Does anybody know of any other Americans that speak another language relatively well? Do show the links!
It's definitely INSPIRING to see that fellow Americans can speak French, or German, or something like that. It gives me hope that I can reach the same, or even a more advanced level one day.
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject: Re: American speaking foreign language
bruce wrote:
Does anybody know of any other Americans that speak another language relatively well? Do show the links!
I know Jodie Foster speaks French very well. She studied in a French school (Le Collège Français) before entering Yale.
I unfortunately haven't found any videos where she's speaking French. _________________ Karout hep bezañ karet
A zo kriz ha kalet
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject: Re: American speaking foreign language
Yelina wrote:
bruce wrote:
Does anybody know of any other Americans that speak another language relatively well? Do show the links!
I know Jodie Foster speaks French very well. She studied in a French school (Le Collège Français) before entering Yale.
I unfortunately haven't found any videos where she's speaking French.
I was going to mention her. If you do a search on YouTube you can find clips of a young Jodie Foster singing a song called "Je t'attends depuis la nuit des temps" and Serge Gainsbourg's "Comic Strip".
I was going to mention her. If you do a search on YouTube you can find clips of a young Jodie Foster singing a song called "Je t'attends depuis la nuit des temps" and Serge Gainsbourg's "Comic Strip".
Yes, I found these videos, but I consider that singing, we can't really notice the real accent. For instance, when Canadian people sing in French, they don't have any accent, whereas when they speak, it appears immediately.
Well, at worst, I could show one of these videos. _________________ Karout hep bezañ karet
A zo kriz ha kalet
Yeah, I had no idea! That was really cool to watch!
Somewhat off-topic, but it also came as a total surprise when I saw a trailer on TV where the youngest kid in Malcolm in the Middle (I admit to having watched a couple of episodes) was speaking Swedish. I later watched the program and it turned out that his mother is Swedish and that he was pretty fluent.
Thanks everybody for your warm welcome. Langcafe is such a hospitable place :)
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Hallo Bruce und sei willkommen bei Langcafé. Welche Sprachen lernst du gerade ?
Ich studiere Deutsch und Spanisch aber ich kann nicht gut Deutsch sprechen. Schreiben Sie auf Deutsch...Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch verstehen, but I'll be responding in English or Spanish.
Tiorthan wrote:
And then there is Arnold Schwarzenegger who speaks neither English nor German
Haha, what do you mean by that?! He's Austrian, so I'm sure he speaks German very well?
I think it's very cool that Jodi Foster speaks French! I never knew! I saw a movie where one of Jodi Foster's lines was inGerman--I thought that was impressive.
Walker wrote:
Lazar wrote:
Her German is really impressive.
Yeah, I had no idea! That was really cool to watch!
Somewhat off-topic, but it also came as a total surprise when I saw a trailer on TV where the youngest kid in Malcolm in the Middle (I admit to having watched a couple of episodes) was speaking Swedish. I later watched the program and it turned out that his mother is Swedish and that he was pretty fluent.
WOW! I had no idea that the little kid spoke Swedish. He's definitely annoying in the movie, but I like him a little bit more now, knowing that he speaks Swedish! =P
Hallo Bruce und sei willkommen bei Langcafé. Welche Sprachen lernst du gerade ?
Ich studiere Deutsch und Spanisch aber ich kann nicht gut Deutsch sprechen. Schreiben Sie auf Deutsch...Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch verstehen, but I'll be responding in English or Spanish.
Tiorthan wrote:
And then there is Arnold Schwarzenegger who speaks neither English nor German
Haha, what do you mean by that?! He's Austrian, so I'm sure he speaks German very well? snip
Practice is the key to success ;) You can participate in the German language forum for example.
Yes he's Austrian ... that's the point ... I'm jesting but in fact quite a lot of people from central or north germany cannot understand Austian German very well.
Haha, yeah, I was thinking that that's what you meant.
I think it's rather interesting that you should say that Central and Northern Germans don't understand the Austrian dialect.
How different do you think the Swiss accent is from Hochdeutsch? My German teacher was Swiss and even though he was supposed to teach us Hochdeutsch, I could tell that his Swiss accent went through a lot, what with the rolled R's and profound rhoticism. I found it a bit hard to listen to =X
No the American accent is not very strong.
In fact Austrian is a lot better to understand than some of the Bavarian dialects. I personally cannot judge the difficulty level of any kind of German, I have never had problems with any (including the frisian variants). But having lived in central and northern germany most of the time I came to know a lot of people who have problems with southern dialects (i.e. Saxon, Bavarian, Austrian) or some of the western one (i.e Kölsch).
Swiss People are easy understandable, when they talk Hochdeutsch though they have a funny accent.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:01 pm Post subject:
bruce wrote:
How different do you think the Swiss accent is from Hochdeutsch? My German teacher was Swiss and even though he was supposed to teach us Hochdeutsch, I could tell that his Swiss accent went through a lot, what with the rolled R's and profound rhoticism. I found it a bit hard to listen to =X
I studied German for one year in college, and after 7 years of not speaking or studying German, I was at an event in Switzerland where the person doing the welcoming speech was Swiss. He spoke in a Swiss dialect for bit, and I understood virtually nothing. Then he spoke a sentence in Hochdeutch, which was the first thing I understood -- he said that he was going to switch to Hochdeutsch, for all of the foreigners in the group.
I don't know how much trouble Germans might have understanding the Swiss, but apparently the Swiss expect that non-native German speakers will find it difficult.
Frankly I have my doubts about alot of these people, for example I'm sceptical about how well George Bush speaks Spanish since he struggles with English, and of course the site doesn't specify how fluently any of them speak another language, but ....for what its worth.
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 1:37 am Post subject:
Llatai wrote:
Frankly I have my doubts about alot of these people, for example I'm sceptical about how well George Bush speaks Spanish since he struggles with English, and of course the site doesn't specify how fluently any of them speak another language, but ....for what its worth.
I heard Juliana Margulies (Russian, German) speaking Russian on an episode of ER, and it didn't sound very good. Possibly her parents or grandparents spoke it and she can understand it and make herself understood, but her pronunciation was not very good.
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