What is it like to speak your language as your mother tongue?

[Bek]

25 minutes ago, carlos said:

Does Pig Latin count? 

I had to look it up.  It is a children's language game. So of course not!

 

I guess you could claim that you speak Spanish, Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian and so on. That way you become a hyperglot  

 

 

Edited August 1, 2019 by Hun

[carlos]

3 minutes ago, Hun said:

I had to look it up.  It is a children's language game. So of course not!

Hatway ayay itypay! 

[coony77]

This is a really interesting topic. 

My mother tongue is Greek. As I live in Germany, I learned German in the age of about 3-4. When I meet people who don´t know this, they are so surprised to hear that German is not my mother tongue as they can´t  sound out any accent. 

 

Anyway, it´s interesting under what circumstances I prefer Greek or German. I´ve realized that I combine Greek with everything emotional.  For example, when I changed from a Greek to a German congregation 8 years ago, it was very very difficult for me to get into the (theocratical) language. For almost 2 years I used everything (Bible, Watchtower, etc.) in both German AND Greek during the meetings in order to understand everything. Then I realized, that if I want to make progress I need to leave the Greek versions at home. After a while it became easier and now I hardly have any problems. BUT - one thing has remained Greek and will always remain Greek: The songbook. I really cannot "feel" the songs in German! They sound nice, of course, but only the Greek text touches my heart (even in Spanish or English the songs touch me more than in German). Also, in my personal study at home I prefer the Greek Bible. There are some verses in Greek that make me cry - no matter how often I have already read them. Then I read the same verses in German - nothing happens. 

 

With this in mind I had expected to also like the "original songs" from Broadcasting only in Greek. But the strange thing is: In this case I always like the English songs most  - and (sorry if this might sound a little bit hard) I don´t like the German Broadcasting songs at all !! Somehow they sound "tortured" to me, as if someone had to put too many words into a given melody, and in the end the song sounds somehow "overloaded". Don´t know exactly how to describe it.

 

So, language is a fascinating topic...

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by coony77

[Bek]

Sister Christina, that is very interesting. I have always thought that German was a very precise language to the extent of being a bit artificial. I hear it is good for technical stuff though. Allegedly no other language comes close to it being so good for describing things.

 

Is modern Greek close to Biblical Greek? Do you think you would understand Septuagint? 

 

When it comes to kingdom songs, I have recently discovered that listening to them in Russian has a much more powerful effect on me. They kind of come alive in my heart. English is not as powerful, but it does stir some emotions. I have also tried listening to them in Kyrgyz, but they did not feel genuine to me. 

[Hotteok]

3 hours ago, coony77 said:

This is a really interesting topic. 

My mother tongue is Greek. As I live in Germany, I learned German in the age of about 3-4. When I meet people who don´t know this, they are so surprised to hear that German is not my mother tongue as they can´t  sound out any accent. 

 

Anyway, it´s interesting under what circumstances I prefer Greek or German. I´ve realized that I combine Greek with everything emotional.  For example, when I changed from a Greek to a German congregation 8 years ago, it was very very difficult for me to get into the (theocratical) language. For almost 2 years I used everything (Bible, Watchtower, etc.) in both German AND Greek during the meetings in order to understand everything. Then I realized, that if I want to make progress I need to leave the Greek versions at home. After a while it became easier and now I hardly have any problems. BUT - one thing has remained Greek and will always remain Greek: The songbook. I really cannot "feel" the songs in German! They sound nice, of course, but only the Greek text touches my heart (even in Spanish or English the songs touch me more than in German). Also, in my personal study at home I prefer the Greek Bible. There are some verses in Greek that make me cry - no matter how often I have already read them. Then I read the same verses in German - nothing happens. 

 

With this in mind I had expected to also like the "original songs" from Broadcasting only in Greek. But the strange thing is: In this case I always like the English songs most  - and (sorry if this might sound a little bit hard) I don´t like the German Broadcasting songs at all !! Somehow they sound "tortured" to me, as if someone had to put too many words into a given melody, and in the end the song sounds somehow "overloaded". Don´t know exactly how to describe it.

 

So, language is a fascinating topic...

 

Thanks a lot for your very interesting answer! :-)

I envy you for being able to speak Greek! (and German too)

 

And if I may ask, since you started learning German so early and are clearly a bilingual,

how does speaking two languages really feel? 

 

For me, I'm not really a bilingual. 

I know English, not with my heart, but only with my mind and by practice. (Practice makes perfect, almost)

 

I've once heard that to a bilingual person, speaking two languages is as simple as speaking two dialects like British English and American English.

Is it how you feel too? 

 

And has it affected your speaking in general as well?

One who knows more than one languages often takes more time to find a right word... (for me too)

They have more it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue situations than most people because their brains need more time to search a right word from so much information piled up in their unconsciousness.. Just like trying to find one missing file in a computer... if you have to find it in a drive of more than 1 Terabyte, it'll take quite a while. 

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by NobleEndeavours

[JennyM]

@Hun Language evolves after 50 and 100 years. 

 

Shakespeare English  is too difficult for modern English..  Most likely, its the same with Greek or any language. 

 

 

[JennyM]

 

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102009374#h=4:0-5:649 

 

I was learning 3 languages in the womb. 😁.....

 

[Bek]

9 minutes ago, JennyM said:

@Hun Language evolves after 50 and 100 years. 

 

Shakespeare English  is too difficult for modern English..  Most likely, its the same with Greek or any language. 

 

 

That is true, Sister Jenny.  But not always like in the case of English. English is a Frankenstein of a language. Take for example Arabic. The books that were written many centuries ago are still readable and understandable. Even the Quran, which was composed in the 7th century, is not very different from today's standard Arabic. 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2019 by Hun

[Shawnster]

On 7/30/2019 at 7:41 AM, NobleEndeavours said:

I often feel English can't express who I really am inside.

 

We have a sister in our congregation that speaks 4 languages.  She's from Brazil and speaks both Spanish and Portuguese.  Her parents are Italian so she speaks Italian.  She speaks English as well.  She's very fluent in all and, like Carlos said, doesn't even need to translate any more.  She prays in English.  She gets mad and yells (ok, not really...) at her husband in English.   

 

But....

 

In her depths of despair, in her darkest hours, in her times of anguish where she can barely think due to the weight of her emotions, she can only pray to Jehovah in her native tongue of Portuguese.  When she needs to really reveal who she is inside she can only use her mother tongue.

[coony77]

3 hours ago, NobleEndeavours said:

Thanks a lot for your very interesting answer! 🙂

I envy you for being able to speak Greek! (and German too)

 

And if I may ask, since you started learning German so early and are clearly a bilingual,

how does speaking two languages really feel? 

 

For me, I'm not really a bilingual. 

I know English, not with my heart, but only with my mind and by practice. (Practice makes perfect, almost)

 

I've once heard that to a bilingual person, speaking two languages is as simple as speaking two dialects like British English and American English.

Is it how you feel too? 

 

And has it affected your speaking in general as well?

One who knows more than one languages often takes more time to find a right word... (for me too)

They have more it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue situations than most people because their brains need more time to search a right word from so much information piled up in their unconsciousness.. Just like trying to find one missing file in a computer... if you have to find it in a drive of more than 1 Terabyte, it'll take quite a while. 

 

I really see it as a privilege to be bilingual. In every day situations I can easily switch between Greek and German - it depends on my conversation partner. 

 

These "it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue situations" you mention can happen in both languages to me. But I often realize how poor the German vocabulary is compared to the Greek one. When someone asks me to translate a Greek song or poem, there might be a word that's so clearly defined in Greek and has a deep meaning - but I need a couple of sentences to describe it in German, as a literal translation simply doesn't exist. Or sometimes there is a German word, but in Greek you have several possibilities to translate it, depending on the context. 

The most famous example all brothers and sisters know is the word "love" - in Greek it can be "αγάπη" (agape), "φιλία"(philia), "έρωτας" (eros) or "στοργή" (storge). Beeing used to such a rich language makes it sometimes difficult to transport thoughts into German...

[coony77]

7 hours ago, Hun said:

Sister Christina, that is very interesting. I have always thought that German was a very precise language to the extent of being a bit artificial. I hear it is good for technical stuff though. Allegedly no other language comes close to it being so good for describing things.

 

Is modern Greek close to Biblical Greek? Do you think you would understand Septuagint? 

 

When it comes to kingdom songs, I have recently discovered that listening to them in Russian has a much more powerful effect on me. They kind of come alive in my heart. English is not as powerful, but it does stir some emotions. I have also tried listening to them in Kyrgyz, but they did not feel genuine to me. 

Yes, German indeed is good for describing things. I think it's the only language that has so many composite nouns. Still when I compare it to Greek it's much poorer.

 

There is a big difference between modern and ancient Greek. The Bible was written in ancient Greek, which I can easily read but not completely understand. Ancient Greek often uses completely different words than modern Greek. And as it not spoken any more, you can somehow compare it with Latin. A kind of "dead" language, but expressions can be found in many many foreign words (English examples: phobia, trauma, telephone, Philadelphia,... - all (ancient) Greek words 😉)

[Qapla]

11 minutes ago, coony77 said:

I really see it as a privilege to be bilingual

 

Since your posts are in English - I would say you are trilingual or poly-lingual

[coony77]

Just now, Qapla said:

 

Since your posts are in English - I would say you are trilingual or poly-lingual

Haha...I also speak Spanish (but far away from my English level)

[coony77]

1 hour ago, Shawnster said:

We have a sister in our congregation that speaks 4 languages.  She's from Brazil and speaks both Spanish and Portuguese.  Her parents are Italian so she speaks Italian.  She speaks English as well.  She's very fluent in all and, like Carlos said, doesn't even need to translate any more.  She prays in English.  She gets mad and yells (ok, not really...) at her husband in English.   

 

But....

 

In her depths of despair, in her darkest hours, in her times of anguish where she can barely think due to the weight of her emotions, she can only pray to Jehovah in her native tongue of Portuguese.  When she needs to really reveal who she is inside she can only use her mother tongue.

Meanwhile I can pray in German as well, but some years ago this was only possible in Greek (which I still prefer when it comes to deeper thoughts and feelings). 

 

With my parents I speak Greek (although they've been living in Germany for 50 years). With my brother sometimes Greek sometimes German. My husband is German, so ... 😁

(Only the "pet names" I give him are Greek...they have nicer ones).

[Qapla]

I used to know a Brother years back who was a translator for a living.

 

He spoke English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese so fluently that he could translate from any one of those into any other of them without needing to "translate" it through English (his native tongue) It just went in his ears as one language and came out his mouth as another.

 

He was learning Russian and Japanese while he was in our Hall ... and, he was learning them at the same time.

 

He no longer lives in our area and I have not had contact with him in several years. Last time we exchanged emails his health was not too good and he was not very optimistic ... 

[Hope]

being able to speak another language - fluently like one's own - seems to be like magic to me.  i am genuinely envious of you polyglots on the board; what amazing skills! ❤️ 

[Bek]

2 hours ago, Qapla said:

 

He spoke English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese so fluently that he could translate from any one of those into any other of them without needing to "translate" it through English (his native tongue) It just went in his ears as one language and came out his mouth as another.

 

He was learning Russian and Japanese while he was in our Hall ... and, he was learning them at the same time.

He must be a genius then. It is not easy to learn so many languages and be able to translate into them. 

 

20 minutes ago, Hope said:

being able to speak another language - fluently like one's own - seems to be like magic to me.  i am genuinely envious of you polyglots on the board; what amazing skills! ❤️ 

You can pick a simple language and try to learn it. Language learning is good for you memory and general brain health. There is research that suggests knowing a second language can ward off or at least delay some old-age mental illnesses.  

[JennyM]

5 hours ago, coony77 said:

Yes, German indeed is good for describing things. I think it's the only language that has so many composite nouns. Still when I compare it to Greek it's much poorer.

 

There is a big difference between modern and ancient Greek. The Bible was written in ancient Greek, which I can easily read but not completely understand. Ancient Greek often uses completely different words than modern Greek. And as it not spoken any more, you can somehow compare it with Latin. A kind of "dead" language, but expressions can be found in many many foreign words (English examples: phobia, trauma, telephone, Philadelphia,... - all (ancient) Greek words 😉)

Indeed... 

 

English - love 

Greek - eros, philia , agape, ( i forgot the 4th one ) 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Indeed... 
 
English - love 
Greek - eros, philia , agape, ( i forgot the 4th one ) 

Storge

Just Older

[carlos]

On 8/2/2019 at 8:13 PM, coony77 said:

Ancient Greek often uses completely different words than modern Greek. And as it not spoken any more, you can somehow compare it with Latin. A kind of "dead" language, but expressions can be found in many many foreign words (English examples: phobia, trauma, telephone, Philadelphia,... - all (ancient) Greek words 😉)

While we were visiting the branch in Athens a couple years ago a realization suddenly came to me: At school we learned a lot of Greek terms to classify animals. for example, insects can be diptera, coleoptera, anthofila... We had to learn the features of each family. But for a Greek speaker there's no need to study them, those names would be self-explanatory: diptera = having two wings, coleoptera = havign hard wings, anthophila = flower lovers and so on.

[coony77]

20 hours ago, carlos said:

While we were visiting the branch in Athens a couple years ago a realization suddenly came to me: At school we learned a lot of Greek terms to classify animals. for example, insects can be diptera, coleoptera, anthofila... We had to learn the features of each family. But for a Greek speaker there's no need to study them, those names would be self-explanatory: diptera = having two wings, coleoptera = havign hard wings, anthophila = flower lovers and so on.

That's right, I don't need an explanation or translation in these cases 😉