Funny video about bilingual people

I found this video very funny and interesting. I think it's really true for me. And what about you?

Bilingual people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReHdQsB5rI8

Emotions in languages

Emotions in languages 

Are you a bilingual? Which language do you prefer to use in emotional situations? Does your emotional state affect your language choice? How do you express yourself when you are in love, happy, angry, upset and so on? Which language do you choose to swear or to lie? 

Emotions in languages

„In bilingual societies, people frequently switch between languages, particularly in emotional situations. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and Bard College say that such code-switching is a strategy to express emotions differently, particularly when communicating with children. "Bilingual parents may use a specific language to express an emotional concept because they feel that language provides a better cultural context for expressing the emotion. For example, a native Finnish speaker may be more likely to use English to tell her children that she loves them because it is uncommon to explicitly express emotions in Finnish."

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/different-languages-express-emotion-differently 

she speaks Italian perfectly....

No comment :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8tfioOKvU

The Offensive Translator

..... but she speaks Italian perfectly :D

Bilingualism in adulthood

"Bilinguals acquire their two or more languages in childhood."

WRONG. 

Bilingualism in adulthood 

One can become bilingual in childhood, but also in adolescence and in adulthood. In fact, many adults become bilingual because they move from one country (or region) to another and have to acquire a second language. With time, they can become just as bilingual as children who acquire their languages in their early years (minus the native speaker accent). In general, people become bilingual because life requires the use of two or more languages. This can be due to immigration, education, intermarriage, contact with other linguistic groups within a country, and so on.

http://www.francoisgrosjean.ch/myths_en.html 

Aspects of Culture Beyond Language

Here is an interesting article about

Aspects of Culture Beyond Language

                                             
                                                               Culture Beyond Language


Here are a few of the things a bicultural individual experiences from more than one perspective, in addition to language and speech itself:
1. Food


Cultural or “heritage” dishes are generally influenced by the staples that were available wherever that particular culture and language was established.


Dining cross-culturally can be a linguistic experience — most Americans, for example, know that “con arroz” means “with rice” in Spanish, simply from the prevalence of Latin American foods in the United States.


However, it is possible to eat culturally-influenced meals without knowing any of the parent language, and many children do, particularly in households where immigrant parents or grandparents cook, but children are raised speaking the local language.


Some traditions go beyond just the kinds of food used, and affect how they are eaten as well — the difference between using chopsticks and forks, for example, or between eating omelets and other egg dishes for breakfast (United States) and for evening meals (Eastern Europe and parts of Latin America).


One of the advantages of introducing children to bicultural eating as well as language when they’re young is that it becomes less of a culture shock when they travel later in life. They’re already familiar with the traditional foods of their heritage country. And, as an added bonus, it gets them used to the idea of a varied diet in general — a good way to help discourage picky eating habits!
2. Folk Art


The broad category of “folk art” includes music, dance, folklore, and traditional cultural crafts.


Some cultures have very specific and guarded ones — Japanese flower arranging and calligraphy, for example. Others are practiced all over the world in different styles, such as pottery or even things as common as painting and stringed instruments.


Exposing a bilingual child to cultural art as well can be useful in a couple of different ways. Obviously, it gives them something to appreciate that they wouldn’t normally encounter, but it can also open up new vocabulary, and it can be very revealing about a culture as well. Something as simple as listening to a piece of music by a Russian composer and then one by a contemporary German composer gives even a casual observer a good understanding of some of the differences between the two cultures.
3. Celebrations


Children like this one, because it usually means at least twice as many holidays in the household!


Bringing in holidays from other culture is a start to explaining everything from religious plurality to the differences in calendar systems.


It’s also good motivation, especially when you can explain that Russian-speakers have their own Santa, who only brings presents for Russian-speaking children. You’ll be amazed how prolific the Russian use gets around Christmas time…
4. Jokes


Humor is very difficult to translate.


Even after years of living together, bicultural couples can struggle to understand one another’s humor. But don’t let that difficulty scare you away from it — instead, ask to have jokes explained, and work through why they’re funny in their original cultures. If you understand a culture’s humor, you’re very well-immersed!


Introducing children to multicultural humor is surprisingly easy. Most toys, books, and TV shows marketed toward kids is humor-based already. If you want to give them a grounding in another culture’s humor, just let them watch some silly cartoons — the things that culture finds amusing will become apparent very quickly. You may even learn something yourself.
5. Manners


Teaching manners in just one culture can be a challenge.


You may need to wait until children are older to start explaining to them some of the differences between what separate cultures find polite.


It can be important to go over multicultural manners, especially if you travel, however. For example, Americans tend to smile at strangers as their default — if you make eye contact, you smile, and sometimes nod or even speak a greeting. In other parts of the world (including Russia and Ukraine), strangers tend to avoid acknowledging one another except when they actively interact.


Children don’t always understand the differences, and you may need to do some explaining to make sure they aren’t feeling slighted or punished simply by being immersed in a culture that doesn’t interact the way they’re used to.
6. Clothes and Dressing


Apart from “heritage festivals,” most countries have globalized their fashions to at least some degree. We may know what a culture’s traditional clothing used to look like, but the reality is that most Japanese people do not wear kimonos every day, nor do Germans wear lederhosen and dirndls.


That said, even in countries that share a basic wardrobe (such as the Western business dress used in North America and Western Europe), standards and fashions can vary widely. Most Continental Europeans find Americans extremely sloppy in dress, while sharp-dressed Americans tend to see their British counterparts as too stuffy and the Europeans as too fashion-forward.


Children are usually better off when they’re dressed in the dominent costume, rather than in heritage clothing, at least when they go to school. Save other cultural clothing for special occasions, or for travel.
7. Working Schedules


This usually affects the parents more than the children, but different countries and cultures have very different approaches to work schedules.


The United States tends to be early-rising, with a strong urge to end the workday by 5:00 or 6:00 PM, while Europeans often start and end later. Spanish and Latin-influenced countries share the “siesta,” an hour or two of time off in the middle of the day. And nearly every country has better vacation time for workers than the United States — an unfortunate burden for U.S. parents.


Your children will adapt to your schedules, so if you want them to experience bicultural work patterns, you may need one parent to be on one schedule and the other on another. If this is inconvenient or impossible for you, you may not get to include them in that aspect of biculturalism except on vacations and during other travel.

http://bilingualkidsrock.com/bilingualism-vs-biculturalism/

Funny stereotypes about different nationalities in different languages

Funny stereotypes about different nationalities in different languages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRryl8YNHx8 

Funny stereotypes

IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY

·                To go Dutch (English): it indicates that each person participating in a group activity pays for themselves or that the bill will be split evenly.

·                Pagare “alla romana” (Italian): “to pay the Roman way”. This expression used in Italian is more or less the equivalent of “going Dutch”. So let’s split the bill so that everybody can digest the dinner!

·                Filer à l’anglaise (French): “to make off English style“- to leave without paying.

·                Fare il portoghese (Italian): “to be Portuguese”. In Italy it is the Portuguese people who seem to be forgetful and don’t buy tickets for public transports.

HEY THAT’S NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE
That’s how Leonard Cohen would say it, when someone leaves a place without saying goodbye. Here is how you say it in German, Portuguese, Hungarian, English, Spanish and Italian:

·                Polnischer Abgang (German): Polish exit

·                Sair à francesa (Portuguese): to leave the French way

·                Angolosan távozik (Hungarian): to leave like an Englishman

·                To take French leave

·                Marcharse a la francesa (Spanish): to leave the French way

·                Andarsene all’inglese (Italian): to leave the English way

BEING PUNCTUAL IS A MATTER OF CULTURE… NOT MINE THOUGH!

·                Pontualidade britânica (Portuguese), puntualidad británica (Spanish): British punctuality

·                είναι Άγγλος στα ραντεβού του (Greek): “he is as punctual as an Englishman”

WORK AND GOOD LEGAL DEALS…OR BARELY!

·                Trabajar como un chino (Spanish): “to work like a Chinese”, be a workaholic

·                å ta en spansk en (Norwegian): “to do a Spanish one” , to do something that is not entirely legal.

·                Do Paraguai (Brazilian Portuguese): “from Paraguay”, a product of bad quality or that is most likely contraband

·                Travailler comme un portugais (French): “to work like a Portuguese”, to do a bad work

·                Negócio da China (Spanish): “Chinese deal”, to make a good deal.

http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/hidden-prejudices-how-stereotypes-have-influenced-the-language

Multilinguals - different personalities

Do I change my personality when I speak in another language? Or am I simply schizophrenic?

I was always curious how languages affect our personalities. Here is an interesting atricle about this topic:

Multilinguals - different personalities

„Many multilinguals report different personalities, or even different worldviews, when they speak their different languages.


There are still good reasons to believe language shapes thought.


This influence is not necessarily linked to the vocabulary or grammar of a second language. Significantly, most people are not symmetrically bilingual. Many have learned one language at home from parents, and another later in life, usually at school. So bilinguals usually have different strengths and weaknesses in their different languages—and they are not always best in their first language. For example, when tested in a foreign language, people are less likely to fall into a cognitive trap (answering a test question with an obvious-seeming but wrong answer) than when tested in their native language. In part this is because working in a second language slows down the thinking. No wonder people feel different when speaking them. And no wonder they feel looser, more spontaneous, perhaps more assertive or funnier or blunter, in the language they were reared in from childhood.


What of “crib” bilinguals, raised in two languages? Even they do not usually have perfectly symmetrical competence in their two languages. But even for a speaker whose two languages are very nearly the same in ability, there is another big reason that person will feel different in the two languages. This is because there is an important distinction between bilingualism and biculturalism.


Many bilinguals are not bicultural. But some are. And of those bicultural bilinguals, we should be little surprised that they feel different in their two languages. Experiments in psychology have shown the power of “priming”—small unnoticed factors that can affect behaviour in big ways. Asking people to tell a happy story, for example, will put them in a better mood. The choice between two languages is a huge prime. Speaking Spanish rather than English, for a bilingual and bicultural Puerto Rican in New York, might conjure feelings of family and home. Switching to English might prime the same person to think of school and work.”

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/11/multilingualism