4 ms·

In my personal experience, I won't easily switch between languages (it takes on or two seconds at best), but when I finished switching I am 100% focused on it.

by hrktb 16y ago

In my personal experience, I won't easily switch between languages (it takes on or two seconds at best), but when I finished switching I am 100% focused on it. I don't think about the other languages except when a concept can't be properly expressed in the current one. In computer terms, it's more like a fetching a page on the swap on a page fault than accessing several contexts at the same time. I guess translators would be more aligned on the model presented..But how common would it be?

psykotic 16y ago
> In my personal experience, I won't easily switch between languages For me the trickiest is switching fluently between the sound systems of several languages in a split second. Suppose I'm speaking in American English and mention a double-barreled word like "Stern-Brocot tree" which contains a German and a French name. In that context it's very difficult to maintain proper pronunciation even though I can pronounce the parts perfectly well individually.
- _delirium 16y ago
  In those cases I usually try to pronounce the words with an accent of the language I'm speaking in, rather than the way they were in the source language. Sometimes this actually takes more work if I know both languages, but I find it makes me more understandable, and helps keep me mentally "in" the language I'm speaking. For example, if I mention an American city while speaking Greek, my instinct is to pronounce it as in American English, but it's more colloquial and easier to understand if I pronounce it with Greek phonology. So for example, I'd pronounce Chicago roughly as see-KAH-gho (i.e., how you'd pronounce Σικάγο), George Bush as Tzortz Bous, etc., rather than switching to an American phonology for one word or phrase.
  - psykotic 16y ago
    Yes, that tends to happen automatically if you speak fast. I'm fastidious on this question because I hear most foreign names utterly mispronounced by English speakers, so I try to do my small part in rectifying it.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I guess I don't really consider adapting a word or name to the sound system of the target language to be "mispronunciation". When speaking Greek, I use Greek phonemes, and when speaking English, I use English phonemes, which seems to be how most native speakers do things in their own language. I mean, since I speak both natively I could mix the phonemes, pronouncing Greek names in English as if I were speaking Greek and vice-versa, but it would seem weird and affected, like I was showing off that I knew multiple languages. If anything it's something of a marker of non-native speakers; native English speakers who learn Greek as a foreign language will often slip back into English phonemes to "correctly" say the names of people or places from English-speaking countries rather than adapting them to Greek phonemes, whereas Greeks typically don't (not even Greeks who speak fluent English).
      - psykotic 16y ago
        There are two levels of mispronunciation. If you pronounce 'Hermite' in English so it rhymes with 'thermite', you have no excuse. It's ignorant and plain wrong. If you pronounce it with a silent 'H' and use the right ending sound and as close approximations to the vowels and intonation as your language will accommodate, that's perfectly fine; I do that too. It's the difference between ignorance and knowledge, carelessness and respect. That still leaves room for pragmatism and plain speech.
        _delirium 16y ago
        I sure hope, then, that you correctly pronounce the initial 'p' in Greek names starting with a 'pt' and 'ps' consonant cluster, rather than omitting it like an ignorant American! (Do you pronounce the 'p' in Ptolemy, or mispronounce it as if it were written Tolemy?) For good measure one should pronounce it in words like psychology as well, but I suppose the pronunciation error there has been sufficiently fossilized that it's now an English word with a new pronunciation. Perhaps the Hermitian will suffer the same fate as the Ptolemies and psychologists?
        psykotic 16y ago

by hrktb 16y ago

psykotic 16y ago

> In my personal experience, I won't easily switch between languages For me the trickiest is switching fluently between the sound systems of several languages in a split second. Suppose I'm speaking in American English and mention a double-barreled word like "Stern-Brocot tree" which contains a German and a French name. In that context it's very difficult to maintain proper pronunciation even though I can pronounce the parts perfectly well individually.

_delirium 16y ago
In those cases I usually try to pronounce the words with an accent of the language I'm speaking in, rather than the way they were in the source language. Sometimes this actually takes more work if I know both languages, but I find it makes me more understandable, and helps keep me mentally "in" the language I'm speaking. For example, if I mention an American city while speaking Greek, my instinct is to pronounce it as in American English, but it's more colloquial and easier to understand if I pronounce it with Greek phonology. So for example, I'd pronounce Chicago roughly as see-KAH-gho (i.e., how you'd pronounce Σικάγο), George Bush as Tzortz Bous, etc., rather than switching to an American phonology for one word or phrase.
- psykotic 16y ago
  Yes, that tends to happen automatically if you speak fast. I'm fastidious on this question because I hear most foreign names utterly mispronounced by English speakers, so I try to do my small part in rectifying it.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I guess I don't really consider adapting a word or name to the sound system of the target language to be "mispronunciation". When speaking Greek, I use Greek phonemes, and when speaking English, I use English phonemes, which seems to be how most native speakers do things in their own language. I mean, since I speak both natively I could mix the phonemes, pronouncing Greek names in English as if I were speaking Greek and vice-versa, but it would seem weird and affected, like I was showing off that I knew multiple languages. If anything it's something of a marker of non-native speakers; native English speakers who learn Greek as a foreign language will often slip back into English phonemes to "correctly" say the names of people or places from English-speaking countries rather than adapting them to Greek phonemes, whereas Greeks typically don't (not even Greeks who speak fluent English).
    - psykotic 16y ago
      There are two levels of mispronunciation. If you pronounce 'Hermite' in English so it rhymes with 'thermite', you have no excuse. It's ignorant and plain wrong. If you pronounce it with a silent 'H' and use the right ending sound and as close approximations to the vowels and intonation as your language will accommodate, that's perfectly fine; I do that too. It's the difference between ignorance and knowledge, carelessness and respect. That still leaves room for pragmatism and plain speech.
      - _delirium 16y ago
        I sure hope, then, that you correctly pronounce the initial 'p' in Greek names starting with a 'pt' and 'ps' consonant cluster, rather than omitting it like an ignorant American! (Do you pronounce the 'p' in Ptolemy, or mispronounce it as if it were written Tolemy?) For good measure one should pronounce it in words like psychology as well, but I suppose the pronunciation error there has been sufficiently fossilized that it's now an English word with a new pronunciation. Perhaps the Hermitian will suffer the same fate as the Ptolemies and psychologists?
        psykotic 16y ago