Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 32

Thread: Let's have a Language thread!

  1. #16
    carte blanche Breine's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Denmark
    Posts
    9,061

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Also, I hate the Danish language.



    Anyway, Danish is my first language being from Denmark n all. I'm also fluent in English. Other than that I used to be really good at German, but these days I'm rusty. I also took Spanish in High School, but've forgotten most of it. I also know very basic words in French (like, I can understand menu cards if I try). Other than that I've picked up very random words in Chinese, Nepalese, Hindi, Japanese and Thai. Y'know, just cause. But really, I think it's common for Europeans to have knowledge of other European languages - just because everybody is in such close proximity over here.

    Oh, and I understand Swedish and Norwegian. But everybody in Scandinavia pretty much understands each other.. so that doesn't count.

  2. #17
    What the bliff Recognized Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    17,343
    Blog Entries
    2
    Contributions
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    Good pronunciation with: French (But I hardly know what any of the words I say mean)
    Proficient in: Spanish (Although I purposely pretend I don't know this to rebel against people thinking I'm Hispanic)
    Only know some words of: German, Japanese, and Italian
    Sung in: Spanish and Hebrew (For chorus -__-)

    If I tried harder a could probably learn Italian too since it's so close to Spanish, but I just dgaf right now. When I can afford to go to Greece, Rome, and Venice then I will care.

  3. #18

    Default

    I'm obviously fluent in Swedish, but I consider myself almost as fluent in English thanks to the fact that we are taught English from like first grade in Sweden and then are constantly bombarded by it in various media.
    In fact I frequently find myself actually forgetting that I'm even listening to a foreign language.

    I have a few random skills in lots of other languages, well enough to at least be able to understand easier sentences;
    Spanish and German are manageable, although I do have to look up words quite frequently.
    I have also done amateur studies on Russian, and know enough Japanese to be able to follow game scripts with a 30% literacy or so.

    Next up is most likely Greek, since I was on Crete last week and impressed the Greeks with my reading skillz (largely thanks to my interest in math and physics, subjects which tend to use Greek letters to represent all kinds of things).

  4. #19
    Your very own Pikachu! Banned Peegee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Posts
    19,488
    Blog Entries
    81

    Grin

    on topic: I'm only bilingual

    My dad speaks 4 languages. En Fr 粵語 (i think?) 官话

  5. #20
    Draw the Drapes Recognized Member rubah's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Now Destiny is done.
    Posts
    30,655
    Blog Entries
    21
    Contributions
    • Former Administrator
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    My French is still serviceable enough for me to communicate with the two people in Quebec who can't speak English very well.

    My nipponese improves every week
    私の上手の日本語が上がる。
    Last edited by rubah; 05-30-2012 at 03:38 AM.

  6. #21
    Miss Lady Shelly's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    At Home.
    Posts
    282
    Blog Entries
    5

    Default

    German (kinda rusty though), some Spanish, some Japanese.

  7. #22
    word chionos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2000
    Posts
    3,954

    FFXIV Character

    Kaladin Cho'Sinn (Sargatanas)

    Default

    Spanish, though my vocabulary's limited.
    Some French,
    A spattering of words in Japanese and Chinese.
    I read Greek and Hebrew, but I can't speak them.
    I want to learn Russian pretty bad. I've started in on it a few times then gotten distracted, but someday I'll conquer it. Though I should probably concentrate on perfecting my Spanish first.

  8. #23

    Default

    I speak English (that's a given) French (fairly fluently, more on that later) and German (with obvious signs of rust) and can more or less read the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, but can't speak any of the languages that use them. That in mind though, I usually have fun pointing out things like that one film being called The Cherpobyl Diaries (the used the upper-case Pi instead of an N, so it says Cherpobyl, not Chernobyl) as it's always gotten on my nerves when people use Greek/Cyrillic letters that look similar to Roman ones that are pronounced entirely differently. I dunno, I just find it stupid.

    I've had some on-and-off efforts to learn Japanese, but due to a major crippling weakness I've always had in my language learning, I'm determined not to learn to read it until I've gotten plenty of experience hearing it and speaking it. See the problem I have with French and German is that I cannot understand them being spoken out loud; I even struggled with spoken English until I was about seven years old. Despite speaking them with varying degrees of fluency, and despite being able to understand and translate them perfectly well when they're written, the foreign languages I CAN speak become complete gibberish when spoken to me. I have absolutely no idea why this is, and as such have never been able to get over that wall :/ My approach to Japanese may not necessarily fix that, but still...

    That said, I'm told I can hide my English accent very well when I speak French, so that's a plus.

    Quote Originally Posted by *Laurelindo* View Post
    I'm obviously fluent in Swedish, but I consider myself almost as fluent in English thanks to the fact that we are taught English from like first grade in Sweden and then are constantly bombarded by it in various media.
    In fact I frequently find myself actually forgetting that I'm even listening to a foreign language.
    Ooh, jealous of you! I would love to be able to have that level of familiarity with a foreign language! I get it somewhat when reading French (like where I understand the words in front of me to the point of not needing to translate in my head) but that's as far as it goes.
    Last edited by ReloadPsi; 06-26-2012 at 03:30 PM.

  9. #24

    Default

    There is a rather distinct typ of speech in my village that is extremely similar to Icelandic, and I believe it is even considered a separate language.
    So I guess I could say that I have some indirect skills in Icelandic, although nowhere near enough to read it fluently or anything.

    Quote Originally Posted by ReloadPsi View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by *Laurelindo* View Post
    I'm obviously fluent in Swedish, but I consider myself almost as fluent in English thanks to the fact that we are taught English from like first grade in Sweden and then are constantly bombarded by it in various media.
    In fact I frequently find myself actually forgetting that I'm even listening to a foreign language.
    Ooh, jealous of you! I would love to be able to have that level of familiarity with a foreign language! I get it somewhat when reading French (like where I understand the words in front of me to the point of not needing to translate in my head) but that's as far as it goes.
    One great way to learn another language, at least in the beginning, is to read relatively simple phrases as much as possible and learn the words that are used there by heart.
    In fact I think this is the best way to learn new vocabulary, because it gives a clear context.
    Also try to listen to French speech whenever you can (it might be a good idea to use French subtitles along with it until you feel comfortable with the speech itself, though).
    And whenever you aren't 100% sure of why a sentence is written in a certain way, make sure to look it up and get a deeper understanding for the grammar structure before you continue.

    And also, do not feel intimidated by the language.
    It's very important that you have a confident attitude to anything you want to learn, and if you treat French as something that's simply something that you are ready to learn and that you have decided to become good at then it will become much easier.
    You are the master of the language and of your motivation to learn it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Breine View Post
    Oh, and I understand Swedish and Norwegian. But everybody in Scandinavia pretty much understands each other.. so that doesn't count.
    Depends on how you define "understand...".
    Swedish, Norweigan and Danish are very similar in many ways (pretty much like Spanish and Italian, I guess) but I would say that spoken Danish is probably quite unintelligible, at least in Sweden.
    Norweigan is super-easy to understand though, it's almost exactly like Swedish.

    But then again, there's arguably a big difference between understanding a language and actually being able to speak it yourself.
    Last edited by *Laurelindo*; 10-04-2012 at 04:10 PM.

  10. #25
    Lovely Gal Night Fury's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Posts
    11,673
    Articles
    154

    FFXIV Character

    Nope (Sargatanas)
    Contributions
    • Former Editor
    • Hosted the Ciddies

    Default

    I only speak one language but would love to learn more.

    Saying that, when I spent time in Mexico I very quickly picked up a lot of Spanish as it just came naturally to speak it with the group I traveled with, when I returned home though I sort of lost it because I wasn't speaking/hearing it frequently.


  11. #26
    Pinkasaurus Rex Pumpkin's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2011
    Location
    Falling on your head
    Posts
    16,902
    Articles
    119
    Blog Entries
    133

    FFXIV Character

    Pumpkin Contrary (Sargatanas)
    Contributions
    • Former Editor
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    French is my first language, English is my second and I would like to learn Spanish.

  12. #27
    Would sniff your fingers to be polite
    Nameleon.
    Quindiana Jones's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    These mountains are made of rainbows.
    Posts
    20,870
    Blog Entries
    6
    Contributions
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    English, French, German and Macedonian.

  13. #28
    Recognized Member Shorty's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2001
    Posts
    23,629
    Articles
    11
    Contributions
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    A few years of french and I'm in the process of learning svenska

  14. #29
    Not responsible for WWI Citizen Bleys's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2000
    Location
    The Wired
    Posts
    8,502
    Articles
    7
    Blog Entries
    60

    FFXIV Character

    Bleys Maynard (Sargatanas)
    Contributions
    • Former Administrator
    • Former Cid's Knight

    Default

    Shakespearean English.

    On the subject, wherefore does nobody else in the universe ever use thee and thou correctly?

  15. #30

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Shorty View Post
    A few years of french and I'm in the process of learning svenska
    Vilken bra idé.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •