Aug. 27th, 2004 10:57 pm
¿Comprende?
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muckefuckAs much as I love talking about language, I dislike having to answer the question, "So, how many languages do you speak?" I suppose some people think that I'm just being difficult or showing off when I hedge and ask for qualification of such a simple, straightforward question. But, really, the question is anything but straightforward.
For most monolinguals, speaking another language is a mysterious talent, like the ability to paint or cook a gourmet meal. It's also binary: Either you can do it or you don't. At best, they recognise a simple continuum, from the half-forgotten smattering of French they had to take in college through the kitchen Spanish of their transplanted Cuban friend to the total fluency of a bicultural scholar. They don't realise what a tricky, context-dependent beast they're dealing with.
Language ability isn't one skill, it's four--speaking, comprehension, writing, and reading--and one's command of each can vary wildly for a given language. It may be harder to see how someone could write a language they can't speak than to understand how they could comprehend a language they can't read, but both are possible. Laurie Anderson even has a wickedly funny bit about speaking a language she can't understand. (As she tells it: "Lately I've been giving concerts in French. The trouble is, I can't actually speak French. I mean, my mouth is moving...but I don't really understand what I'm saying.") I experienced this once with a Czech woman, who shifted to fluid English in order to tell me an entire anecdote about her relatives in America, but seemed unable to understand the simplest English-language questions about it.
And these different skills aren't constant or consistent. A lot can come back in the right circumstances even after years of disuse, but an alien context can turn even a familiar language into a chore. A little exposure to a particular accent or dialect has a huge impact on comprehension and willingness goes a long way. I've seen people speaking different languages to each other communicate fine and those who theoretically have one in common claim that the other speaker makes no sense. Funny sociolinguistic factors come into play: People will convince themselves that they can't comprehend someone's speech because they're speaking another "language" even if this variety happens to be less distinct from the standard form of their own language than their native dialect.
So, for some of the languages I've studied, I don't really know how much of them I can speak. My recently-acquired Mandarin has yet go through a serious field test and the same is true of my vestigial Korean, hardly used in a decade. Could I hold a conversation in French? Maybe; I seem to catch a fair bit of movie dialogue when I give it some effort. A little study might make a big difference, too; two days of intensively reviewing Spanish irregular verbs would completely change how I speak that language. (I try to avoid the unpredicable preterites that I've memorised only in spurts and never mastered. Tengo-tuve, but pongo...puve? Puse? Puné?)
As a result, any answer I give turns out either to be a capsule history of my entire linguistic education or an unsatisfactory oversimplification--and the latter inevitably leads to being put on the spot, when a person says, "Oh, say something in Italian!" or "Hey, Mike speaks Russian, too! You guys should talk to each other!" And when I goof it all up or refuse to perform, the response is a disappointed, "But I thought you said you knew X?" and (I imagine) a wholesale discounting of all my claims to aptitude.
For most monolinguals, speaking another language is a mysterious talent, like the ability to paint or cook a gourmet meal. It's also binary: Either you can do it or you don't. At best, they recognise a simple continuum, from the half-forgotten smattering of French they had to take in college through the kitchen Spanish of their transplanted Cuban friend to the total fluency of a bicultural scholar. They don't realise what a tricky, context-dependent beast they're dealing with.
Language ability isn't one skill, it's four--speaking, comprehension, writing, and reading--and one's command of each can vary wildly for a given language. It may be harder to see how someone could write a language they can't speak than to understand how they could comprehend a language they can't read, but both are possible. Laurie Anderson even has a wickedly funny bit about speaking a language she can't understand. (As she tells it: "Lately I've been giving concerts in French. The trouble is, I can't actually speak French. I mean, my mouth is moving...but I don't really understand what I'm saying.") I experienced this once with a Czech woman, who shifted to fluid English in order to tell me an entire anecdote about her relatives in America, but seemed unable to understand the simplest English-language questions about it.
And these different skills aren't constant or consistent. A lot can come back in the right circumstances even after years of disuse, but an alien context can turn even a familiar language into a chore. A little exposure to a particular accent or dialect has a huge impact on comprehension and willingness goes a long way. I've seen people speaking different languages to each other communicate fine and those who theoretically have one in common claim that the other speaker makes no sense. Funny sociolinguistic factors come into play: People will convince themselves that they can't comprehend someone's speech because they're speaking another "language" even if this variety happens to be less distinct from the standard form of their own language than their native dialect.
So, for some of the languages I've studied, I don't really know how much of them I can speak. My recently-acquired Mandarin has yet go through a serious field test and the same is true of my vestigial Korean, hardly used in a decade. Could I hold a conversation in French? Maybe; I seem to catch a fair bit of movie dialogue when I give it some effort. A little study might make a big difference, too; two days of intensively reviewing Spanish irregular verbs would completely change how I speak that language. (I try to avoid the unpredicable preterites that I've memorised only in spurts and never mastered. Tengo-tuve, but pongo...puve? Puse? Puné?)
As a result, any answer I give turns out either to be a capsule history of my entire linguistic education or an unsatisfactory oversimplification--and the latter inevitably leads to being put on the spot, when a person says, "Oh, say something in Italian!" or "Hey, Mike speaks Russian, too! You guys should talk to each other!" And when I goof it all up or refuse to perform, the response is a disappointed, "But I thought you said you knew X?" and (I imagine) a wholesale discounting of all my claims to aptitude.
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And I'm going to have to copy this to show to some folks who have a hard time understanding why I say I "sort of" speak Spanish, even after interpreting conferences in an amateur context. Thanks!
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And Czech is pretty consistent to pronounce, and I always know the general translation of the line, and the meaning of a few important words, but just ask me what one of those little words means - couldn't tell ya. So I wouldn't say I could SPEAK it...and yet I've sung whole operas in it.
But when someone asks what languages I "speak" I will list off the languages I've studied and add "with greatly varied degrees of facility." That's probably all they're looking for anyway.
And the answer to "Say something in Italian!" should always be "qualcosa".
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oh, that's funny.
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There are a lot of languages with very consistent letter-sound correspondence that I can read aloud with an acceptable accent even though I hardly understand a word I'm saying. Of course, I'm always busted if I hit some numerals!
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* No, I don't know why I know this. I just do. :: shrug ::
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I converse mainly with English speaking people these days, and have trouble speaking German in Real Life.
For the French I learnt in school, my understanding and reading skills are much better than speaking or writing. And due to some remnants of Latin, I can understand some Spanish and Italian. If I read Dutch, I have to say it loud to understand it, the sound shows the similarities to German.
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