The Language Thread

[mizzl]

ITT we discuss different languages (duh  )
What do you think about a language? Have you had it at school? Did you retain any knowledge? Is it worthwhile? etc.

[sonatafanica]

As I said in the chat thread, I love languages!


If I had a way to be instructed to speak more of them, I would gladly take classes or pay for lessons in French, German, and/or Swedish. Sadly, that is not the case where I live.


I speak fluent English (duh), with Spanish as a secondary language that I can stumble through a conversation with, as the instructors who taught me all my life never taught me too much.

[Dr. SeaWolf]

Once I was fluent in German, but there aren't a lot of opportunities to practice (PA Dutch doesn't count )

[rumborak]

I'm very adept at picking up languages, but interestingly I only speak two properly (German and English). I just can't be bothered to learn a language that I can't use. It's like learning to snowboard in the Gobi desert.

rumborak

[emindead]

I'm very adept at picking up languages, but interestingly I only speak two properly (German and English). I just can't be bothered to learn a language that I can't use. It's like learning to snowboard in the Gobi desert.

rumborak

Strangely, the Internet is destroying those barriers.

[mizzl]

I'm bilangual (Dutch + English). It REALLY helps with other languages 

[ReaPsTA]

I'm very adept at picking up languages, but interestingly I only speak two properly (German and English). I just can't be bothered to learn a language that I can't use. It's like learning to snowboard in the Gobi desert.

rumborak

You don't just speak English well, you write it at least better than most native speaker. Plus, being able to have a sense of humor in a second language is no small feat.

[Dr. SeaWolf]

Seconded.  I'd actually like to hear Rumbo's speech.  I would imagine that you'd have a hard time detecting an accent.

[PlaysLikeMyung]

Μαθαίνω Ελληνικά

But English is my first language

[Dr. SeaWolf]

On behalf of physicists everywhere, thank you very much for your alphabet it's definitely come in handy.

[mizzl]

Μαθαίνω Ελληνικά

But English is my first language

I STUDY GREEK AT SCHOOL!!!! Though the Greek I study is from a few millennia ago 

[PlaysLikeMyung]

On behalf of physicists everywhere, thank you very much for your alphabet it's definitely come in handy.

It's not my language

I am in no way Greek lol. I just wanted to learn the language. What I wrote is translated as "I'm learning Greek"

[Dr. SeaWolf]

When you learn a language, you make it your own.

[jasc15]

I love language.  Lately, I've had a desire to learn German, mainly because i was in Germany and Switzerland about 2 months ago, and picked up on a lot of things.  By the end of the trip, I was almost able to understand the announcements on the trains (though the english translations helped).  I also met an American living in Munich, and I was asking her a lot about her efforts in learning the language.  I feel that I would pick up the language quickly if I were surrounded by it.

[AcidLameLTE]

On behalf of physicists everywhere, thank you very much for your alphabet it's definitely come in handy.

[faemir]

I'm doing a Japanese GCSE in my spare time at college, it's awesome. and that's sixth form college, not university.

I only recently realised I was confusing the hell out of people saying I was at college, but was 17.

[ReaperKK]

I know how to speak Lithuanian (I was born there and I converse with my parents in Lithuanian all the time) I'm trying really hard not to forget it so I use it whenever possible.

I can speak English, and I've taken a few classes on French so I can get by on a simple conversation. When I move to Miami, I signed up take Spanish classes.

[Logical Nightmare]

I know Swedish and English fluently. My French isn't very bad, and I once knew Czech since my mother is from there and I was learned two languages from birth. Sadly, I've forgotten most of it since I started school and started using Swedish as my everyday language.

Languages I'd like to learn would be Latin, Hungarian, Japanese, Finnish, and more...

[tri.ad]

In high school, I got my best grades all in the language subjects (English, French, Spanish, (Latin)), so I guess I pick up languages fairly easily. Also, learning new languages is fun and can always come in handy if the situation is adequate.

My English has only improved over the last few years (thanks, DTF ), my French is a little bit rusty, but I still can speak it on an acceptable level, but I'm not sure if I can speak a correct phrase in Spanish anymore.

I'm currently learning Japanese, but I really want to take up a Scandinavian language soon. These languages are very interesting imo.

[TheVoxyn]

I can speak English and Dutch fluent, can make myself clear in and understand German (most of the time) and know some French.

Hurray for Dutch education that teaches you a minimum of 4 languages.

[tri.ad]

Hurray for Dutch education that teaches you a minimum of 4 languages.

Damn, that must be heaven on earth.

[mizzl]

Hurray for Dutch education that teaches you a minimum of 4 languages.

This. In 3rd class, they were teaching me 6 languages 

[TheVoxyn]

Hurray for Dutch education that teaches you a minimum of 4 languages.

Damn, that must be heaven on earth.

Not really . While I do enjoy being able to talk in multiple languages, I'm not very good at learning them.

[Darkes7]

Well, just three in my case:
- native Polish
- pretty fluent English, no problems communicating but I guess I make some mistakes I don't notice
- French... let's be optimistic and call it "intermediate", I can write and read quite a lot, but the amount of mistakes I make is just awful... with speaking it's even worse

I'm definitely planning to learn German in the future (I've always liked it for some reason, but never had a chance to learn it), and I'm considering Dutch and Norwegian. Not sure why, I'm just interested.

[mizzl]

Well, just three in my case:
- native Polish
- pretty fluent English, no problems communicating but I guess I make some mistakes I don't notice
- French... let's be optimistic and call it "intermediate", I can write and read quite a lot, but the amount of mistakes I make is just awful... with speaking it's even worse

I'm definitely planning to learn German in the future (I've always liked it for some reason, but never had a chance to learn it), and I'm considering Dutch and Norwegian. Not sure why, I'm just interested.

Don't get started on Dutch! It's a horrible, irregular language for people that don't know it.

[TheVoxyn]

Nie mówię po polsku.

I know a few (random) Polish words, lived there for 4 years . Was pretty young though.

[robwebster]

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

Ich lernte es seit sechs Jahren. Ich bin so-so.



Er yeah. I've not actually had any lessons for the best part of two years now and I was far from perfect anyway, so I'm pretty rusty. There's probably a stupid number of grammatical errors up there.

[Darkes7]

Don't get started on Dutch! It's a horrible, irregular language for people that don't know it.

I'll see, it's probably not going to happen in the very near future. Though I doubt any language can have a grammar that's more difficult to me than French.

Nie mówię po polsku.

I know a few (random) Polish words, lived there for 4 years . Was pretty young though.

From what I've noticed, Polish isn't that hard to learn, as in being able to communicate with it... but learning it to the point of not making mistakes is a different thing entirely. Learning the basic grammar wouldn't be worse than any other language, but learning further is the difficult part.

And I bet the spelling must be awesome for someone not knowing it.

[hefdaddy42]

I took a lot of Latin in college.  I also have a little Spanish, but I'm not really conversational with it.

I would love to pick up Hebrew and Greek.

[MetalMike06]

Right now I'm learning Arabic, just about to finish my first semester of it. It's a tough language, but I still enjoy learning it. The tough thing is learning a totally new script and then having to learn off that. It makes me want to learn French, Spanish, German, etc. a lot more because it's already in Latin script so would seem much easier for me to learn now.

A main goal is to learn fluent Armenian, but unfortunately there aren't college classes or "Rosetta Stone" for it 

[tri.ad]

Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch.

Ich lernte es seit sechs Jahren. Ich bin so-so.



Er yeah. I've not actually had any lessons for the best part of two years now and I was far from perfect anyway, so I'm pretty rusty. There's probably a stupid number of grammatical errors up there.

No, there's only one small mistake - If you are still learning it, you use "seit" with the present tense: "Ich lerne es seit sechs Jahren". If you had learned it for a while, but stopped doing it, you drop the "seit" and rather say "Ich lernte es sechs Jahre lang". Other than that, it's fine.

But in the end, it all comes down to what the speaker meant to say, and if you get that, it's basically all good.

[ich bin besser]

In school, I learned:
- Latin: first foreign language, did it for 10 years (starting in 5th grade), never used it since. But it helped a lot in learning:
- English: starting in 7th grade, did it for 8 years. Posting on music forums really helped me not to forget it.
- French: starting in 9th grade, did it for 6 years. Never used it since, but still remember quite a few things, both vocabulary and grammar.

In my country, I learned:
- German: starting at the ago of 0, did it for 41 years. Helped me to become a German teacher.
 

[Gwii]

I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and 1 year of Japanese.  I remember very little from both.  I kind of wish I kept up with Japanese, but it's the kind of thing that you have to practice every day or you won't get anywhere fast.

[faemir]

I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and 1 year of Japanese.  I remember very little from both.  I kind of wish I kept up with Japanese, but it's the kind of thing that you have to practice every day or you won't get anywhere fast.

Aww, now we can't have newbie japanese conversations where we get confused by each other's broken Japanese

[Gwii]

I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and 1 year of Japanese.  I remember very little from both.  I kind of wish I kept up with Japanese, but it's the kind of thing that you have to practice every day or you won't get anywhere fast.

Aww, now we can't have newbie japanese conversations where we get confused by each other's broken Japanese

I wish I could have kept my textbook, because I would have reviewed it from time to time, and I would remember at least the basics.  But I had to give it back to the school (I took the class as a postsecondary program: it was a college class that I took in high school, and the state paid for it, including the book, which is why I couldn't keep it).