Szymon Von Zalyn
Full Member
50% Polish of Prussian descent, 25% Italian, 25% kalmyk, but 100% English.
Posts: 367
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Post by Szymon Von Zalyn on May 31, 2009 5:51:50 GMT -5
My Mother and I went to a chinese shop in London a while ago and she spoke to the Chinese people in Mandarin and Cantonese Seeing that she is Russian and I have only heard her speak that language to others, this came as a pit of a surprise but Mummy told me that she and her family lived in China from 1938 to 1950 as Grandfather was an engineer Does anyone else have any stories like this?
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Post by Paddy on May 31, 2009 9:50:02 GMT -5
That's an amazing story. I bet she has some really incredible memories of that time.
Every once in a while my mum will divulge some mad stories from the past - though she hasn't yet blown my bollocks by speaking Russian! It is difficult to get her to talk about the past. It's not that she has things to hide, or prefers to keep things to herself. She's happy to talk, but seems incapable of it most of the time. It's as though she doesn't know what you really want to know, so she says nothing. I find her incredibly frustrating. Impossible woman to talk to (as my father will attest to after 30-odd years of marriage). That well of knowledge that tied up inside her.
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Post by attilathehun513 on May 31, 2009 11:48:13 GMT -5
My Mother and I went to a chinese shop in London a while ago and she spoke to the Chinese people in Mandarin and Cantonese Seeing that she is Russian and I have only heard her speak that language to others, this came as a pit of a surprise but Mummy told me that she and her family lived in China from 1938 to 1950 as Grandfather was an engineer Does anyone else have any stories like this? Yeah she must have been practicing her Mandrain in privacy because a. you don't know about this until now b. you have to be constantly using a language in order to retain it Yeah, that's pretty impressive I have to say. My dad use to know Russian (his native tongue is Mandrain) and he can't use it anymore.
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Post by amalgam on Jun 1, 2009 5:41:48 GMT -5
Twelve years of living in a foreign country would make you pretty fluent imo, esp. at a young age. Tell that to my mum, 21 years in Australia and she still can't tell the difference between "she" and "she", or was it "he"? Nah I love her to bits and she is quite good at speaking English, just sometimes can't get simple words right.
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Post by attilathehun513 on Jun 1, 2009 16:03:45 GMT -5
Twelve years of living in a foreign country would make you pretty fluent imo, esp. at a young age. Tell that to my mum, 21 years in Australia and she still can't tell the difference between "she" and "she", or was it "he"? Nah I love her to bits and she is quite good at speaking English, just sometimes can't get simple words right. Sounds like grammar problems...
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Post by Flat Top on Jun 1, 2009 19:21:33 GMT -5
Twelve years of living in a foreign country would make you pretty fluent imo, esp. at a young age. Tell that to my mum, 21 years in Australia and she still can't tell the difference between "she" and "she", or was it "he"? Nah I love her to bits and she is quite good at speaking English, just sometimes can't get simple words right. But how old was she? There's a difference between starting at 12 years old vs. 19 years old. Plus every individual is different.
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Post by helles on Jun 1, 2009 20:02:13 GMT -5
my mum has problems getting he/she right every now and then. Her speaking is very good, but her writing is pretty bad grammatically, sometimes shockingly, as when she reads out the sentence she's written, she says it correctly! which is funny, most chinese people these days are fluent when writing, but have difficulty speaking.
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Post by amalgam on Jun 1, 2009 20:10:53 GMT -5
^Wait so your mum is now fluent at speaking Chinese? Is she Chinese? attilathehun513 and Flat Top: Yeah she just misses those small details in her speak and still retains the Asian accent whilst speaking in English, and now that you mention it, yeah she did come over here at umm... mid 20's?
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Post by jefe on Jun 2, 2009 13:25:54 GMT -5
^ I think Helen is talking about her Mom and using English.
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Post by mrxcloudyxloc on Jun 21, 2009 7:04:21 GMT -5
My pops speaks Mandarin, and he's white, but he was a linguist in the Air Force. I've always known he speaks it tho, he practices by looking up articles and stuff like that every morning, or striking up conversations with people at the airport etc. I think it'd be pretty crazy if he just busted out some Mandarin one day and I had no idea he spoke it.
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