 Poster: A snowHead
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... I've procrastinated over the past few years, as I've been meaning to try and learn a new language.
So I thought I'd try this summer...
I work in Canada as a Ski Instructor but have thought about working in Europe in the future.
Not interested in working in France and Italy is too hard to get into imho.
So that leaves all the other nations.
It seems Austria, Switzerland and maybe Andorra could be potential places to work.
So which language would be most beneficial? German...French...any other?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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spud, Wouldn't French help in Canada ?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I think there are two approaches to this:
1) Work out which area you want to work in and then learn the native language for that area;
2) Work out which nationality of skier you'd like to teach (for whatever reason) and then learn the native language of those skiers.
Both have their advantages. Ideally you'd do both, but you'll probably have a different answer/language to the two above, and trying to pick up more than one language to a competent level in a few months is probably unachievable for most.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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spud, until a few weeks ago I would have said Russian, and then go and work in Austria. Maybe not any more though.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Russian, and then go and work in Austria.
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I think that'd still be a really good idea, but learning Russian is pretty difficult!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Mostly what kieranm says.
French is a good one to start with - once you know how it works you can pick up Italian and Spanish from that very quickly. German is more of a challenge because the sentence structure is a bit odd, but the rest is ok.
I think you'll find that in all the countries you list, you'll be able to get by with French and English. I find in Spain (for Andorra) that if someone doesn't speak English they speak French, and only after then do we have to resort to my rubbish Spanish!
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Bulgarian.
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There are only two Dutch speaking instructors in Les Gets. They are VERY busy.
I hear it's a pretty simple language to pick up as well... 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Greek
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French is a good one to start with - once you know how it works you can pick up Italian and Spanish from that very quickly.
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Hmm. Italian grammar and some vocabulary is similar to French but I haven't found it that easy to learn Italian. Yes, very easily to do the "get by" tourist stuff, but hard work to become more fluent. Still far easier than learning Russian, though! It takes someone with better than average linguistic ability and application to learn Russian to a reasonable standard. I don't think German is difficult for English people and when I was always the family "spokesperson" in German, when we used to go camping in the Black Forest and Austria, I found it infinitely easier than French (I was doing just O level in both) not least because German speakers tended to be very polite and complimentary about my very ordinary language abilities (which never happened in France!).
Would seem a shame to learn Dutch when most Dutch people speak good English - might be some call for it for ski lessons but overall one reason to learn a language is to be able better to appreciate and enjoy the culture.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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pam w, Learning Dutch isn't that silly, they tend to go to particular ski resorts, if spud wanted to work somewhere like Veysonnaz/Nendaz then it could be useful.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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rjs, yes, I didn't say it was silly - learning a language is never silly - it's just that it's nice to learn a language which will, kind of, "open doors" to communication with people and cultures which would be closed to you without that language. Whereas it would be a real mission to learn Dutch to a standard better than most Dutch people, especially the younger ones, speak English.
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Chinese/Mandarin.
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You know it makes sense.
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Μιλάω ελληνικά λίγο
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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laundryman, even more difficult than Russian! It takes at least a year of immersion for a someone who has studied Mandarin to quite a high level to become remotely fluent. A bit of a mission!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Wow...a real mixed bag of suggestions.
I remember doing French and German at school... I dropped German as I found French slightly easier.
I was under the impression that German would be more useful in Austria and Switzerland?
French is worth having if you teach East of Alberta in Canada...but pretty much worthless elsewhere.
With the way working visas are in Canada and the USA, the prospect of working in Europe is growing ever closer.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| spud wrote: |
| I was under the impression that German would be more useful in Austria and Switzerland? |
Many people prefer to have a native speaker or if not someone who speaks their native language. It's likely that you would get the English speaking customers however good your German was. This is probably why learning Dutch is not a bad suggestion.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Can you recieve French language TV /radio in your part of Canada ?
Are there people near you who speak French ?
If so French will be easier to learn as you can get to use it on a daily basis. If you go almost anywere in the world with English and French you will not have too much difficulty also maybe you as suggested by others could learn Spanish afterwards.
Being able to continually use a language you are learning is better for most than learn stuff and then not use it for 6 months or more, and probably forget half of what you learnt.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| kieranm wrote: |
I think there are two approaches to this:
1) Work out which area you want to work in and then learn the native language for that area;
2) Work out which nationality of skier you'd like to teach (for whatever reason) and then learn the native language of those skiers.
Both have their advantages. Ideally you'd do both, but you'll probably have a different answer/language to the two above, and trying to pick up more than one language to a competent level in a few months is probably unachievable for most. |
Extension to point #2, work out what nationality of skiers don't speak English and learn their language!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| pam w wrote: |
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Russian, and then go and work in Austria.
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I think that'd still be a really good idea, but learning Russian is pretty difficult! |
If things get worse in Ukraine. There will not be any Russians in Austria or the West next year as
Visas will be withdrawn
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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[quote="pam w"]
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I don't think German is difficult for English people and when I was always the family "spokesperson" in German, when we used to go camping in the Black Forest and Austria, I found it infinitely easier than French (I was doing just O level in both) not least because German speakers tended to be very polite and complimentary about my very ordinary language abilities (which never happened in France!).
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I only did French to Standard grade at school. I find the German pronunciation much easier but French grammar to me seems more similar to English. If you look at any place that has signs in multiple languages then the French, English, Spanish and Italian always have similar word order while the German has a totally different order. I know you don't have to be perfect at this sort of thing but look at the definite and indefinite articles and demonstratives of German vs French in this link, about half way down the page. I think it is easy to pick up phrases and enough to get by but speaking fluently in any language is difficult.
http://ielanguages.com/frenchgerman1.html
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I did German at school and found it quite easy (very logical). I am now learning French and finding it hard going. Perhaps that is because I am now 30 years older than when I learnt German!
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German gets much easier when you give up trying to remember whether it's der, die or das, and whether that's supposed to change to der den den etc... I just make a noncommittal noise somewhere between the three these days, and it seems to work fine. The pronunciation of them varies massively with dialect anyway.
German in Switzerland seems to be even easier - weird accent but they're a lot looser on the grammar rules (according to some Swiss friends anyway).
No point learning Dutch, all of them (without exception in the under 40s) speak English to an incredibly high level. It would take you years to get your Dutch as good as their English. Plus if you speak German and English you can get by pretty well in understanding Dutch, a lot of it seems to be a mixture of the two.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Hedge your bets: Esperanto.
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clarky999,
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A dog is "der Hund"; a woman is "die Frau"; a horse is "das Pferd"; now you put that dog in the genitive case, and is he the same dog he was before? No, sir; he is "des Hundes"; put him in the dative case and what is he? Why, he is "dem Hund." Now you snatch him into the accusative case and how is it with him? Why, he is "den Hunden." But suppose he happens to be twins and you have to pluralize him- what then? Why, they'll swat that twin dog around through the 4 cases until he'll think he's an entire international dog-show all in is own person. I don't like dogs, but I wouldn't treat a dog like that- I wouldn't even treat a borrowed dog that way. Well, it's just the same with a cat. They start her in at the nominative singular in good health and fair to look upon, and they sweat her through all the 4 cases and the 16 the's and when she limps out through the accusative plural you wouldn't recognize her for the same being. Yes, sir, once the German language gets hold of a cat, it's goodbye cat. That's about the amount of it.
- Mark Twain's Notebook |
Alles klar? 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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clarky999, even Germans here "cheat" and just use der or die for everything (when speaking).
Dutch is easier to learn, imho (lived there 4 years, and still want to use Dutch words instead of German, 10 years after moving to Germany). German might be logical, but it also has some illogical constructs.
Now Luxembourgish - that's the one that's Double Dutch.
Personally, I'd pick one of French, German or Spanish, depending on where you might like to go. And then go there.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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German might be logical, but it also has some illogical constructs.
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very illogical sentence structure, start at the end and finish in the middle 
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I read somewhere that speaking like Yoda is the best bet to make when trying to construct sentence in German, can I it to you give? 
DB, the language cd I have has another quote from Mark Twain in it about the gender of women, das Mädel, das Fräulein, she gets to be feminine for a short while as die Frau then back to neutral when she's married, das Weib.
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You know it makes sense.
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even Germans here "cheat" and just use der or die for everything (when speaking)
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are you telling me that the lists of prepositions which take the accusative and the dative, which for some peculiar reason have stuck in my brain since I did O level German in 1963 are a waste of time?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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rjs, Yes you're right, you can teach the Dutch adults in English, but to teach their children you have to speak their native tongue. spud, I personally would go for French though.
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Poster: A snowHead
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spud, Find yourself a girl/boyfriend who is a native speaker of the language you decide to learn, & you will be stunned at how quickly you pick it up I know someone who went to Italy to learn Italian, met a Swedish fellow & came back fluent in both after 6 months!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Seems like German or Spanish then as you say more accessible with lower instructor qualifications.
I speak Spanish, not fluent but to anyone other than a native speaker I probably sound it. I did 5 years of French and German at school and can now speak very little of either-if you don't use it you loose it! Interesting people say if you can speak one of the romance languages it's easy to pick the others up. I disagree with this in my case at least. Recently tried to pick up French again, there are some similarities true but plenty of differences I found it very difficult to not get massively confused!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Just use English and shout louder like they're all stupid.......when someone gets offended just say you're American so the good old cannucks don't get a bad reputation
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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lynseyf,
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Gretchen. "Wilhelm, where is the turnip?"
Wilhelm. "She has gone to the kitchen".
Gretchen. "Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?"
Wilhelm. "It has gone to the opera." |
The Germans don't half like their big words too....
"Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"
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Many people prefer to have a native speaker or if not someone who speaks their native language. It's likely that you would get the English speaking customers however good your German was. This is probably why learning Dutch is not a bad suggestion.
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Unless your instructor is VERY fluent in your language, I think it makes a big difference if your instructor shares the same mother tongue and it usually takes years to go from "getting by" to being fluent in a language.
We have insisted that our two older children learn French GCSE rather than German (neither have any interest to work in a ski resort) If Spanish was available at their school, this would be better.
The kids are very unlikely to holiday / visit German speaking countries and the Germans are very good at English
they are quite likely to visit France and the French are less enthusiastic (to be polite) about speaking English.
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We have insisted that our two older children learn French GCSE rather than German
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My three all chose German (and it was their choice, not ours - no way would I have let my parents "insist" what subjects I chose). It turned out v useful for the middle son, who did a work camp in Berlin and spent a summer working on a Swiss farm and another packing vegetables in Germany. Having good German made the experiences much more interesting for him though his German is pretty "mountain" in style.
Number one son only did O level but he'd like to work in Germany (he's an engineer) so it might be useful for him, too. Daughter now regrets not having a better basis in French because of holidaying here.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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German is a far more important in Europe than French particularly for business so it is illogical that French is taught and learnt over French in the UK. For a Brit ski instructor French makes more sense as will increase opportunities in France and parts of Switzerland where you can make more money.
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As you are in Canada it might be easier to start with French already. So if you come to Europe you could already work in the French or Swiss Alps as a ski instructor or similar.
To learn German without being in the country is very tough I guess, not the best language to do that. I know some schools over there even teach Frnch as give ski lessons in the same time http://www.ifalpes.com/. Even though also Germany is connected to the Alps, and of course Austria, the French market makes sense fr you as you could also work in different areas in Canada once you decide to go back. just my thought
also
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German speaking countries and the Germans are very good at English
they are quite likely to visit France and the French are less enthusiastic (to be polite) about speaking English.
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the communication issue might be bigger in France than Germany anyways.. GO FRENCH
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FAQ
