Teh foreign language thread

[Fantasia]

How many of you are studying foreign languages? I guess when I say foreign language I mean it in both ways, like... not your native language, but since SWF (do people still call this place SWF?) is in English, then non-English as well.

For me... my native languages are English and Spanish. But I've also studied lots of other languages (cos I have. no. life.)

High School:
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Japanese
- Latin (I was like, lel, Spanish comes from Latin, this language should be a piece of cake... BOY WAS I WRONG. This cake was a lie.)

College:
- (moar) Japanese (kinda can understand it now)
- Russian (forgot it all)

To Infinity and Beyond:
- Mandarin Chinese ("fluent" in teh sense that I can have conversations and watch and understand movies)
- Cantonese Chinese (same as ^ but not quite as good, btw, cantonese is my favorite language)

Cyborg languages:
- Python
- OCaml
- Haskell
- Go (currently learning)
- C/C++
- etc...

Languages on my bucket list:
- Finnish
- Dutch
- Vietnamese
- Russian

rip...social life

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

I took some Spanish classes during my high school years. It was pretty good. These days, I'm learning the Japanese language since the Land of the Rising Sun rocks!

 

[mario123007]

My mother language is Chinese using Traditional Chinese characters. I am quite fluent when it comes to English (duh)
I'm currently learning Japanese and German.

 

[FamilyTeam]

Brazilian Portuguese is my mother language but by this point English barely counts as my "second language" anymore. It's as primary as my mother langauge for me.
A few years ago, back when I didn't have many friends to talk to, let alone Brazilian friends, during summer breaks I'd actually go weeks without writing a single word in Portuguese and only speaking the necessary with my parents. I'd go so long without using Portuguese that whenever I had to write anything in it after so long, I'd even have some difficulties.
Nowadays, I use both languages extensively and interchangeably, so it's not like that issue pops up again.
Other than that, I have Intermediate Spanish (though I don't study the language) and Basic Japanese (been on a course for almost 2 years now).
I love foreign languages and cultures, so I like learning them.

 

[Fantasia]

Yeah, it was the same for me growing up. I spoke spanish at home but never went to school in spanish, so my English is much more dominant. I can still speak and understand basically any Spanish, but it's weird how if you don't use it, you'll basically lose it.

Another odd thing that I've found is that since Spanish is native for me, I can't seem to forget it. Like, sure, it gets harder to talk when I don't use it, but it like never goes away. On the contrary, whenever I studied Italian, it entered into like... a "foreign language" bucket inside my mind. So when I went to China to learn Chinese, suddenly it became really hard for me to speak Italian, even though Italian is so much easier for me than Chinese since it's basically like Spanish.

 

[RamOne]

My native language is Dutch with English being the default foreign language in The Netherlands. In high school I took French and German. Reading still goes fine (it certainly helps German and Dutch are alike), listening has never been my strongest point and writing is the one that suffered the most due to lack of practice, especially French.
Currently taking some Italian on the side.

 

[WeirdChillFever]

Dutch is my mother language with English being my second language.
I'm taking French and German in school, so I can find my way om these languages as well.
I also took Latin for three years, but ditched it because taking both Ancient Greek and Latin became too much.
I still take Ancient Greek.

Now my eyes are set on languages outside of Europe and the Roman languages such as Spanish and Italian.

Dutch seems a good bridge between learning English and German, as you'll be used to both vocab and grammar before German taking them both into überdrive.
Although if you've had Latin, German grammar won't spook you.

 

[Pachinkosam]

My first language is Spanish and then i learned English.
Im gonna learn Japanese so can sub anime and make conversations in japanese.

 

[BagrB0y]

我学习中文. English is my native language, 可是我很喜欢中文.

Also into coding a 'lil bit, personally a Python man myself but do drabble in Java/C's a little.

 

[mario123007]

我学习中文. English is my native language, 可是我很喜欢中文.

Also into coding a 'lil bit, personally a Python man myself but do drabble in Java/C's a little.

Nice, but I see you are learning Simplified Chinese, not a bad thing though lol. Keep it up!

 

[BagrB0y]

Nice, but I see you are learning Simplified Chinese, not a bad thing though lol. Keep it up!

Just what my school teaches, technically easier to learn and at the end of the day speaking doesn't really change.

 

[mario123007]

Just what my school teaches, technically easier to learn and at the end of the day speaking doesn't really change.

Not sure what your "speaking doesn't really change" means lol. I guess you mean you still don't think you can speak Chinese? I'm sure you can, you don't have to be fluent, just be sure your Chinese is easy to understand.

 

[BagrB0y]

Not sure what your "speaking doesn't really change" means lol. I guess you mean you still don't think you can speak Chinese? I'm sure you can, you don't have to be fluent, just be sure your Chinese is easy to understand.

Oh no I can speak fine, I just mean pronounciation doesn't change between traditional / simplified

 

[mario123007]

Oh no I can speak fine, I just mean pronounciation doesn't change between traditional / simplified

Actually, even when speaking Mandarin accents can be vary on different regions since Taiwan uses different phonic system compare to China, Hong Kong and Macau. There are rare times that some Chinese has accent that I have a bit hard time to understand.
Oh yeah, there are some words that pronunciation changes depending on countries.

 

[BagrB0y]

Actually, even when speaking Mandarin accents can be vary on different regions since Taiwan uses different phonic system compare to China, Hong Kong and Macau. There are rare times that some Chinese has accent that I have a bit hard time to understand.
Oh yeah, there are some words that pronunciation changes depending on countries.

Oh no those are dialects, and yes I know of a couple examples (I.E. how people in Beijing(?) often use 您 instead of just 你 or how there are different pronunciations for words like Shui (Taiwanese).

Traditional vs. Simplified is strictly a change in how the characters are written, not spoken- Thats what I was getting at.

 

[mario123007]

Oh no those are dialects, and yes I know of a couple examples (I.E. how people in Beijing(?) often use 您 instead of just 你 or how there are different pronunciations for words like Shui (Taiwanese).

Traditional vs. Simplified is strictly a change in how the characters are written, not spoken- Thats what I was getting at.

Don't get me started on dialects because there are a lot of them. I only know Mandarin. I don't know much about Taiwanese.

 

[BagrB0y]

Don't get me started on dialects because there are a lot of them. I only know Mandarin. I don't know much about Taiwanese.

Same, I just know a couple of words are pronounced differently, but thats about it

 

[dezeray112]

Whilst English is my primary language, I do often speak in my other language which is Cantonese.

I've also studied French, Welsh and a bit of Japanese back when I was a high school student.

 

[Lord Dio]

sprechen sie deutsch?
For high school, took two years of Latin (was awful), then offered more Latin or spanish or german. not a big fan of spanish and wasn't in the mood for more raeda est in fossa (a recurring meme in the latin book).

 

[mario123007]

sprechen sie deutsch?
For high school, took two years of Latin (was awful), then offered more Latin or spanish or german. not a big fan of spanish and wasn't in the mood for more raeda est in fossa (a recurring meme in the latin book).

I have interest leaning German and had learn some last semester.

 

[Lord Dio]

I have interest leaning German and had learn some last semester.

Tbh just know your r's and s's with prnunciation, it's imo pretty simple in terms of pronunciation (speaking as someone who can't roll their r's, another reason for not taking spanish......)
but get ready for long words that sound nothing like their english meaning :D
Krankenwagen for instance (ambulance)

 

[mario123007]

Tbh just know your r's and s's with prnunciation, it's imo pretty simple in terms of pronunciation (speaking as someone who can't roll their r's, another reason for not taking spanish......)
but get ready for long words that sound nothing like their english meaning :D
Krankenwagen for instance (ambulance)

S was pretty easy to get through, but R oh boy it was pretty hard.

 

[Lord Dio]

S was pretty easy to get through, but R oh boy it was pretty hard.

yeah, usually any problems people have is with r's, such as huere (because idk how to do dipthongs on this), to hear.

 

[Deleted member]

American English is my primary language, but I've taken Spanish classes during my high school years... which was way back in 1976 and to this very day I can speak it decently. Let me tell y'all something, though: when I was a little girl I've desired to learn Japanese. That was the year 1971 but I didn't stick with it for long. Ever since the start of the current decade I picked it up again.

Here's an example: Kawai Shizuka to mōshimasu. Watashi wa gojūroku-sai. Anata ni oai dekite ureshii desu. 私の名前は川井静です。 私は56歳です。あなたにお会いできて光栄です。

 

[Pachinkosam]

American English is my primary language, but I've taken Spanish classes during my high school years... which was way back in 1976 and to this very day I can speak it decently. Let me tell y'all something, though: when I was a little girl I've desired to learn Japanese. That was the year 1971 but I didn't stick with it for long. Ever since the start of the current decade I picked it up again.

Here's an example: Kawai Shizuka to mōshimasu. Watashi wa gojūroku-sai. Anata ni oai dekite ureshii desu. 私の名前は川井静です。 私は56歳です。あなたにお会いできて光栄です。

How long you studied Japanese?

 

[Deleted member]

^ Well, I only learned it for about a year or two way back when I was fifth grade before I gave it up. Since 2011 I've returned to it and I never thought this language was simple to pick up similarly to Spanish.

Sayonara

 

[Pachinkosam]

^ Well, I only learned it for about a year or two way back when I was fifth grade before I gave it up. Since 2011 I've returned to it and I never thought this language was simple to pick up similarly to Spanish.

Sayonara

As Spanish is my first language Japanese is very similar to spanish.

 

[R3D3MON]

한국말 하시는 분들 어디계세요??

Korean is my primary language but American English is basically my second primary language now.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Dutch is my first language, being born here and stuff. English is my second language, could hold a decent conversation since age 12 or something, and did a study for international wholesale with classes only in English. I think I've got the language down, cause everytime I am in Amsterdam I can fool people that I'm a tourist, while am not. Funny hearing people speaking your own language and thinking you don't understand them. Then again, I don't look like the regular Dutchman either.

I also had German for about, 5 years or so at school. I can pretty much understand most German, and it's fun to speak German with a angry tone. Amazing actually. I could understand someone speaking German to me, but only would be able to reply minimally or just slowly. Then again, Dutch and German are pretty damn similar after all.

There's also French, which I can understand reasonably if I pay attention, but accents really **** me up. I cannot hold a conversation in French at all, and it's a shame cause the langauge is beautiful and would've helped me with my travels there a lot. I used to work in France for a season, and it takes a little time, but if I hear it everyday, I can understand mostly anything.

Then there's the Surinam language of Sranan Tongo which I speak a little, I would say I speak it better than German. But it's made easier cause it's acceptable to use Dutch words mingled with Sranan Tongo. It's a mix of many languages, the Creole of African languages mostly, but a few words come from both Dutch and English. I've been around people from Surinam since I was a teenager, and am one of the few Dutchies actually interessted in the language, but it's common for more "street wise" people to speak a little Sranan Tongo around here, even if a whole lot of white kids only do so trying to look cool.

There's also Jamaican Patios I could talk, but generally don't, cause I don't wanna come off as a 'Jafakean' (fake Jamaican). But it is generally thought to be a language on it's own, even if it uses English as it's base.

So I would say, I'm vocal in about 5 languages / dialects.

 

[Venus of the Desert Bloom]

English and Japanese are my primary first languages. I’m a natural English speaker and a learned Japanese speaker. Then a little bit of Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Thai, and Korean I need for my job. While I teach English in Japan but I also assist the foreign community here and occasionally serve as a translator/interpreter.

Though I’ve become fluent in baby talk within a short period of time .