additional language
1. What is your first language or languages?
2. What other languages do you speak?
3. How old were you when you learned each additional language?
4. How does your first language connect linguistically with your target language or other languages?
5. What is your academic literacy background in your L1?
6. Could you tell us about your motivation for learning your target language?
7. What language learning strategies did you use for learning other languages?
8. Based on your experience, how do you prefer to learn your target language? By yourself or learning with others?
9. Did you identify or not identify with your target language’s culture when you learned it?
10. Have you ever experienced any cognitive benefits because of your language learning processes?
11. Do you think it is easy for you to learn languages?
12. Did you have any struggles learning your target language(s)? Extra information
Mark Amengua Spanish/English
Scottish, English, Catalan little bit of France and Germany
He mentioned that he aquired English when he was a kid (didn’t tell the exact age), He learned French and German during his high school/College studies.
He took English class and he said it’s easy for him, because he already aquired English when he was a kid.
He said he has a highest literacy in Spanish and it also added that it was very easy for him to learn spanish
He really didn’t have any sense of motivation because he started to learn English and Spanish when he was a kid. But he answered the question that he wanted to communicate well with other people from around the world and also for his career he needed to learn the target language INSTRUMENTAL
practice with native speakers as MUCH as you can COGNITIVE/NS?
He answered that it really doesn’t matter for him because each meathod have its own positive and negative factors and it depends on the person’s style of learning.
He said he was easily understand the cultures of Spanish and English, but he doesn’t know much about French and Germany because he didn’t put much effort to learn these two language for a long time.
He didn’t say his experience, but he mentioned that the muscle in the brain would get more practice when people speaked more languages.
All he said was it takes time and effort to learn a language. But he also mentioned that there are advantages on learning other languages for example Spanish is much easier to learn when you know English.
For English, he had no struggles. For German and French, he said he did not put too much time in them and he did not continue to learn.
Natasha (Cathy&Eric) Russian English
Learning English when she was only 6 years old.About age affect She said age was not a significant factor during her learning of other languages. On the other hand, she thought the condition of learning other languages may be the most influenced factor. She came to U.S. during her twentieth. She felt very helpful to learn English under the condition of everyone speaks English.
She said in her opinion, Russian have very few connections with English. Those two language system have different characters and totally different grammar systems. Even every aspect of Russian is different from English.
She was proficient master her first language. But in the meantime she said her first language did not help with her learning of second language. Because of the differences between those languages.
She has no idea about the motivation. She began to learn English about six years old because her parents asked her to do that. They thought if she can learning English well, she can have good job opportunities. She said because she can speak English well, she can make a lot of foreigner students. And she was able to go to American school and finished the program of Doctor.
As she was a child, she repeating what the parents said. And when she went to school, she used the flashcards to remember the new words. The only knack of learning languages is practice as much as possible.
She said, for learning a language, maybe the background of it’s cullture is a significant part. And as a linguist, analyzing the target language and master the structure of target language system. In the meantime, she said, when she learning English, she needs to repeating the words said by another people. She think for practise speaking and listening to study with others is a good choice.
No, when she learnt English, she knew nothing about American culture. But, after she master the maybe junior high school level English, she can listen to music and watch movie in English. Through those ways, she can understand some of the American culture. BUT NOT MORE IDENTIFICTION
Yes, she said keep studying is really a good way to make her become smarter. And in the meantime, she said, because she can speak English, so she can make friends with who first language is Englihsh.
She has attempted to learn other languages like Spanish; however, learning other languages would not be easier or hardier for her since there is no language community/environment for her to learn other language.
Yes, she said that she was experiencing difficulties everyday.
13. Could you tell me some stories during your study process?She said for learning English, watching movies in English is a good method. She said because her first language is Russian, which pronouncation is totally different with English, she thought the most difficult part for her is speak every word correctlly. In the meantime, when she wants to learning English in a funny way, she will listening the music and focus on the lyrics. To remember the lyrics is also a efficiency way to improve the English skill.
14. What part of studying do you think is most important in study languages? She said the reading, listening, speaking and writing are same important during the process of learning English. And for different field we need different skills.
15. How does the English help you in your life?
Maria Astua(Qiaowei Yu&Tianqian Huang)
Spanish English, Italian She started to learn Italian when she was 21 years old. She started to learn English when she was 3.5 years old.
She said Spanish and Italian have some connect between each other.
she learned a lot when she was in high shool which is really helpful.
She said the motivation of learning Italian is opera. She likes opera, so she went to Italy and leaned Italian.
instrumental/intrinsic Speaking, Reading, Listening and Writing are the most important learning strategies and Writing is the most hard part. She also read some works of literature.
She said the most important thing for learning a new language is practice. She likes to talk with people in Italian. She never afraid to talk or communicate.
Yes, she said that spanish is very close to the Italian. And it’s really helpful when she knew one and to learn the other.
By learning Italian, she thought she was smarter and had better memorize.
No, she don’t. Yes, she said some grammer in Italian was hard to learn and memorize, but she will use ” three times mothed” to practice these grammer.
She gave us four advise to learn a new language. First, use the target language 95% times. (language immersion) Next, use gramma in context. Then, talking and listening. Finally, watch a movie in target language!
She said a benefit of multi-language is to let your brain go faster which means you become smarter.
She gave us an example about her father. Her father likes to watch some movies and plays in French. However, he never learnd French before. Just by listerning those movies and plays, after 20 years he can understand French without subtitle.
Manel Camps Catalan
Spanish,Russian,English,Ger man,French(only read and write
Spanish( 1-2-year-old, taught by grandma); German(16); English(14); French(11-12); Russian(20) And he believes that young kid can learn languages easily, but it also depends on languages connection.
Spanish and Catalan are similar. And German is easy for him to learn. Grammar structures of most languages are similar and can be used on each other.
Use Catalan in school until finishing high school. He said it helps learning another languages a lot. He said that grammar structures of languages are similar, and even some of them are transferable.
Communicate with people; Language can create cultural space; Get to know new cultures in they own language; Read in other languages.
Immerse yourself in that language. He learned German and Russian very fast, but his German was not perfect. He did not get step-by-step learning. Socialcultural theory
Actively and passively. Actively is being able to compress yourself. Passively is to learn from others. You can learn from talking to other, but you can’t learn from talking to yourself. These two ways should be used together to learn. It is important to practice in order to maintian the language.
Yes, he used to spend summer in German. It is the key to learn a language. If German hears your accent, they will speak English with you.
No. Language is about the people who speak it, and society that creates it. For example, in Catalan, they are many words to descibe getting water, and a lot of names of types of sound because of Catalan’s geograph and living style. Language is the reflection of history of people who speak it. Yes, he thinks so.
Russian’s textbook is horrible. And the first lesson of Russian talked about long words. Russian was sounded the same to him, so it is hard for him to remeber the words.
Do you think yourself become smarter after learning languages? It opens a door to another culture. But he does not think he becomes smarter. The more languages you know, the more you can guess.
Do you still use those languages? Yes, Catalan with family, Spanish with wife. Try to keep up with German by watch TV and read books.
Do you think learning those language help your career or change your personality? It didn’t help his career, because his area is all used English. But personally, he enjoyed learning languages.
Bryan Donaldson( Weixuan Zhang Eric) English French
First time at 14 years old at mid school, then learn at 16 years old in high school. very serious begin in College.
There are many words very close between English and French. They have the same letter. But the rules in English also bother him when he learn French.
His English is very good. The Engish helps him and hurt him to learn French at the same time. He didn’t need to memorize many words, but the grammer is kind different, he has to change the way he writes English.
He really doesn’t have motivation about learn French. He said he begin to learn French random. Maybe because he had a trip to France with his famliy when he was only 14. He really likes France and have a great time there. Then he start to learn French.
Practise, patient, be a good listener, speak with native speakers, careful, fouse on detail,watch viedo.Not worry to make mistake, learn from it, be brave.
Learn with others. It is important to learn by ourselves so we can focse on long. However, learn with others can practise our listening and pronuncaition. Even we hang out with friends or play viode game, we can more compare learn by ourselve.
When he start leraned French, he knows nothing about Frace. Once he got into it,he became more and more intersting about France. He starts to learn France culture.After time,he underatneds almost all of the France culture.
He did not talk about his experience. He also didn’t think he smarter. But he dose think that the more language you speak the stronger your brain are. He also agrees that if he starts to learn third language, it would be much faster then someone learn this lanuage as second language.
He didn’t think it is easy to him to learn languages. He also said if his classmate in high school keep learning French, they can have better French then him. But they give up, and he keep learning french untill today. However, he thinks there are some people are good at learn new language. They have able to learn language faster then others.
Ask queations, guess when you don’t know, work hard, be curious.Try it , try again and again. Be brave to take risk, the best way to learn a language is to make mistake and learn from them.
English French, and a little bit Spanish
He learned French when he was 12 years old at primary school.
Jason said there are lost of similar words between English and French.And 40percent of Englsih word are come from French.
Because Jason is American-bred, with a sort of French background somewhere along the line.So he felt interest in French and started to learn French when he was child. integrative
Speak a lot with people.Having a communicate partner is really helpful with your language study.
Learning with others.Because Jason though that learning languageby himself is kinda bored for him and he has gained lots of benefits from his communicate partner.
Thor Sawin English
French, German, Russian, Mandrain, Korean, Briazilian, Portuguese (Some are very good but some only just know a little)
The first language other than English he learned is Germanwhen he was 16 in high school, and other languages were learned when he was traveling or studying abroad. g
He said all of them are pretty different from each other
Started the German because he had to take the language school, the he found that he was really liking it so he wanted to go to Germany and making German friends, and ended up as a German teacher. Something had to do became something really liked and excited about. Other languages were learned either because he went travel to that place or because he was learning in that place. The language is needed to be used daily like buying tickets. For him, language is kind of loving people, telling people I love you people so much that I can even do some hard work.
Learning with friends although he sometimes can learn by himeself and practised by himself, it is more interesting to parctice language with friends.
Not really. He did learn some culture from language learning butnot as much as he travel to that place.
Made a lot of friends and helped a lot while living in the place say that language. Also learned of culture by learning the language.
Yes. His major in college is linguistic so he took a lot of linguistic classes. In the classes, he learned a lot about how languages work like where are all the different sounds and where are all the different options, so then when he go to learn another language, he was kind of know how a language can work, so he could find a pattern in the language much easier and recognise them.
Made a lot of mistakes. Remind yourself it is okay to make mistakes even it looks stupid. The only thing needed is willing to try. Also, vocabulary is a big problem. He said when he was learning Mandrain, he decided not to learn the characters because it was too complicated, so he just learned how to speak and how they sounds instead of reading and writing. What’s more, it is hard to find a people willing to talk to you, you had to keep asking and asking.
13. Advice except willing to making mistakes. Getting into more one-on-one conversation as you can. And could have a notebook or cellphone to record what you learned from your friends or the conversation between you two so that you could find the mistake you made.
Stephanie Lain English She started to learn Spanish when she was 21.
She said there are no much difference between English and her target language. Sounds the same but grammaticlally different. When English speaker learning Spanish, Grammar is the hardest thing. French also, again have a lot of words in common helps.
Her first language is English. Since she started Learning Spanish when she was 21, so her English background is pertty good.
She hasnt got clear idea for her motivation, if some she says taht it must be interest, learning language for fun. And she love trvaling. Habit!
learn the common words first to have a better communication with native speakers. But she still have problem when she read terminology in her target languages.
she says with others because of her stragies of learning language by communicate.
she said that at first she didn’t identify tha culture even now. She said that the “Style” of those language is hard to identify and this will cause the reading becomes harder. He didn’t say his experience, but h
She is not sure about this she said that maybe become better in learning? Never easy
some times she will mised up the words and the “Style” of other language will be harder to understand.
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