HFQ Official Snippet #5

n7axw wrote:
Because Espanol is the way the language is refered to in Spanish... just like Deutsch is the way German is refered to in German...

Don

Yes, but for Nynian to have understood that the new language was called Español, Khody must have called it that in an English section of the Journal, which suggests that is how he usually thinks of it. What we make of that is not so simple; could mean he is a native speaker, or that he was taught the language but not the English name for it.

My vote is that Kohdy was an Adam who picked up his Spanish through a neat.., perhaps late one night when he was on watch with no one looking over his shoulder. Don't really know, of course.

Your other assumption is logical, but not necessarily reliable. Having studied German as a college and seminary student, I habitually refer to it as Deutsch. In fact the more fluent one becomes in a language, the less likely one is to use its English designation.

Don

My guess is still that Khody is the child, or grandchild, of a Spanish crew member who was taught spanish to secretly continue his family's heritage.

Randomiser wrote:Yes, but for Nynian to have understood that the new language was called Español, Khody must have called it that in an English section of the Journal, which suggests that is how he usually thinks of it. What we make of that is not so simple; could mean he is a native speaker, or that he was taught the language but not the English name for it.

Or he learned it through a "speak Español like a native" download package, and the behavior was encoded in with the artificial fluency.

John Prigent wrote:

Anyone of normal intelligence who understands their own language's grammar is capable of picking up basic conversational proficiency in a new language within days, and intensive study should give that person a complete grasp of grammar within a few weeks - definitely not months.

A good friend of mine stayed in Germany for three months with his aunt and uncle and their three daughters. He was the only English speaker. (I thought English was taught in school there. But this is his story.) He also worked there. He said that after one month he was picking up bits of conversation around him. After two months he could hold conversations. After three months he was fluent. He tells a story of getting back to the states and slipping German words into his English conversation. One story he tells refers to a time he didn't have enough cash to pay for a full tank of gas. When the attendant asked if he wanted a fill up, he replied, "Well, I would like to have a fill up, aber..."

That accorded well to something I had read shortly before he told me this story regarding immersion learning. I read that after one month you start picking up bits of conversation around you...well, you can guess the rest.

~Tonto

Tonto Silerheels wrote:A good friend of mine stayed in Germany for three months with his aunt and uncle and their three daughters. He was the only English speaker. (I thought English was taught in school there. But this is his story.) He also worked there. He said that after one month he was picking up bits of conversation around him. After two months he could hold conversations. After three months he was fluent.

Well about English being taught in German schools: It depends very much on the time when he was there and in which region he was (rural or urban?).
He must have a talent for languages because being fluent in German is a hard thing to achieve. It's very easy to make a lot of small mistakes in German (articles, gender, cases, declension, conjugation). But what exactly is the definition of fluent?

Tonto Silerheels wrote:John Prigent wrote:

Anyone of normal intelligence who understands their own language's grammar is capable of picking up basic conversational proficiency in a new language within days, and intensive study should give that person a complete grasp of grammar within a few weeks - definitely not months.

A good friend of mine stayed in Germany for three months with his aunt and uncle and their three daughters. He was the only English speaker. (I thought English was taught in school there. But this is his story.) He also worked there. He said that after one month he was picking up bits of conversation around him. After two months he could hold conversations. After three months he was fluent. He tells a story of getting back to the states and slipping German words into his English conversation. One story he tells refers to a time he didn't have enough cash to pay for a full tank of gas. When the attendant asked if he wanted a fill up, he replied, "Well, I would like to have a fill up, aber..."

That accorded well to something I had read shortly before he told me this story regarding immersion learning. I read that after one month you start picking up bits of conversation around you...well, you can guess the rest.

~Tonto

Actually, you can be conversationally fluent with basic grammar and about a thousand words vocabulary. But you would get lost trying to follow a graduate level lecture with that kind of fluency. It is also different than being able to write fluently expressing complex subjects that need a wider ranger of vocabulary. I took New Testament Greek as a college freshman and 8 years later I was still learning it. Part of the difficulty was there was no interest in speaking, only translating. That was over 40 years ago. I hope they have learned something about teaching it in the interim...

How fluent Kohdy would have needed to be in Spanish for his journal is not something we know at this point.

Don

Don

Actually, you can be conversationally fluent with basic grammar and about a thousand words vocabulary. But you would get lost trying to follow a graduate level lecture with that kind of fluency. It is also different than being able to write fluently expressing complex subjects that need a wider ranger of vocabulary. I took New Testament Greek as a college freshman and 8 years later I was still learning it. Part of the difficulty was there was no interest in speaking, only translating. That was over 40 years ago. I hope they have learned something about teaching it in the interim...

How fluent Kohdy would have needed to be in Spanish for his journal is not something we know at this point.

Don

Don

And now I'm wondering if the Espanol portions of Kohdy's journal are in hilariously broken Spanish.

evilauthor wrote:And now I'm wondering if the Espanol portions of Kohdy's journal are in hilariously broken Spanish.

And suddenly I'm thinking of some bad actor speaking broken spanglish in a dreadful Hollywood movie.

My thoughts on who Kohdy was.

Enlisted member of the command crew.

Mid rank, 2nd class petty officer.

After Kau-yung took out most of the senior command staff, those remaining reprogrammed the junior members of the command crew. Especially if they were questioning why the Armageddon attack took place. Their original memories would have been destroyed like what was done with the Adams & Eves.

When Kohdy was captured, he wasn't reprogrammed, but was shown the truth. While his original memories were gone, his personnel record was available and thus decided to relearn Spanish.