Languages

[BiBunny]

Yay for this thread having blown up in my absence!

Until I was five, I'd say that I was completely bilingual Swedish/German. Then I started preschool and Swedish took the upper hand, which makes it my first language now.
I did take classes in German for native speakers all through school and people think I'm a native speaker when talking. I haven't been reading and writing enough to keep the written part up though, so spelling and grammar is not the best.
English is taught in school here, starting when you're 9 years old until graduation at 19. I read a lot in English and movies and shows in English are in the original language with subtitles.
These three are languages I can think in and sometimes dream in.
Danish and Norwegian are close enough to Swedish, that I can understand it well enough to follow any conversation and read most anything.
Icelandic differs a bit more but I can understand a fair bit in writing, spoken language being much harder though.

I learned French for three years, but its not my forte. I did manage to read a book rewiew in French recently though, not understandig everything but getting the gist of it.
I studied Russian for a year and can still read the Cyrillic alphabet. Can't use the language for more then asking the way to the museum type things.
One more vote for giving it a chance Bunny.

Italian, Slovenian, Croatian I can use enough to go shopping, order in a restaurant.
I can understand a fair bit of written Italian but not enough to comfortably read a book. I can manage a bit of sociable talk about the weather and such too.
Spanish and Portuguese are close enough to Italian, so I can undestand a bit of that too and make myself understood for the tourist type things at least.

I'd like to work a bit on my written German and I do work a bit on my Italian and French from time to time.

You were another one I really hoped to hear from when I started this thread! You have lots of languages, too, which I am just totally in awe of.

I hear people mention "high school French/Spanish" pretty often on TV. Do you only learn foreign languages in high school (and upwards) or is it just a phrase? Is it compulsory in high school?

Keep in mind that I am a product of the Alabama public school system for the purposes of this answer.

In the tiny backwoods place where I went to school, you had to study a foreign language in order to graduate with the most "advanced" diploma thingie. Spanish was the only option, so if you wanted the advanced diploma, you took Spanish. I took two classes (which was the requirement) in high school.

Then, in college, a foreign language was a requirement in my department. The options were Spanish, French, and German. I stuck with Spanish, since I at least remembered a little of the vocabulary from high school. I took two Spanish classes in college, too.

Once you get into Russian, the pronunciation is glorious. There are a couple of hard(er) sounds, but all in all I don't think Russian is that difficult to pronounce for an English speaker. The stress can be tricky, though.

Since everyone seems to be encouraging me in this, I'm going to have to look into it.

Oh, okay I (dialects) wont. Because if there (dialects) is one thing (dialects) I hate more than (dialects) people who don't know (dialects) when to keep their tongue between their (dialects) teeth, is (dialects) people who think they are funny (dialects).
dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects dialects

Ass.

I am a native English speaker, I learned some French and German in school, which I have largely forgotten.

I use Makaton sign language at work.

Ooh, sign language! I think people forget sometimes that sign language is totally its own language (or at least I forget when talking about "different" languages). That's awesome!

Our system for learning foreign language sucks here. Where I live you take a couple classes in Jr. High (grades 6-8) and most of the time they offer only Spanish. In High school you're required to take two language classes and usually you can choose between Spanish and another language they may offer. My school offered French and Japanese. I took three years of Japsnese.

I can read and write like a toddler in Japanese. I have been looking for a group to learn more fluent speech, but it is difficult. I can't bring myself to ask my MIL to sit with me each week and just talk. (-｡-;

Surprisingly, I'm better than Mister at vocabulary, but can't hear it very well. When we visited family in Japan he would repeat things for me and I would answer. I couldn't quite grasp what they were saying because I hadn't been in a situation to hear fluent speech. that experience made me more comfortable though. When his Grandmother visits, I can have simple conversation with her.

Every time I hear about high schools having more than a couple of foreign languages, I can hardly believe it. Like I said, our options were Spanish and...Spanish.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

The lisping thing is not done in the Americas, right? Or does it depend on where you're from?

Correct. The "lisping thing" is not done in all parts of Spain, either. The way I understand it, the soldiers that were here were from a section of Spain that does not pronounce the C and the Z differently from the S (can't remember the area off hand), therefore the Americas follow that pattern.

 

[BiBunny]

5 years of middle and HS French, 2 semesters of college Spanish. (and 6 years of middle and HS Latin) My French was conversant at it's best - not fluent, but I could write a paper and read a novel and talk to a native speaker.

My HS was a private prep, and so you could actually customize your studies more like in a college, so I alternated years of history and science (one I'm strong in, the other weaker) so that I could carry two languages full time. The classes were pretty intensive, and even without the last year of French I tested out of compulsory language study in college (I took some French voluntarily, but pretty quickly realized this would not be my major. I took some Spanish because I think it just makes sense for anyone living in the US to at least gain some familiarity with the future.)

I can now *understand* spoken French, but not respond with any grammar or vocabulary. I can apologize with a decent enough accent, for not being able to respond in full, but for understanding.

I can understand about 1/3 of whatever a Spanish speaker might say to me (particularly if they're Mexican, folks from the DR and PR speak so damn fast...) but I can't answer for crap either. My accent is bad and I know it's bad, but could be worse.

I can read a little Spanish and a lot of French, though I'm diving for my dictionary.

It's all in the disuse. If I were immersed in either environment and given a textbook I'd catch up again pretty well.

I've got a great facility with language - until we leave the land of the Roman alphabet, and then I'm slower than the average bear and almost hopeless. It takes a different part of the brain to switch systems like that.

Latin is a funny thing. You never learn to speak it and it's a mystery that anyone ever did - the grammar is insane. I wish I knew more about "street Latin" and had a time machine to learn how Romans actually spoke. Latin is basically an arcane literature class, and the big climax of the process is translating the Aeneid, in part, as a class.

I forgot pretty much everything I ever learned in Latin in the summer between senior year of HS and freshman year of college. I've never found any kind of knowledge to be as use-it-or-lose-it in my life.

Good lord, I wish I spoke Spanish well enough to read a book in the language. Well, or any other language, really. I can usually manage simple things, but definitely not entire novels.

6 years of High School German, now learning Mandarin. I know enough to 'get by' in most situations in daily life.

Mandarin is one of those languages that seems like it would be fascinating to learn.

Wow. I have multiple science degrees, and reading all these comments makes me feel like a complete moron.

English. English is what I speak. I had a couple of years of French in high school, but I barely got through the class, and it certainly didn't stick. (Oddly though, when I was in France several years back I found I could read the street signs.)

I should speak Spanish. Considering I live in Texas its ridiculous that I can't. I know a few words, but hardly enough to attempt to converse.

Honestly, I just don't seem to have an ear for language. Not only can't I not get the hang of rolling Rs, but half the time I can't make out regional dialects in the US.

On a trip to Scotland there was a tour guide I just could not understand. I finally gave up asking him to repeat himself and just smiled and nodded every time he addressed me. Hopeless!

So sad.

On a different - and clearly unrealistic note - I've always wanted to learn Russian and Latin.

LOL, don't feel bad. You're not alone. I feel so hopelessly uncultured in this thread.

So a class = one year? I've been wondering how homeschoolers handle foreign languages, but if the requirement is around 4-6 years, I guess it isn't an impossible feat to homeschool.

Here we have to take one "long" language and one "short" language and one of the languages has to be Swedish (or Finnish if Swedish is your mother tongue), all else is extra. Long is 10 years, short is 6 years. In my high school, on top of the languages I studied, you could take Finnish, Italian and French as a foreign language. And then there was a bunch of native language classes for those whose native language was something else than Finnish.

I don't know much about the US education system, except that it varies a lot from state to state like most things, and the little I've learned, I've learned from TV and movies. I've often thought that I should start a "Seela asks stupid questions about the USA" thread so that I don't hijack other threads with OT questions.

So back to regular programming now.

Yes, please start that thread. Mostly because Americans like to talk about ourselves. And also because I'm curious about what people wonder about our crazy asses.

English is my native language.
In middle school, I took two years of Latin. In high school, I took four years of French. Latin was incredibly useful grammatically. I have only a very fuzzy grasp on French now, sadly.

Latin is another one of those things that seems ridiculously complicated, yet somehow fascinating to me.

The lisping thing is not done in the Americas, right? Or does it depend on where you're from?

Nope. The first time I heard the Castilian "lisp," I legit thought the person had a speech impediment. I'm an idiot.

 

[LWulf]

Ass.

but a SMART ass!
...in more ways than one.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

...

The problem with learning a language or any other form of knowledge, is that what you don't use, will get forgotten if not used; this applies to anybody. Nobody should feel bad when they say this. I've been seeing a lot of people here repeating this and how they feel abashed that their learned second languages have slipped over the years. I just felt like mentioning that it's a normal thing that shouldn't be ashamed of.

And may I say thank you for addressing this!! I got so tired of the... 3 languages is tri-lingual, 2 languages is bi-lingual, 1 language is American... joke when I was in Europe. The thing that many people might not understand is just how far you have to go to find people speaking another language, depending on what part of the country you are in. Nobody to practice with = no retention! Most Americans can't just pop off to another country with just a few hours travel...

 

[DesEsseintes]

I lived in France as a child, so speak French pretty fluently (although it is the French of a 10 year old boy, so politics and sex tend to be interesting when I speak with French friends and relatives). My German is good enough to read and understand 70-80% of most books, and Latin more like 50-60%. I once read the Divina Commedia armed with a mediaeval Italian dictionary over a period of about a month, and tried having conversations shortly afterwards with Italian friends which were somewhat difficult: I suppose something like having a Chaucerian Englishman trying to chat over breakfast.

I am in awe of friends who study long-dead languages with uncertainly formed alphabets, etc: a good friend of mine can read Akkadian, Sumerian, Hebrew and Aramaic and is now teaching himself hieroglyphics. I've never had that kind of facility, but I understand it gets easier - linguistic polymaths can often learn their 10th or 11th languages in a matter of months. The other languages that fascinate me are the outliers which don't seem to belong to known families: Basque, for example.

 

[LWulf]

And may I say thank you for addressing this!! I got so tired of the... 3 languages is tri-lingual, 2 languages is bi-lingual, 1 language is American... joke when I was in Europe. The thing that many people might not understand is just how far you have to go to find people speaking another language, depending on what part of the country you are in. Nobody to practice with = no retention! Most Americans can't just pop off to another country with just a few hours travel...

This is something I try to patiently explain to people, ad nauseam (To me, we beat ourselves up more than I have heard people outside the US speaking disparagingly about our linguistic skills). Anywhere else, you travel a hundred miles in any one direction and you are, generally and likely in a foreign speaking country.

If you travel a thousand miles from most any point in the US you are either still in America, in Canada which is mostly English speaking (though with oft joked accents), in the ocean or in Mexico with it's 10% shared border. To me, it's a no-brainer why we aren't multilingual.

 

[Collar_N_Cuffs]

Agreed! I picked up some Euskera (yes, that's Basque, in Basque) when I was in Spain. A language so old, that the numbers only go up to twenty, so 42 is basically twenty twenty two... plurals are made by adding a K instead of an S... what's not to like?

 

[midwestyankee]

My native tongue is Downeast, but that soon gave way to English when I needed to learn to read. Our family was partly bi-lingual, as my father's family spoke mostly French due to their Canadian origins. I began studying French in school in 3rd grade and stopped only after two years of college classes in French literature. I have read most of the classics in French and could enjoy myself thoroughly at a night of either Moliere or Ionesco in the theater. My French is still sturdy enough that I can talk about family plans with my wife (who teaches both French and Italian in high school) without the children learning much, should they be around at the time.

In high school I took two years of Latin, largely to meet younger women as these were my two final years of high school. I don't recall much success from meeting the freshmen and sophomore girls but I did end up editing a state-wide newsletter for the Junior Classical League, which had its odd perks with respect to meeting and working with students from other schools.

After college, I studied Farsi in anticipation of doing a Peace Corps gig in Afghanistan. Didn't really learn enough for it to stick.Years later I taught myself some Christian-era Greek for religious studies, but the move to atheism removed most of the incentive behind that project.

Somewhere along the line I think I tried to teach myself some written German. That was probably a winter project that gave way when the golf clubs came out.

 

[sexnovella]

Svensk

I'm Swedish and english is second langue.

 

[MichaelinChina]

quote: Mandarin is one of those languages that seems like it would be fascinating to learn.

I am not even trying to learn to write ..or read it..I can write my name in Chinese 迈克尔 (or simply 迈克) Màikè - too old for that; too complicated!

But I appreciate the art in calligraphy. I can stare at a wall hanging done with a thick brush in ink by a young boy here. He did it on stage while another student played an old Chinese instrument like a zither.
I can see moving figures (doing tai chi?) in the brush strokes.
So, yes, fascinating..and challenging, especially getting the 4 tones right.

 

[KoPilot]

I've been trying to learn Spanish for like, 10 years now (it should have made it down to me, but hey, racism in 1940's Los Angeles). I'm not making much progress, lol, but Duolingo helps.

I've made up a language, though. It's a mix of Japanese, Old English, and Yucatec Maya. I'm not very good at speaking that one either.

 

[Ahlam]

So...let's talk about languages.

What is/are your native language(s)? Which other languages do you speak? (Obviously, we all speak English to some degree on this forum.) Are there any that you don't currently speak that you'd like to learn someday?

Please feel free to define "speak" in whatever way you like, by the way, and expand upon it if you wish.

(This thread is in a similar vein to my Which Countries Have You Been To? thread because, well, the likelihood that I'm ever going to be able to leave the South again is practically zero, so I have to live vicariously.)

I'll put my own answers in the next post, so the OP doesn't get too long. Thanks, everybody, in advance for your answers.

English is my native language.

Language acquisition and translation is something I do professionally, so I am often studying. I specialize in Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Amharic) and Persian Farsi and Dari. I also speak French, Italian, and Spanish. I can understand Portuguese, but I don't speak it. I can read Romanian.

There are other languages I have learned for a purpose--like Navajo and Kurdish--and then mentally discarded, but those probably don't count.

I would like to learn Mandarin. It sounds sort of swishy to me. I like that.

 

[seela]

I specialize in Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Amharic) and Persian Farsi and Dari.

This is really cool! I'd love to venture more into that particular corner of linguistics. I've dabbled with Farsi and Hebrew on my own and liked them both. I thoroughly enjoyed Farsi, because it was so easy, at least in the beginner stages. I just felt very comfortable with it.

Well that's not a surprise really, it's and IE language and I have a fairly diverse background in IE languages. I would have wanted to continue, but I had no one to dabble with at that moment so eventually I just gave up and got busy with other things.

With Hebrew I for some reason struggled because of the writing and that slowed me down. I should probably give it another go now that I have the script more or less down because of Yiddish.

 

[midwestyankee]

Maybe this is an opportune time and place to share a story. My first job after graduate school was as an account executive for a translation company. We had a couple of editors in house who could work in all the key western languages between them (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Russian). When needed, I handled Latin document translations, though that was rare. The internal editor who handled Portuguese and Spanish (Bob) was a gifted linguist and he was always trying his hand at a new language. When any prospective customer called in whose language the receptionist could not recognize, she always passed those calls off to him. Thus, the background.

One summer week while I (and my now wife, who had been the French editor) was working there, a friend came to Chicago for a visit. He had just finished a tour of Peace Corps duty in Kenya and had become quite fluent in Swahili. One morning I asked my friend to call into the office and speak only in Swahili. Of course, that meant that within a few seconds the call went to Bob. And, of course, everyone else in the office but he knew the call was coming so we all picked up our extensions just as he did. My friend did a masterful job of speaking mostly rationally in Swahili but within three minutes Bob had identified enough common words with Portuguese that my friend had to admit defeat - he had not stumped Bob at all and everyone had a great joyous laugh in celebration of Bob's skills.

 

[Ahlam]

This is really cool! I'd love to venture more into that particular corner of linguistics. I've dabbled with Farsi and Hebrew on my own and liked them both. I thoroughly enjoyed Farsi, because it was so easy, at least in the beginner stages. I just felt very comfortable with it.

Well that's not a surprise really, it's and IE language and I have a fairly diverse background in IE languages. I would have wanted to continue, but I had no one to dabble with at that moment so eventually I just gave up and got busy with other things.

With Hebrew I for some reason struggled because of the writing and that slowed me down. I should probably give it another go now that I have the script more or less down because of Yiddish.

Farsi really was easy to learn! For the record, I love to "dabble."

I thought Hebrew was easy too, but the script is definitely different. It looks like the strange tracks of birds. Amharic script I struggled to learn. I thought it was very difficult just to write out or replicate.

It'd be interesting to learn a writing system that isn't phonetic.

 

[midwestyankee]

Farsi really was easy to learn! For the record, I love to "dabble."

I thought Hebrew was easy too, but the script is definitely different. It looks like the strange tracks of birds. Amharic script I struggled to learn. I thought it was very difficult just to write out or replicate.

It'd be interesting to learn a writing system that isn't phonetic.

I had a professor in grad school who took Chinese as a post-dic and then taught himself how to use a Chinese dictionary. He had some serious linguistic chops, that one.

 

[DesEsseintes]

The best natural linguist I ever knew was a chap at university. He had come over to the UK aged 17 from Russia, speaking not a word of English. Exams taken at 18 in the UK are known as A-Levels (for Advanced) - one usually takes 3, but bright students often take 4 or very occasionally more. They are studied over two years. This man took 5, gained the highest grade (then an 'A' grade) in all 5, in just one year, whilst teaching himself English (he was in a normal English state school). He then decided to study Japanese at university, thus coping not only with a third language but a third writing system.

Japanese from scratch at that university was supposed to take 5 years - exceptionally able linguists were sometimes allowed to skip a year. He skipped from year 1 to year 3 after 6 months and ended up completing his degree in just under three years. I've never seen anything like it. By 23 he was a professional translator.

Some people just have the gift.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

I am in awe of a number of you! My first language is, of course, American English. When I was ten, I was fortunate enough that my Army father was stationed in Italy and could take the family with him. Our journey over was by ship, 17 days, and I memorized the phrase book we were given before we were halfway there. I was also lucky that a number of the cabin staff were Italian, and willing to work with me on pronunciation and expanding my vocabulary. Along with the required classes in Italian in school, I was fluent in speaking and hearing, near-fluent reading and writing, as long as one wasn't too picky about some of the tenses (particularly variations odd future).

That was where I stopped, though. I can still (50+ years later) stumble through a really simple conversation, but that's it.

 

[Netzach]

I'm in awe of those of you who can do alternate writing systems. That and math give me a real taste of being completely inept.

 

[DesEsseintes]

I'm in awe of those of you who can do alternate writing systems. That and math give me a real taste of being completely inept.

Madam, it is presumptuous of me even to say so, but you will have your talents the rest of us can barely even aspire to. Few of us are consistently ept, in any case.

 

[kiwi_submissive]

English, enough Maori to have a basic conversation, quite a few random samoan words and phrases so I get the general gist of conversations and can join in if I know the people and also sign language but not at speed.

 

[BiBunny]

God, we have so many learned people here. It's amazing.

I'm in awe of everyone who's multi-lingual, but like Netz said, it's even more amazing when it's with a completely different writing system.

I y'all so much.

 

[ShyGuy68]

My native language is Danish, and I also speak German (even though a bit rusty) and English. I also speak a little Swedish.

I studied English and German in school, but really learned German when I went to a German boarding school in Denmark in 10th grade, and English when I went to the US the year after.

 

[seela]

Farsi really was easy to learn! For the record, I love to "dabble."

I thought Hebrew was easy too, but the script is definitely different. It looks like the strange tracks of birds. Amharic script I struggled to learn. I thought it was very difficult just to write out or replicate.

It'd be interesting to learn a writing system that isn't phonetic.

Yeah, I don't know why I struggled with Hebrew, but like I said, I probably have to give it another try now that I have the script more or less down. Reading and writing it was just so slow that I seemed to make no headway with grammar and vocabulary. Farsi on the other hand was pure joy to learn. You really got me excited about it again, I'll see if I can dig up my old learning material or find new one!

Is Amharic script the same as Ge'ez script? I have studied some general linguistics and for one phonetics class had to analyze and make a presentation about Tigrinya, which uses the Ge'ez script. I never got comfortable with it.

I've studied Mandarin for one year at the university, it's one of the many beginner classes I've taken. It was definitely interesting! I got pretty good at reading and speaking, but writing was tough for me. I still remember bits and pieces, for example I could still order in a restaurant and tell a bit about my family, but nothing worth mentioning really. I never found the pronunciation to be difficult, but understanding spoken Mandarin was hard, unless the other person slowed down their speech significantly. The grammar was quite simple, too, at least at that stage, but I certainly needed to twist my thinking around a bit, because the language doesn't work at all like the IE languages I'm most comfortable with.

The writing system is really cool, although it makes using the dictionary hard. You really need to know your radicals and how to write those characters if you want to find anything at all in a dictionary, because the characters are organized by the number of strokes needed to write them. The characters have certain patterns of strokes called radicals. You need to first identify the radical correctly, then count how many strokes are needed for that radical. That way you can find the section with characters using that particular radical. Then you need to count how many strokes are needed for the character as a whole. But of course, with the digital dictionaries that too is now simpler. I only had (have) an oldskool paper dictionary.

And yes, dabbling is the best.