Well, living here in London, I hear various languages.
The Chinese languages, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, the Indic languages (Urdu, Farsi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Hindi), Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Spanish (many variants), Portuguese (mostly Brazilian variant), Italian, French, German, Polish, Yoruba, Somali, etc.
In North London where I live, I frequently hear Turkish, Greek, Polish, and some Hebrew. But in South London where I work, I hear Spanish (mostly Latin American variants, especially Colombian), Portuguese (Brazilian), Arabic, Yoruba, Ga, Twi, Somali and Polish. And in Central London where the nightlife spots are frequented by me and my friends, I hear EVERYTHING!!
I even "see" Polish Sign Language and American Sign Language.
According to the 2001 census, there are over 300 immigrant languages spoken in London alone. It's not uncommon for some schools in London to have over 100 languages spoken by children (first language).
How do you hear all those languages if your deaf?
Hearing aids?
Not all deaf people are completely deaf. I'm profoundly deaf which means I still have residual hearing that can be amplified by using hearing aids.
Generally, deafness comes into three levels:
Completely/severely deaf = can't hear anything at all, not even with a hearing aid.
Profoundly deaf = can't hear anything at all without a hearing aid but with it can hear to some degree
Partially deaf = some or little hearing but hearing aid helps a lot
A bit like how not all blind people are completely blind. Some blind people can still see a little. In fact, only less than 10% of all blind people are totally blind or have virtually no sight whatsoever.
The same is true for deaf people - only less than 20% of all deaf people are severely deaf.
But then there's the hearing frequency thing. Deaf individuals' hearing frequencies vary greatly than their hearing counterparts (which is why deaf people don't always understand what you are saying if you speak even if they're wearing hearing aids). In my case, I can't pick up high frequencies (which means I'm totally deaf to fire alarms, whistling or even house phone ringing).
But my hearing is still good enough to enable me to distinguish different languages in speech. I'm a violin player (well I'm more of a folk fiddler fiddling away traditional folk music) and have been so for 13 years. _________________ Zoriona tximelata bat bezalakoa da: bilatzen baduzu, hegaldatuko besterik ez da, baina gelditzen bazara, dator eta zure sorbaldan jartzen da.
Well, living here in London, I hear various languages.
The Chinese languages, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, the Indic languages (Urdu, Farsi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Hindi), Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Spanish (many variants), Portuguese (mostly Brazilian variant), Italian, French, German, Polish, Yoruba, Somali, etc.
In North London where I live, I frequently hear Turkish, Greek, Polish, and some Hebrew. But in South London where I work, I hear Spanish (mostly Latin American variants, especially Colombian), Portuguese (Brazilian), Arabic, Yoruba, Ga, Twi, Somali and Polish. And in Central London where the nightlife spots are frequented by me and my friends, I hear EVERYTHING!!
I even "see" Polish Sign Language and American Sign Language.
According to the 2001 census, there are over 300 immigrant languages spoken in London alone. It's not uncommon for some schools in London to have over 100 languages spoken by children (first language).
How do you hear all those languages if your deaf?
Hearing aids?
Not all deaf people are completely deaf. I'm profoundly deaf which means I still have residual hearing that can be amplified by using hearing aids.
Generally, deafness comes into three levels:
Completely/severely deaf = can't hear anything at all, not even with a hearing aid.
Profoundly deaf = can't hear anything at all without a hearing aid but with it can hear to some degree
Partially deaf = some or little hearing but hearing aid helps a lot
A bit like how not all blind people are completely blind. Some blind people can still see a little. In fact, only less than 10% of all blind people are totally blind or have virtually no sight whatsoever.
The same is true for deaf people - only less than 20% of all deaf people are severely deaf.
But then there's the hearing frequency thing. Deaf individuals' hearing frequencies vary greatly than their hearing counterparts (which is why deaf people don't always understand what you are saying if you speak even if they're wearing hearing aids). In my case, I can't pick up high frequencies (which means I'm totally deaf to fire alarms, whistling or even house phone ringing).
But my hearing is still good enough to enable me to distinguish different languages in speech. I'm a violin player (well I'm more of a folk fiddler fiddling away traditional folk music) and have been so for 13 years.
Lip-reading is not really favoured by a lot of deaf people basically because it is hard work and needs a lot of concentration which can get very tedious and tiring. If you blink your eyes, you'll miss maybe one or two words but if you get tired from staring at somebody's lips for a long time then you'll just want to give up.
Although, I took a lip-reading course at high school, I don't really like lip-reading. Sometimes it does help, though. I would encourage people to learn sign language.
I had to learn to speak English to make communication with non-signing, hearing people easier so why not they learn my language, too?
I prefer to communicate in sign language wherever possible. British Sign Language is now officially recognised here in the UK. This means that now more and more Deaf people can have the right to access information in British Sign Language so I am taking advantage of this new law. For example, I have the right to a BSL interpreter in a job interview. _________________ Zoriona tximelata bat bezalakoa da: bilatzen baduzu, hegaldatuko besterik ez da, baina gelditzen bazara, dator eta zure sorbaldan jartzen da.
Other than English (the obvious one for any American :P), I hear a good bit of Spanish, as there is a large Mexican population here in the south. I also quite often hear Thai spoken at this awesome Thai restaurant that we go to. There is also a sizable Vietnamese population here and I heard a bit of Vietnamese growing up going to school, though not so much any more as I don't run into them very often since school. And now I hear a lot of Afrikaans, as I'm learning to speak it, but only on the internet :P.
There's a large Somalian population where I live, so I hear Somali. There are signs in English and Somali at one downtown hospital. I used to hear as much Spanish as English when I lived in New Mexico. I'd also hear Tewa and other languages of the local pueblo tribes. I hear Vietnamese, Hindi and Chinese because of the restaurants I like. I hear a bit of Russian too. I hear Spanish every time I call a business and get their automatic voice response, "para Espanol oprimo el ocho"....something like that.
Here I hear Turkish and Arabic a lot and sometimes African Languages. Lot's of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco. :) _________________ My site:http://www.AntonKemmeren.com
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:48 am Post subject:
Llatai wrote:
I hear Spanish every time I call a business and get their automatic voice response, "para Espanol oprimo el ocho"....something like that.
Ocho? That's too far down the list! I've only ever heard it as "oprima el (número) dos". Where did you say you live, btw?
And speaking of teléfonos y español, I've been getting so many messages on my home answering machine lately, all in Spanish, advertising everything under the sun. First of all, this is very upsetting since I'm on the "Do not call" list and shouldn't be getting these calls in the first place. But I'm wondering if these advertisers are calling everybody in my neighborhood regardless if they're Spanish-speaking households or not, or are they specifically targeting the Spanish speakers. If the latter, how the hell do they know who speaks Spanish?
First of all, this is very upsetting since I'm on the "Do not call" list and shouldn't be getting these calls in the first place. But I'm wondering if these advertisers are calling everybody in my neighborhood regardless if they're Spanish-speaking households or not, or are they specifically targeting the Spanish speakers. If the latter, how the hell do they know who speaks Spanish?
They probably use an auto-dialer and mass call most likely. Hit and miss. Its worth the cost if the concentration of Spanish speakers in your area is large enough. My guess.
About the DNC list: telemarketers only have to "scrub" their call lists monthly, so if you signed up recently, you can still get calls for 30 days. Secondly, if you move or change your number, your enrollment doesn't migrate with you. You have to sign up again, then you could still get calls for up to 30 days at the new number. Third, the DNC list only applies to telemarketers. Solicitations for charities or telephone surveys are not covered by it. You can always learn to say "take me off your call list" in Spanish. Telemarketers are required to do so upon request.
I work in a very international company, where most of employees are not french.
In the sub-group in which I work (about 15 persons), we have 1 Italian, 1 German, 1 Tunisian, 1 Chinese, 3 Russians, 1 Chilean, 1 Portuguese. Among the french people 3 are of french-italian origins, and the boss has Portuguese origins...
considered that most of our projects are in Russia, I can say that Russian is maybe the language I heard most. Italian is maybe second, since most of us speak it with our Italian collegue. Spanish, English, Chinese and German are often heard.
outside of the job, the foreign we heard most is of course English, followed by German and Dutch, since most tourists in France are from those countries.
I live in southern France but something which can sounds strange. The foreign language I use the most is Swedish. Because my best friend is Swede. And I often speak with him by phone or Skype. Which explains it I love Swedish language. Jag älskar svenska språket.
My situation has changed quite significantly since I answered this thread the first time, as I now live in St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. So I should probably answer it again:
I hear many languages on a regular basis, and it would be hard for me to name one foreign language which I hear the most. On the one hand, I hear Scots quite a lot, mainly spoken by older local people. But I'm not sure if I should really view that as a 'foreign' language because it's an officially recognised language in Scotland — it's just not my native language. On the other hand, I hear German a lot because there are a lot of students from Germany here and because there are always quite a lot of German tourists here. There are also a lot of Chinese students here, but I don't hear it so much because, unlike the German students, the Chinese students tend not to 'integrate' with the British students very much.
Of course, I also hear French and German a lot because I'm studying French and German and because I go to the French Society lunches every Wednesday, but I don't think that really counts.
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I've only ever heard it as "oprim
