letsrun, so not a big pro-military crowd, but nowhere else can you get paid full-time to learn a language, and enjoy the atmosphere, especially Monterey, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, what a deal!
After graduating, I also got to spend 2 months in Morocco in a total immersion program, and had a different type of immersion in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, but for less enjoyable reasons. I was an interrogator and Counter-Intel guy, so got more personal interaction with the locals than the voice-intercept guys.