International Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Do you plan (hope) to be fluent before you return to your home land?
I hope after living here for 2 years, I will at least be conversationally fluent.
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Re: Do you plan (hope) to be fluent before you return to your home land?
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
I am a failure at the accent.
I am learning a new school system, with new terms etc though.
Bio
I am laughing because DPAM was the cause of a minor argument with DH during our househunting trip last month. I bought DD an outfit there that I couldn't resist and DH was appalled that I planned to fly back to the US with it, have her wear it here during the holidays, then pack the outfit to take back to France with us in January. Yes, when he put it that way, it made no sense whatsoever, but I was certain it wouldn't be in stores anymore in January and I wanted it, darn it!
I am going to try hard to exercise more cute-children's-clothing self control once we live there, though. Shoes, sadly, are hard to stock up on since DD's feet don't grow consistently and I can't really plan ahead.
I think when your DH can speak the language it's really easy to have them do most of the general speaking. At least it was for me. I think I would of learned a lot faster if I was in Zurich on my own or with a partner that only spoke English. I never felt the pressure to speak.
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
Not a chance. I could survive on basic things in Italy when we left, but here there is no need/chance to use Arabic. Kind of thankful since it's such a difficult language and even the basic romance languages are a challenge for my brain.
I'm going to continue attempting to learn more Tagalog since that is what DH speaks and we could teach our children.
THIS!
If I had a nickel for every time someone said "Your SO speaks the language, so you can just speak it at home and learn so quick!"
Uh, no. That sentiment makes me irrationally angry. Having a fluent spouse makes it harder, not easier, to learn.
I'm already fluent because DH's English is... limited.
I can't tell you how many times people have told him the bit about it being easier to learn English since he's got me at home! Problem is, poor teacher lady here gets home from school and simply can't deal with another couple of hours teaching English.
I disagree with that. H is a horrible teacher and half the time I wanted to pull his head off, but I made him speak in French and when we were in public he would occasionally force me to do the talking. In the US, I made him speak in English when we went out in public. It requires determination from both parts because it is super frustrating, but I have learned faster than the other girls here whose partners refuse to speak to them in French and his English is better than it used to be as well. So it isn't 'easier' per se, but it is more effective, IMO
Well, I'm basically fluent in English given that it's, you know, my native language
I never have really gotten the hang of the metric system. I know some rough conversions but I need to translate it into the American/imperial/"real" (to me, lol) system to be able to understand temperatures, distances, weights, etc. in a really meaningful and specific way. For volume, I'm actually comfortable with liters in a lot of situations since soda is sold in liters...but on the other hand I'd get confused buying gas in liters, so I dunno. I teach both to my students so I really should have it down. But I digress.
I know embarrassingly little of my H's language, Amharic. I spent an entire summer in Ethiopia and learned nothing short of hello, thank you, what is your name, and other really basic phrases like that. I can say "I love you" and "my husband is Ethiopian." I can also ask "what happened?" but that's not of much use when I can't understand the answer
It doesn't help that Amharic is a pretty obscure language. It's one of like 80 official languages of Ethiopia--it is the main one but it's not even spoken by all Ethiopians! The resources available to learn it are very limited. There's no Rosetta Stone for Amharic or anything like that. If I could get DH to teach me a few words a day and use those words in conversation, I could learn a lot more, I'm sure, but he usually says there is no point in my learning it unless we are going to live in Ethiopia. Argh. He speaks it to MiniBini so in a couple years they will have their own secret language from me if I don't get on it!
I learned Spanish in high school, I speak it fairly well and use it regularly at school to communicate with parents of students. On the first day of school I gave my kids (3/4 of the class is Hispanic, mainly from relatively recent immigrant families) a little speech. I told them in Spanish that they might be thinking they can get away with whatever they want in class because their parents only speak Spanish and I won't be able to tell them what they are up to--but I speak Spanish too, so don't count on that
Wow, I didn't realize I had a novel to write on this topic. I'm a better procrastinator than I thought.
Since I studied Spanish for 5 years before moving here I had a leg up on becoming fluent. I'd hoped to immerse myself and be fluent within a few months of moving here. Ha! That didn't happen. Turns out I am more shy than I thought.
I am pretty much fluent now even though DH and I don't speak in Spanish at home. I agree that the argument that your SO speaks it so it should be easier is annoying. We don't speak in Spanish because we got to know each other in English and now it's just too weird to try to speak in Spanish. But I have his family and friends and now mother's groups that are helping me improve.
I was told in college by my Spanish teacher that you will always do math in your native tongue, including measurements. So I think we have a lifetime of converting temps from either Fahrenheit to Celsius or vice versa, LOL.
That doesn't surprise me. I still have to add and count in English. When we bought our bed and payed in cash I was counting the money in English. The store owner gave me holy heck for not counting in Spanish, I got p***ed. If you want me to count the money properly, let me do it in my native language, buddy!