Languages?

[Hyperkinetic_Martian]

Knowing that my fellow forum members come from all parts of the globe, I'm curious to know what kind of languages you guys speak. How many languages can you speak, ranging from scattered survival phrases to fluency? Any particular tongues you wished you had fluency in?

So far I'm only fluent in English. I know little of Spanish from my high school years and am currently studying Japanese at the university as my minor.

Other languages I hope to grasp within my lifetime are German, Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Swahili.

Y tú?

[Shwoo]

English is the only language I speak well. I'm really interested in languages, though.

I've been learning Swedish for the last few years. I only started to get somewhere about a year ago because I couldn't make myself remember the vocabulary. I mostly learned it through reading though, so it's difficult to understand spoken Swedish even when they use words I know.

As I've mentioned before, I've been watching a German playthrough of Sam & Max Season 1 on YouTube. I started typing out the subtitles into an automatic translator because I was curious about what they were saying, and about how much German I'd pick up from doing that.

I recently finished watching the third episode, and I while I still know more Swedish words than German, I can comprehend German a lot faster, both written and spoken, and it's still improving. I wanted to keep doing this, but the person who uploaded them switched video quality after the car chase in 103, and now the subtitles are impossible to read in places. I tried getting the next game on Steam because I know it has the German dub, but I can't get it to run in anything but English.

Also, I learned a little Japanese in school. Not much though. I think half of what I learned during that time was from my brief career as an anime fangirl. All I really retained was the ability to read hiragana. More recently, I've learned katakana as well. I was getting sick of being able to read one but not the other.

I also know a little Spanish and a little Latin, but not enough to be helpful. French is mostly a mystery to me, apart from the things I can understand because of their similarities to English words.

I've written too much already, so I'll stop.

[Friar]

My first language is English, although i used to be pretty fluent in German aswell (A* in my speaking exam, A overall at GCSE). I'm quite rusty now though. I also know some basic spanish (enough for a B at GCSE), but i'll be darned if i can remember much. Encantar El Pollo Diablo!

[Avistew]

French is my first language. In school, I took German, English, Spanish and Italian (in the order I took them). As well as some Latin.

Garman I studied for only 2 years and have nothing left of (I replaced it with Spanish in grade 8), Latin I only took one year of and stopped.
I'm fluent in English, but lost most of my Spanish and Italian.
I also took Japanese and got my level 4 diploma (that's the lowest level) but it's been a few years too so I've lost a lot of it as well.

I constantly think I should go and brush up on one language until I'm fluent, but I start with one and start thinking I'd like to brush up on another one, and in the end I go nowhere fast, which is sad.

[Little Writer]

Dutch is my mother tongue. I know English. We get French and German at school but since I never use those languages in real life I'm afraid I forgot most. I'll probably be able to read some, but certainly not speak and I don't understand hearing it either except for the occassional word. At the moment my wife is learning Turkish and her mother Italian, and I admire them; I don't think I have the patience to learn a new language.

[Haggis]

My native language is Dutch, and I'm fluent in English. I also understand German reasonably well, and a little bit of French, but not that much. I also did a few years of Latin in high school, but I forgot most of it, and I tried learning Japanese from one of those teach-yourself books, but that just doesn't work for me. If I'd want to learn a new language, I think I'd have to do a real course that has classes and homework and such. The problem is, I don't have the money for that right now (language courses aren't cheap), and I wouldn't know which language I'd want to learn. Italian interests me, but now that I'm reading Russian literature (translated of course), I'm leaning towards that language as well. Ah, so many languages, so little time...

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by Haggis

Ah, so many languages, so little time...

I know! And yet if you learn none, you only end up with less and less time... It's hard to choose, but better study one, any of them, than none...

My dream was to learn as many different languages as possible. And when I say different, I mean different. Like, not French, Italian and Spanish or something. But Arabic, Russian, Korean, the Inuit language the name of which I forgot... Languages that aren't even close, and all with a different "alphabet" or even a different way of doing things (like Korean does with its letters that are put inside cubes to make syllables).

The reason is that I realised, the more I spoke a different language (English, mainly), the more I could /think/ differently. A lot of things that have the same name in French don't in English, or vice-versa, so you don't actually think of them as two different things in the language that calls them the same. It's pretty interesting.

My main problem is similar to yours: I can't really self-learn. And it makes sense, languages are for communicating, and you don't communicate all by yourself.
As you pointed out, most language courses are expensive. I'd add to that: they're too slow.
For my Japanese class I did a quite summer course, in which I studied the first year in two months (one month per semester). Then I entered second year directly.
It was way... too... slow... You have no idea. So slow I'd get bored and stop listening. So slow I just couldn't follow.

I'd need more adaptable classes, that go faster or slower if need be. But these would be even more expensive, right?

Also, I forgot to add in my previous post that I took a beginner's class recently in sign language. It was American Sign Language but we also learned some of the British signs, and I already knew a couple French ones. I'd really like to learn more but there was the same problem again: too slow. Plus, they didn't offer anything past beginner's course.

In a way, I think it's for the best. ASL is like the one sign language that's trying to be different, when most of the others (including the British one) are based on French sign language (which was the first sign language that was systemised).
I'd rather learn signs that are more adaptable from one language to the next, so that I don't have to relearn signs for every single word.

[Shwoo]

You may find this interesting. I think a lot of people wouldn't have trouble sticking to a process like that, but I found the information quite helpful.

[ShaggE]

I resolved to learn Spanish a couple of days ago. My grandfather's Mexican, as is a close friend of mine, so I figure I'll have plenty of help on hand.

[Fealiks]

I only know English. I can pick up one or two words in French, having studied it (poorly) and I can get one or two in German and Latin, but only because they're so similar to English :P

I don't see myself ever learning a new language though, unless it's absolutely necessary. I can't actually imagine what it's like being fluent in more than one language. To me, all languages other than English sound completely foreign for the most part, and it's difficult to imagine knowing something other than English. Are they completely separate in your mind? Do you still think and dream in your mother tongue? Really weird to me

[Haggis]

Originally Posted by Fealiks

I can't actually imagine what it's like being fluent in more than one language.

Well, sometimes I think in English instead of in Dutch... and though it's very handy being able to speak and understand two languages, it can be confusing as well. Sometimes I am looking for an English word and I can only think of the Dutch translation of it, and what's even weirder: sometimes I can't for the life of me think of a Dutch word, while the English version of the word is readily available. I guess the mind just wasn't designed to handle more than one comprehensive vocabulary...

[puzzlebox]

I have a huge amount of respect (and jealousy ) for anyone who is fluent in more than their mother tongue. And ESPECIALLY for anyone who can think in more than one language.

I know a bunch of schoolgirl Italian (numbers to 100, months, days, colours, body parts, furniture, food, family, animals, "how are you", "what is your name" etc) but little else, and can't speak in proper sentences.

Tried to learn some Mandarin before travelling in China, and knew a few useful phrases at the time, but have forgotten it all now. My lovely Asian friends have taught me how to call out "cute guy" in Cantonese though.

I've tried a couple of times to learn Spanish by myself (I have a kind of fascination with South America, and the Galapagos Islands are possibly the best place on Earth). But avistew said it well - languages are for communicating, not practising on your own.

[Friar]

I forgot to mention, i plan on teaching myself some kilngon. It's the fasted growing language in the world afterall! Also, Google recongises it as a language

[Hyperkinetic_Martian]

Originally Posted by Friar

I forgot to mention, i plan on teaching myself some kilngon. It's the fasted growing language in the world afterall! Also, Google recongises it as a language

Opps! I forgot to add that to my list of "languages-to-learn-before-I-die" That and the Na'vi language from Avatar

My apologizes for diverting off topic but I'm really curious: has anyone here used the Rosetta Stone software for learning or a polishing a language? I have been pondering whether or not it would be worth the investment, as I'd hate to end up with a piece of expensive software that doesn't work for me. From what I've heard it teaches through more visual and immersion techniques than through tedious memorization most other software focuses on. Being a visual person, that sounds very appealing but I want to be sure of its effectiveness before taking the plunge with my bank.

[Nimeni]

English is my language tongue, but I am also fluent in Romanian. I used to be fluent in French, but I stopped practicing and moved to Romania for a while, and that kind of screwed me up on that. I also know Latin and a little bit of Spanish. And Pig Latin. Got that one down.

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by Fealiks

Do you still think and dream in your mother tongue? Really weird to me

As for dreams, that depends. Usually the rule with me is that if the dream has people who speak English, it'll be in English, if it has people who speak French, it will be in French.
So a dream with Sam and Max would have them in English, but a dream with, say, my brothers, would have them in French.

As for thinking, one of the most crucial rules is that when you speak another language, you don't think in your language, then translate. You think in the other language.

It can be weird and confusing, especially when I talk with other billingual people as we tend to go back and forth without always noticing. I remember a conversation we had in French about Harry Potter, until someone said "Sirius Black" and because the name is in English we just switched to English and didn't realise for a while.

I've also heard conversation in the bus in France between people from North Africa, that had arabic and French words in the same sentence. It's not really a problem when you're both fluent, as often the only word that really describe what you mean exists in only one of the two (or more) language.

Personally I couldn't not learn more languages. I can't hear someone speak, or read something, and have no idea what it means. I want to know. And I know that a lot gets lost in translation, so to me it's an acceptable option only insofar that you can't learn every single language, but it always comes second to learning the language yourself.

[Ashton]

I speak english (duh), I can speak some spanish (and puzzle my way through most of the romance languages), as well as being semi-fluent in the languages of PHP, MySQL and Javascript

[Haggis]

Originally Posted by Ashton

as well as being semi-fluent in the languages of PHP, MySQL and Javascript

Hey, that doesn't count! But if it does... I know Visual Basic 6 (although I forgot most of it now), and enough HTML to make a site that doesn't look totally ridiculous.

[Fealiks]

Originally Posted by avistew

As for dreams, that depends. Usually the rule with me is that if the dream has people who speak English, it'll be in English, if it has people who speak French, it will be in French.
So a dream with Sam and Max would have them in English, but a dream with, say, my brothers, would have them in French.

As for thinking, one of the most crucial rules is that when you speak another language, you don't think in your language, then translate. You think in the other language.

It can be weird and confusing, especially when I talk with other billingual people as we tend to go back and forth without always noticing. I remember a conversation we had in French about Harry Potter, until someone said "Sirius Black" and because the name is in English we just switched to English and didn't realise for a while.

I've also heard conversation in the bus in France between people from North Africa, that had arabic and French words in the same sentence. It's not really a problem when you're both fluent, as often the only word that really describe what you mean exists in only one of the two (or more) language.

Actually, I have noticed the blending of languages before. I have one or two Muslim friends who speak both Arabic (or maybe Gujarati, I'm not entirely sure) and English, and a couple of times when I've heard them talking in Arabic, I've noticed that they'll often speak one or two words or sentences in English and then return back without any hesitation. It's really interesting to me how that works. I guess it can only really be done with nouns and one or two adjectives/verbs because grammatical rules vary so much from language to language.

Good on you for learning different languages though; I feel that language is one of the biggest barriers we face today. For example, in my old school there were a lot of Muslims who spoke different languages, and at one point in my last year of the school the teachers told them that they were banned from speaking any other language than English. Some people would even say things like "they're insulting me behind my back!". In my opinion, this is extremely bigoted, arrogant and stupid, but that's just something that language does. If everybody spoke one language (which I'm not saying will/should ever happen) then people wouldn't perceive each other as so "foreign" and there would be much less racism and bigotry. You might notice that it's very rare to see an American being prejudice with any degree of seriousness against an Englishman or Australian. I think that this is because it's not skin colour or race that people have a problem with, it's language.

[Avistew]

Originally Posted by Fealiks

You might notice that it's very rare to see an American being prejudice with any degree of seriousness against an Englishman or Australian. I think that this is because it's not skin colour or race that people have a problem with, it's language.

Language and culture, and they feed off each other.
A lot of problems come from misunderstandings, though. I heard an anecdote (which might not be true) that during one of the World Wars (can't remember which) France told the US "we demand you help", which the US found extremely arrogant and got annoyed with. But the French word "demander" means to ask for, so what was meant is "we're asking you for your help", which wasn't meant as arrogant or anything.

Using the wrong word (especially in languages with similar words) can cause a lot of problems. Another example is that "supporter" in French is negative, that is, it means "to bear", not "to support". Both have the idea of carrying someone's load, but "bear" or "supporter" means you're being given that load without asking for it, while "to support" or "soutenir" (in French) means you're taking it upon yourself.
As a result, even though it's close in meaning, the connotation is completely different.

Sorry if I'm getting carried away, but I find languages fascinating. Another thing I really like is how words from one language make it into another, often changing meaning slightly. There are lots of French words and expressions in English. I'm not counting the obvious "half the freaking language" that comes from old French, I mean words that made it from French into English more recently. Pretty much none of them are used the way they would be in French (except technical terms like in cooking, fencing, dance and fashion, where the words are used in the same way as they are in French).

The other way around is true too. French takes words from English but has that habit of using the "-ing" forms. So for instance "shampoo" in French is "shampooing". A facelift is called "lifting". And all sports ending in "ball" were found too long and shortened, so that "foot" means "football" (soccer to you Americans), "basket" means "basketball" and so on.