It’s me, Helga from Regensburg, Germany! About me: I am a student of International Relations and Management who loves languages, literature and music. I am very excited to participate in the Polyglot Conference this year. .
My native or near-native languages: Bulgarian, Russian, English, German
My C1/C2 languages:
My B1/B2 languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Czech
My A1/A2 languages:
I also want to learn or have started to learn: Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Faroese, Finnish
very impressive language portfolio! Since you live in Regensburg, do you also understand the dialect that is spoken there? I once stayed in Regensburg for a week and really had problems understanding the dialect, even though I’m from Fürth and normally don’t have problems with dialects spoken in Bavaria. But Upper Palatinian is hard…
Hi Miriam! Yes, I speak Bavarian fluently but it’s a mixture between the dialect of Regensburg, maybe Schwandorf and Passau. It’s a rather neutral Bavarian. (More info on my YouTube Channel).
привет Helga! Your language capabilities are impressive.
Do you find your musical ability and language ability compliment each other? For me, I try to incorporate the knowledge and capability for one, and try to use it to learn the other. For example, in music, when I don’t remember the exact note or melody in a piece, I try to remember the number of notes, the placement of my hands or fingers, or the emotion, and use that to trigger my memory. In language, when I don’t remember a word, I try to think of how many syllables, what I think it sounds like, or just pronounce whatever comes to mind and seeing if that actually sounds correct.
Yes, I think that music and languages are compliment to each other. My musical (and absolute) hearing helps me with the pronounciation in every language. And languages give me the opportunity to understand and perform more music for example in the original language, without any translations. I have no problems with the memory. So such associations with languages and music that you describe don’t occur with me. I have neither problems to remember a piece of music nor a certain word from a vocabulary list.
That’s very interesting. I always like hearing other people’s experiences, especially when they are quite different from mine. I use many memory tricks to learn songs in foreign languages. Right now I’m trying to memorize a famous Russian poem where I only know about 10% of the words. I’m having a difficult time because the words have so many syllables. “я помню чудное мгновенье” by пушкин.
@Helga I am also German and we seem to have many languages in common. I don’t live in Bavaria but in NRW. My favourite language is Dutch but I’m also very scandinaviofile. Here in my city am I a member of the German-Scandindavian club. Besides me our club members travel to Scandianvian countries every year and the present amazing lectures with powerpoint presentations. Two of my target languages are Danish and Norwegian Bokmal, I am also familiar with the main cities in these countries without having opportunities to travel.
Thanks for your answer! I would like to know you better. We obviously have the same interests. I like Dutch and Scandinavian languages very much and have already been to The Netherlands and Norway.
So we can get in touch with each other.
Best,
Helga
@Helga ! I love you and I love to find you also from here! The best church organist ever!
Keep learning languages! Blagodarya! Ik voel me zeer zeer trots van jou. (Ook van jou @Jolien !)
Mati
I have watched parts of your very interesing video where your speak in detail your foreign languages and am very impressed. There are differences between us: I am German and my parents were Germans. I lived abroad for only 2 years and I was very young at that time. I have never been into classical music or literature. I like pop music and play the guitar and a bit the melodica. My special situation is that I am what I call a “home polyglot” living on welfare in a poverty situation, so when I could travel it was very exceptional. I had very intensive friendships with Dutch people, so I felt Dutch, when I was in the Netherlands. I don’t speak Danish and Norwegian not even nearly as fluent as you, Danish I speak on Skype once a week and Norwegian I speak only in the lessons of our VHS-course. In both Scandinavian languages I am able to read and understand native level newspapers such as “Politiken” and “Aftenposten”.
At university I studied Law + Dutch and later in my life Romanistics, but without obtaining my university diploma’s. As hobbys I’m interested in natural sciences especially astronomy and space travel. Nowadays I am very active playing chess with my chess club and playing online tournaments.