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[Padfoot12]

First off, a little note to the mods: I'm pretty sure there isn't a thread like this, but if you think it's too like the accents one, please lock this topic.

Anywho... I thought this could be a thread to discuss what language you normally speak, and what other languages you also know and are learning! Maybe we could even teach each other a few words here and there...

I really love other languages, I only wish I could speak them! I am Australian, but I learn Italian at school and absolutely love it! I'd love to be able to learn French, Spanish, and Japanese though.

Well, I'd love to hear anything you have to say (or can say, rather)!!!

*Padfoot*

[Ginny21]

Hi Padfoot12!
Nice thread! I also like speaking different languages and I´m trying my best to get to now as much languages as I can.
I normally speak German, English and Polish, but I used to learn French from 7th to 10th grade.I´m actually still able to speak French, but I´m learning Spanish for my second year now and I´m glad that I can speak it fluently.But I want to learn Italian, too, although I don´t know when I´ll be able to start learning it .I really like the way Italian sounds and it is a bit similiar to French and Spanish:)
If you want to know any words or phrases in any of the languages I speak, just ask me and I´ll translate it for you!
Bye,
Ginny21

MOD NOTE: Ginny, would you mind cutting down your sig a few lines? If you check out the signature rules, you're allowed a maximum of five lines of text. Thanks!

This post has been edited by Allie: Nov 30 2005, 01:18 AM

[gog_sirius]

hey! wow you really know languages.. But I am from Venezuela.. *latin girl* so I speak spanish.. I know English.. not perfect but i can write in this forums!! and I'm learning french!! since.. May of this year.!!! And later on I want to learn Italian, Portuguese and maybe German but i find it kind of difficult

[Ginny21]

Hey gog_sirius!
Que tal? Wow, I like the fact that you´re from Venezuela!I´ve got a friend in Brazil myself, but for me Portuguese seems to be so difficult that I would consider it to be better to learn Italian first, because its easier.I know its hard to learn languages but keep on learning , the work will be worth it! So keep on!:)
Bye,
Gin

[Anglophile92]

I can only speak English fluently...sadly
but i do know a little bit of Spanish, and i would love to learn to speak Hindi, French, Italian, Swedish,maybe even Russian! Languages are very cool!

[miss know-it-all]

i'm mexican so i can speak spanish.i can also speak english ,some french,and some italian.i'm trying to learn more french and italian.

[just me]

Wow! You all have big plans to learn different languages! It won't be easy, that's for sure!

I'm Norwegian, and since it's quite similar to Swedish and Danish I'm quite good at speaking it! Of course I can speak English and I know a great deal of French! But because of my stupid French teacher I'm not so good at speaking it. I can only talk about what I like and don't like, and where I'm going and where I've been.
I also know a little German since some of my friends have German at school instead of French. And I know a little Nepali, because i lived in Nepal in four years, but it's fading away now..

I would love to know how to speak Italian or Spanish, but I don't have time for that. If I studied there I would learn the language, but I've already decided to study in England!

[felix_felicis_444]

oooo I love learning languages!
I have made it one of my goals in life to learn to speak at least 10 languages fluently. Dont get me wrong, I do not have many lifetime goals, but this one has always been my favorite
It should be tough reaching this, however, considering I only speak English and Espanol fluently as of now...
Supposedly the other romance languages are not too difficult to learn once you know one...so I hope ...next year I plan on taking either Latin or Italian...I'm not sure which yet...should be fun!
I also know many phrases in Yiddish and Ladino, which are really easy-to-learn languages in my opinion...
Anyway, I speak a little bit of Italian, Hebrew, French, and Mandarin Chinese, but barely enough to get around in those countries....


_daviD

[Draco_Malfoy]

i speak some spanish, italian and polish.
i hope to be fluent in italian one day.

[Krieltje]

I speak some languages
The languages I speak fluently are: Dutch, English, German and French. These are the languages that everyone has at my school. Next to these I speak Latin (had if for four years) and a bit spanish (I can hardly speak it, but if someone speaks to me in Spanish I do understand what they mean)

[Caoo]

Ooh, I like this thread

just me, I'm Norwegian too! I can speak Norwegian (of course ), English and French. I can also a little German, can't speak so much, but I understand what you mean if you speak it. I can also speak Danish and Swedish, at least understand it.

Ooh, I loved this thread

[Bumblebee]

Nice thread! Languages are my favourite hobby!

I speak a few fluently, though I'm only truly bilingual in two (English and Dutch). Welsh is next, though not as good as I would like, alas. I get by in French, German, and Icelandic in normal conversations and reading books and papers. I have a little Latin left over from school, and speak a bit of Danish, Hungarian and Yiddish, a few odd phrases in Japanese, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew. It's easy enough to understand Italian and Spanish actually, but there just isn't room enough to be fluent in EVERYTHING! Fluency does tend to slip when there is no occasion to keep a language "at the ready", so that's about it.

I've been toying with the idea of learning Arabic, this would be useful in the struggle to promote peace between the Muslim world and Western economies. Chinese would be useful too, because China's economic power in the world is growing and is soon to influence many aspects of our lives.

I like being able to speak to people in their own languages, so I tend to learn the languages that are spoken in the places I visit. In the case of Japanese, it was because I was once working at a Japanese company for a year. It's not much good now except for using a well-chosen stock phrase to surprise people with, which is just a party trick really, but Japanese is very interesting as a phenomenon so I might pick it up again later: it's gramatically very simple, but complex in other ways, most notably because it's almost impossible for a foreigner to learn the subtleties of its many forms of politeness. You'd have to be in Japan for quite a while to apply those correctly ... does anyone on this forum speak Japanese, by any chance?

What interests me most, however, is the way that languages are tied to national and cultural identities, and how languages can have tendencies to favour certain throught processes over others, making certain things are easier to say in one language than in another. For instance, there are words like "Schadenfreude" or "hiraeth" that have no English equivalent and are quite awkward to circumscribe. Does that mean that the English do not experience these emotional states in the same way? How do languages end up being so different that it's difficult to find equivalent expressions, and does this influence the thinking of people with different nationalities?

[felix_felicis_444]

Wow...Bublebee, thats a long list of languages you have there! haha...my dad always says how he wants to learn Chinese and Japanese...and I have tried multiple times to teach him a little Chinese, but he does not have the time nor patience...He has many Chinese and Japanese clients and he thinks it will be easier to ineract with them if he learns their native language...

Anyway, doesnt "Schadenfreude" mean "gloating"? I thought so...
Your statement of how some words do not translate into English reminds me of the Yiddish word "Kvel"--I always find it hard to explain in English....


_daviD

[Bumblebee]

felix_felicis_444, it's easy to have learnt so many if you've been around a bit and are lucky to have a flair for languages and a good ear. Also, once you know a language from a particular language family, the next one from that same family is easy. That's why I'm not bothered about Spanish and Italian much, knowing French and having a grounding in Latin, and can get by after I've been there a few days. "Getting by" and being able to sound fluent doesn't really mean that I know the language though, so they're pretty low on the list.

I simply love Yiddish. My main problem with it was having to learn the script, but reading Singer in Yiddish is wonderful. Oh, and there are so many Yiddish words that don't translate well. Singer in English translation is dead compared to the vibrant original in which you can almost smell the sewing machine oil and the knishes. I love Klezmer music and the songs which brings tears and laughter in the same heart-wrenching sentence. It has richness and wisdom and always winks at the frailty of the human condition. It is so human, if you know what I mean...


"schadenfreude" can be translated to "gloating", but the funny thing is that when it is used in English it has a slightly different meaning from its German original, an undertone of the kind of glee one experiences when seeing someone make a gaffe that could easily have been yours. In German it is darker, more malicious somehow. When a foreign word gets adopted it sometimes acquires a new meaning, it can even grow into meaning the opposite from its original -- I remember being very surprised to see how Yiddish words in Russia differed greatly in meaning from the same words in Germany, simply because the differences in the political situation gave the words very different connotations.

My brother is learning Chinese, he offered me the use of his coursebooks and joining the lessons. There are three good reasons why I haven't: I've been too busy to do much about it, learning Chinese is very hard work for him and I don't want to discourage him with my flair, and our approach to learning languages is very different: lessons and word lists work very well for him but not for me because I have a lousy memory for lists and facts. I learn a language by understanding the way it works and by being able to fit the pieces together, individual pieces mean very little to me. I'd do better just listening to Chinese radio keeping my ears open, or helping an old Chinese lady in return for useful everyday phrases.

[felix_felicis_444]

Agreed, agreed...
Most of the languages that I know do not come from school and classes...English was my first language, and Spanish was my second. I learned Spanish in school and from my grandfather who is from Spain...he and my grandmother (his wife) speak fluent Yiddish...so when they do not want me and everybody to understand, they speak in Yiddish. But, over the years, they have taught me some and I have learned some from just listening to them. I love the language...It is one of my favorites!

The same grandfather speaks Ladino...it is the Sephardic Jewish language that consists of a mixture of Castillian Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, and even French. You should hear it being spoken, Bumblebee...you would probably understand it very well! It is so amazing to hear it..one word may be Spanish and the next Hebrew and the next French. Its really neat!

Anyway, I learned Chinese actually mainly from my brother who took it as a class in school. He would come home and I would look at all of the notes and stuff...pretty cool language! I also did some resear on my own when I had time...wuo hsi hwan


_daviD