Returned Missionary Having Trouble Speaking English?

[cougjunkie]

i have a friend that during his homecoming talk turned around to the 1st counselor in the bishopric (who was hispanic) like 4 times to ask him how to say words in english. He stumbled big time, but it went away after a few days, although he still says mierda a lot and its been 8 years.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Archaea

It could be you're just linguistically talented. Knowing how free flowing your spoken language is, inspite of your typing deficiencies, you might not understand how those of us, without the gift of gab, struggle for proficiency and hence lose some proficiency in our native tongue.

BTW, I just added a spell checker to my browser so, if I remember to use it, my typing problems may be less evident.

[BigFatMeanie]

I never seemed to have trouble switching in and out of English and my other language.

I have a non-programmer colleague who holds a theory about computer programmers and spoken languages. His theory is that because programmers must learn multiple programming languages (each with its own set of syntax rules and variations in expression) that programmers are more adept at learning foreign languages. I don't know if this is true or not but I felt like I picked up Thai and Tagalog relatively quicly on my mission (of course, I acknowledge the possibility that I may have truly sucked at speaking Thai and Tagalog and just deluded myself into thinking I was reasonably decent - only the Thais and the Filipinos will ever know for sure). Maybe the part of my brain that makes me a reasonably good learner of programming languages also makes me a reasonably good learner of foreign languages.

I will acknowledge that it is much more difficult for me to switch back and forth between Thai and Tagalog. I kind of get in the groove with one of the languages and it's harder to just switch to the other (like when I met a Filipino working in Thailand - I couldn't get a coherent word of Tagolog out). I never had that problem with English though - thus my skepticism.

[BigFatMeanie]

Originally Posted by cougjunkie

i have a friend that during his homecoming talk turned around to the 1st counselor in the bishopric (who was hispanic) like 4 times to ask him how to say words in english. He stumbled big time, but it went away after a few days, although he still says mierda a lot and its been 8 years.

I always thought people that did that type of thing were doing it for show...

If y'all are sincere then I, like Creekster, give up. I'll concede that it's possible but, because I haven't experienced it I suppose that I'll always remain skeptical.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

I always thought people that did that type of thing were doing it for show...

If y'all are sincere then I, like Creekster, give up. I'll concede that it's possible but, because I haven't experienced it I suppose that I'll always remain skeptical.

I suppose there is some who do it for show, but as for me, it's just lack of speaking ability. I have a tin ear, so to learn languages requires great effort.

I remember sitting listening to missionaries singing in good accent tunes they heard on German TV. It took my hours to rehearse the same thing picking up each syllable. And although syntax is like a math equation, relatively easy, it took quite a while for dative to come out dative, or honorific in Japanese to switch to honorific, polite and informal, and my tones in tonal languages are absolutely horrible. I'm sitting there spitting out this horrible sentence that the poor listeners are barely understanding all the while understanding them. It sucks.

Some of us are just 486 cpus operating in a megagig world.

[BigFatMeanie]

Another Missionaryism that sometimes irritates me is when missionaries claim they are "fluent" in Asian languages. What they should say is they are conversationally fluent. I believe that most missionaries that learn a language like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. realistically have about a 3rd grade vocabulary after their two years is over. They can talk conversationally and have a good vocabulary of religious terms; however, ask them to name different types of plants, animals, body parts, any technical terms, etc. and their vocabulary drops to that of a pre-schooler.

Granted, RMs are more "fluent" in the language than your average gringo; however, the average RM isn't going to be fluent enough for legal, business, education, or official translation purposes. Perhaps with languages that have common roots with English (like, say, Spanish) missionaries more closely approach the standard definition of fluent. When I see a resume that says "Fluent in Mandarin Chinese" and one that says "Conversational Mandarin Chinese" then I can make a safe guess that the second one is probably a better speaker of Chinese because they are smart enough to know what true fluency in the language means and they aren't being a poser.

[livecoug]

Originally Posted by UteStar

I never 'forgot' how to speak english but there were some words that I would accidently replace with swedish. Sometimes it is ridiculous with some people though that always say it...but church words would mix me up sometimes.

I did the Swedish thing too and had no problem remembering english.. that bugs me too.. now I can't even remember some simple swedish words..

I should practice with UteStar.. who am I kidding? I can call my mom and spew Swedish anytime..

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

OK, this is one of those Missionaryisms I simply don't buy: the classic "I spoke <XYZ language> so much that I forgot how to speak English" line. I'm throwing the flag on this line although I hear plenty of RMs say it.

I think they say it just to get attention or show off. Sure, you pick up little expressions from the foreign tongue. You maybe say "si" or "nyet" the first day or two back but you don't forget how to speak English. Very lame.

I didn't forget English, but there were a number of words that didn't come to mind when I was speaking, i.e. table, vegetable, magnet and many others.

I was told by several people - family, friends, ward members etc. - that when I spoke English, I spoke with an Italian accent. I didn't believe it until I listened to the sacrament meeting that was my homecoming my father had recorded. It took me about 6 months to lose the accent.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BigFatMeanie

Another Missionaryism that sometimes irritates me is when missionaries claim they are "fluent" in Asian languages. What they should say is they are conversationally fluent. I believe that most missionaries that learn a language like Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc. realistically have about a 3rd grade vocabulary after their two years is over. They can talk conversationally and have a good vocabulary of religious terms; however, ask them to name different types of plants, animals, body parts, any technical terms, etc. and their vocabulary drops to that of a pre-schooler.

Granted, RMs are more "fluent" in the language than your average gringo; however, the average RM isn't going to be fluent enough for legal, business, education, or official translation purposes. Perhaps with languages that have common roots with English (like, say, Spanish) missionaries more closely approach the standard definition of fluent. When I see a resume that says "Fluent in Mandarin Chinese" and one that says "Conversational Mandarin Chinese" then I can make a safe guess that the second one is probably a better speaker of Chinese because they are smart enough to know what true fluency in the language means and they aren't being a poser.

"Fluency" is a misnomer.

I prefer the FSI testing level for various arenas. It is more accurate to describe I'm at 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.75 or 4.0 which was always my goal.

[creekster]

Originally Posted by Archaea

"Fluency" is a misnomer.

I prefer the FSI testing level for various arenas. It is more accurate to describe I'm at 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.75 or 4.0 which was always my goal.

Of course, those sorts of tests can also be a bit dicey. When I was at the MTC our district practiced total immersion and we thought we were quite fluent. As we prepared to leave we were told we would be given an FSI conversational fluency test the next day. We were told that we might be able to get 2.5 or a 3.0 on the test, if we were lucky.

I asked the instructor how the test would be administered and he generally described the process, as he understood it. Learning the exam would essentially be a conversation, I decided to prepare for the test. I had my own French language instructional book and a French dictionary and so that night I plotted out the topics likely to be on such a test and planned some tactics I could use to steer the conversation in certain directions. I then prepared all the vocabulary words I would need to achieve these conversational goals.

At the conclusion of the test the examiner told me that I had unbelievable command of the language especially for someone with such a raw accent. I was given a 4.0 but was told I would have received a 4.5 if my accent was better. This is silly, of course, as I was nowhere near that fluent, but I had guessed about the exam with uncanny accuracy and so had completely fooled the examiner. The rest of my district was also amazed and annoyed, as I spoke no better than many of them (except for some of the French swear words I had picked up when I was younger, but that's another story)