Foreign languages, anyone?

[DarkStalker]

I'm not really studiyng any language now, I need to improve my english because I've planned to go in the UK once I get graduated because here IT jobs don't satisy me.
I learnt it by myself by reading technical docs about programming etc....
but I never had a chance to speak with anyone

[kat]

Originally Posted by Valeria

Hi...I'm American...speak German and French. Lived/studied in Germany and Switzerland (Geneva)...now planning to get a tutor for Icelandic, because my goal is to be conversational by June. After that, Danish.

I can read basic newspapers in Dutch, but can't speak it at all. Took a couple of classes in Russian, but I only remember the alphabet.

i'd love to learn Swiss German as well...and some French Creole, not particular about which one...whether Haiti or Martinique...any one is fine.

My daughter wants to learn Japanese, so I've got to figure out how to work that in. And my son is kind of interested in Latin.

But for now I'm only fluent in 3.

...

Thanks for the FSI link -- I think I'll use it to help my daughter with her Spanish classes!

Good luck with the Icelandic! I've been toying with the idea of looking at it, but I haven't yet - same with Swiss German (the Bern dialect is cool, but so is the Zurich one..... so many mutually incomprehensible dialects, so little time.. )

I know what you mean about Dutch - I can read some, and pick up passive comprehension really fast with it, but when I asked a Dutch person "how are you?" in Dutch this summer, she had no idea what I was saying - it took about half an hour of her repeating parts of "hoe goed het" slowly until I sounded vaguely reasonable/comprehensible.

I hope the FSI Spanish helps your daughter. For your son, Textkit - Greek and Latin Learning Tools might be interesting, though I haven't tried out the books there - I've been meaning to look at Latin, but haven't yet really.

You might like Learning Languages too - it has a quite nice forum where I've been lurking recently.

[Wanderer]

I know GCSE french

I'm just offering my insight into the dutch language, on holiday their was a pretty dutch girl, who obviously I made it my mission to woo. And the depth of her language was incredible, she was almost fluent in English (age 14), was much better than me at french, obviously knew dutch and I think she said she also did german as well. I think the reason they can cover more is because their school starts earlier and finishes later than us in the UK.
Very impressive

[stephencp]

This thread has inspired me to bone up on my Japanese (used to good enough to get around Japan), Spanish (four yeas in high school....) Greek and Latin (started and stopped studying a couple times.)
My problem has been I can never decide which one to study....
Stephen

Power-Book Library: Free personal development, success, inspiration and motivational classics

[Markus74]

I speak Luxembourgish, German, French and English. Right now I'm starting with spanish, but very slowly and relaxed via Coffee Break Spanish.

[Phi]

Originally Posted by kat

I started picking up Esperanto when I was minorly ill for a week once and found that I could chat online using a dictionary in it after a few days - at that point, I only spoke English and really terrible Italian, so that was really cool for me (I could understand a fair amount of Esperanto in written form before I ever studied it, due to shared vocabulary with English/French/Italian, all of which I could read to various degrees - nowhere near fluently in the latter two cases). I haven't studied Esperanto as much as I'd like to, and I'm still far from fluent, but how quickly I could manage basic conversations was an "oh wow" moment for me, after several years of very frustrating language study with extremely low marks in school

I hear so many good things about Esperanto. Especially that it's easy to learn, but also that it would be a more fair language in for example international negotiations. Today native English speakers have an advantage in most international negotiations, but that would not be the case if we all shared an ability to speak Esperanto.

Unfortunately I don't think it will be possible for everybody to start speaking Esperanto. Languages grow as people use them and almost nobody is currently using Esperanto

[Markus74]

Originally Posted by Phi

I hear so many good things about Esperanto. Especially that it's easy to learn, but also that it would be a more fair language in for example international negotiations. Today native English speakers have an advantage in most international negotiations, but that would not be the case if we all shared an ability to speak Esperanto.

Unfortunately I don't think it will be possible for everybody to start speaking Esperanto. Languages grow as people use them and almost nobody is currently using Esperanto

The problem with Esperanto is that it's an artificial language. It's not a mother tongue that children learn while they grow up.

The only way that it would get recognized if 'somebody' would indeed declare it the World's language and implement it in every country as the default second language. But that will probably never happen ...

[Phi]

Originally Posted by Markus74

But that will probably never happen ...

No, unfortunately not... but that might also be our own fault, since most of us talk about the benefits of a common language instead of actually studying Esperanto.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Phi

Today native English speakers have an advantage in most international negotiations...

Not necessarily. I am not a native English speaker, but I have lived and worked a little in the US and travelled to a lot of English speaking countries. I consider I have a fluent level and almost cleaned my accent (by French standards at least )

And as I am now working -in English- with Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Japanese people, etc., I can assure you that my level of English plays against me. People who mumble this soup called International English (where pronounciation and grammar are simplified and approximative, vocabulary poor, etc.) will understand each other better than if one of them has a really good level.

But I certainly am not sure it's for the best...

[Kimberly]

Originally Posted by Wanderer

I know GCSE french

I'm just offering my insight into the dutch language, on holiday their was a pretty dutch girl, who obviously I made it my mission to woo. And the depth of her language was incredible, she was almost fluent in English (age 14), was much better than me at french, obviously knew dutch and I think she said she also did german as well. I think the reason they can cover more is because their school starts earlier and finishes later than us in the UK.
Very impressive

As a dutchie, I feel I should pitch in here. I think the main reason why Dutch people tend to speak their languages quite well is because of the following:

First of all, we are offered a lot of English programs on tv. And, unlike for example France, Spain, Italy and Germany, English programs are not dubbed in the Netherlands. As a result we are exposed to the English language on a daily basis...Secondly, there aren't many people that speak Dutch. We are a tiny country surrounded by a lot of larger countries so it's only natural for us to want to learn other people's languages, instead of expecting them to learn ours. In highschool we are taught english, dutch, german and french. Spanish is also becoming more and more popular...

Some people love the fact that Dutchies speak English well, others hate it. Many of my international friends get very frustrated because they never get to practice their Dutch. Whenever they're in a store and try to speak Dutch to a clerk, the clerk will switch to English as soon as they realise Dutch is not this person's native tongue. I'm sure the clerk is just trying to be nice but I imagine it can be quite frustrating for those trying to learn the language....

[marieke]

Originally Posted by Kimberly

As a dutchie, I feel I should pitch in here. I think the main reason why Dutch people tend to speak their languages quite well is because of the following:

First of all, we are offered a lot of English programs on tv. And, unlike for example France, Spain, Italy and Germany, English programs are not dubbed in the Netherlands. As a result we are exposed to the English language on a daily basis...Secondly, there aren't many people that speak Dutch. We are a tiny country surrounded by a lot of larger countries so it's only natural for us to want to learn other people's languages, instead of expecting them to learn ours. In highschool we are taught english, dutch, german and french. Spanish is also becoming more and more popular...

Some people love the fact that Dutchies speak English well, others hate it. Many of my international friends get very frustrated because they never get to practice their Dutch. Whenever they're in a store and try to speak Dutch to a clerk, the clerk will switch to English as soon as they realise Dutch is not this person's native tongue. I'm sure the clerk is just trying to be nice but I imagine it can be quite frustrating for those trying to learn the language....

In addition to this. In the Netherlands we have 27 different dialects and another language (frysian). So people who are raised in other cities usually speak a dialect and the Dutch Standard language. Which teaches children/people from early on that if you speak more than just your dialect your world becomes larger. And 27 dialects on 17 million people is quite a lot.

[Erki]

I speak English more or less fluently(but after aelle's post, I don't know...I want to be perfect in everything and if I'm not then I...suck ).
After heavy refurbishment, I could speak German as well, I've studied German since I was 8 but never liked it too much.
And of course I speak Estonian as well.

Would like to speak Spanish/Portuguese/Italian as well.

One thing to add: if someone is kind enough, would s/he teach me how to speak English with Scottish/Irish accent...

[officelurker]

Has one tried the language cd's from Learning Strategies called EasyLearn? (EasyLearn Language Programs for effective language learning)

[skydust]

i too like languages, i speak hungarian, swedish, english (duh) and german. i want to learn french at some point too.

[icesar]

Spanish is my first language, and I can also hold a conversation in French (albeit with a very strong accent.)

I'm also fluent in C, C++, Java, XHTML, CSS, and to a lesser degree PHP

[aelle]

Originally Posted by Erki

I speak English more or less fluently(but after aelle's post, I don't know...I want to be perfect in everything and if I'm not then I...suck ).

Don't worry I haven't seen anybody on this forum writing a really bad English and thinking it's enough...
Plus, I had the same problem than you (wanting to be perfect and then being disappointed) until I understood the path is more important than the result. If you are committed to improve and know you are not stagnating or regressing, then your current level does not really matter.

Originally Posted by icesar

I'm also fluent in C, C++, Java, XHTML, CSS, and to a lesser degree PHP

I'm curious... How do you say "I love you" in C++ ?

[Light]

Originally Posted by aelle

I'm curious... How do you say "I love you" in C++ ?

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
  cout<<"I love you\n";
}

Perhaps that would work?
I don't know much C++, I could tell you better with PHP or Actionscript or the like.

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by stephencp

My problem has been I can never decide which one to study....

One way of deciding is to travel to another country and learn their native language. That's what I'm going to do anyway. German first, then Mandarin.

(of course you then have the problem of deciding where to travel )

[Jez]

Languages I've studied seriously (beyond just picking up a book and spending a few weeks on it): French, Spanish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, German

Languages which I've learned to the point of being able to carry on a simple conversation: French, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese, German

Languages in which I'm currently fluent: Czech

Next languages I want to learn: Turkish, Vietnamese

Unfortunately whenever I concentrate on one language I seem to forget the others. (Though I suppose the ones I've gotten to a certain level with could be reactivated if I concentrated on them again.)

One benefit of knowing a slavic language well is that you pick up closely related languages almost as a 'bonus'. So I can read and mostly understand spoken Slovak, though I've never studied it, and I can pretty easily get the gist of a lot of written Polish.

[dpgiffin]

I am extremely fascinated with the idea of language. I came into college as a linguistics major, but realized it was more of a side interest rather than something i wanted to do all the time. I lived in germany for two and a half months, and upon returning was practically fluent. I still speak it, but without constant practice my ability has definitely declined.

[jkmuller]

I have always had a fascination with foreign languages. There is something appealing about a language that you don't know at all, something that makes me want to learn it right away. However, although I know some Spanish and some Chinese, I wouldn't consider myself an expert at either. There certainly is a lot to learning a language. It requires dedication and tons of practice that I have not always had the willpower to give.

A few months ago I started the website Learn and Study the Spanish Language for Free Online! » Home in order to help other people learn Spanish for free and to learn a little myself along the way. It has been a lot of fun and I hope people are finding it useful. If you check it out, please send me suggestions if you have them. It is still very much a work in progress.

[Ann]

I speak French and English fluently, German almost fluently.

I can carry basic conversation in Spanish, Portuguese, and Vietnamese.

I can understand bits of Dutch and Italian