E-Melting Pot

[ReanimateMagnus]

I watch a lot of asian tv. Like dramas and whatnot and I can easily detect if it's Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and whatnot. If you ever need recommendations on live action tv shows from that area send me a PM ^^

[Hemingway]

I keep running into people asking me, "you're sort a language person, aren't you?". I don't really know why.

My first language is Norwegian. When I was a little boy, I was fluent in Hungarian, and this summer I'll be taking a month-long course in Hungary. I speak English fluently. I also know some German, as I was required to take a third language in school. Despite learning it for five years, I was never particularly good at it. I also took Arabic one semester, but despite it being an interesting and beautiful language, I decided to switch majors.

[Oniya]

I speak English (native tongue),  My German is better for reading than speaking, although I can usually tell if the subtitles/overdub is 'wrong' or 'reasonably close' on History Channel/MHC documentaries.  I found myself able to comprehend more Spanish than I thought I could, when the little Oni lost the English part of the owner's manual for her DVD player.  When I was attending Catholic Mass, I used to follow along with the Latin text while everyone else was doing the English, especially with the hymns.  That was mostly to mess with my kid sister, who couldn't stand that I'd also do the high harmonies instead of the main melody line.   O:)

I also have a fair collection of dictionaries, and have used them to get the gist of things in French, Welsh, Gaelic, and Greek (non-Romanized).  The Cherokee and Dakota dictionaries don't get as much use.

[Saerrael]

Dutch, English, German, French, Sanskrit and Latin.

Dutch is my native language.
English is my second.
German and French are rusty.
Sanskrit and Latin are... eer... even worse.. v.v

[Wyrd]

English and and some Finnish.(My family is from Finland and I still go back there from time to time)

My wife keeps trying to teach me some Mandarin, but I'm just... terrible. 

[Silverfyre]

As I am originally from Canada and French-Canadian on my father's side, I grew up in a bilingual house hold for some part of my childhood due to my paternal grandparents.  My native first language technically is French as I spoke it first and English at a close second.  I don't know about the validity of that statement but that was always what my grandmother said.  I moved the States when I was five and thus lost that side of my lingual heritage until I was in high school and enrolled in French for three years.

So, I speak fluent English (I teach it on some levels) and a bit of French.  I read it better than I speak it but I could get by in say, Canada.  I can say a few sentences in German and understand some of the composition but I am still learning it and would love to get back into it.  I'm hardly a linguist though and the learning process of languages tends to be hard for me.  ~Shrugs~ My brain just isn't wired for it, I guess.

Although, I have been thinking of getting that "Rosetta Stone" program to brush up on my French.

[ReanimateMagnus]

Although, I have been thinking of getting that "Rosetta Stone" program to brush up on my French.

I was thinking about getting this too.

[Malina]

@ Silverfyre - Have you considered to try learning a language with a different approach? It can make all the difference. In comparison to later, I used to be pretty bad (average) at languages back in school when it all was 'start small and slow, continue systematically, learn the grammar, the vocabulary and simple sentences step by step', even though I've got an ear and a talent for language(s). I need to plunge right in, as far and deep as possible, and learn the grammar etc. in the context of the language, of complete texts. Then, it all comes naturally. My English, for example, in school, it wasn't good, in university, a few years later, when I took some English, I was suddenly among the best in every course, and about as fluent as I'm now. All that improvement came from nothing but my reading English novels for entertainment. Generally, I do a lot better with complex structures and things that challenge my mind than with things served in small bits and easy lessons. Maybe your difficulty with learning languages is similar, and rather a result of the methods with which they're usually taught?

[Jag]

Although, I have been thinking of getting that "Rosetta Stone" program to brush up on my French.

The hubby uses Rosetta Stone for his Dutch. He hasn't finished the program yet due to work schedules and what not, but it seems to work for him. They run sales on the software every now and then. I know last year they put it on sale for Valentines Day. I haven't been emailed about any this year though.

[Lilias]

I'm not personally familiar with the Rosetta Stone software, but I do remember Linguaphone doing a brisk trade in Greece for as far back as I can remember, so they must be doing something right. ;)

[HairyHeretic]

My native language is English. I did varying ammounts of Irish, German and Japanese, but can't remember more than a few words in them. I can stumble through a holidays worth of French, if they don't mind simple sentences. I curse fluently in Klingon. I'd be interested in learning Chinese.

[Kendra]

Dia dhuit a chairde, is mise Kendra agus táim ina chonaí in Eireann. Ba mhaith liom E go mór agus na cairde a rinne mé anseo.

I speak only English and Irish, though I have phrases in French and Italian that I use ... for specific occasions - mainly to do with food  ;D

[Silverfyre]

I have tried a few different approaches to learning languages but I am leaning more towards Rosetta Stone and possibly even just spending a summer in Quebec or doing "total immersion" one of these days into a foreign speaking culture.  That might be the best method for me as it was how I did learn French initially. ~Shrugs~

[Caeli]

I support the full immersion method. After I returned from my summer visits to my relatives in China, I always noticed that my diction and vocabulary were dramatically improved.

[Wyrd]

I'm heading to China in a few months with my wife to be to get to know her family their. I'm having so much trouble learning it and speaking and even reading it. I'm just now getting used to how different certain hand gestures are(like counting with fingers). 

[Silverfyre]

I support the full immersion method. After I returned from my summer visits to my relatives in China, I always noticed that my diction and vocabulary were dramatically improved.

I wish I had the money to travel over to France but Quebec is close enough and that's the dialect of French I am most familiar with.  I'll put it on my "long overdue" list of things I want to do.

[NotoriusBEN]

Good and bad english >.>;;

I can read smaterings of spanish, french, german. I understand most of what you guys were talking about in german in the beginning of the thread, but there's a few words im lost on.

I can order food at a japanese restaurant, in japanese.

I've got that Rosetta Stone thing for japanese, and its cool. Just need to self motivate to do it everyday. (Im not a self starter :S )

[Oniya]

I have been told that Quebecois is somewhat different from Parisian French, much the same way that Mexican Spanish is different from Castilian Spanish. 

Does Yiddish count as a language?  Because my inlaws (and specifically, my mother-in-law's friends) have a tendency to sprinkle Yiddish into conversations when they want to be 'secret'.  I broke down one day when one started doing it in front of me:  I said 'Sprechen Sie nichts, dass Sie wollen mich nicht horen.'* and she jumped a good six inches.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

*'Don't say anything that you don't want me to hear,' roughly, anyways.

[Noelle]

Ben le français canadien est beaucoup plus différent du français parisien, au moins de l'accent et si je me rappelle correctement je crois que les quebecois peut-être mal supportent (et vice versa bien sûr) l'autre...Le français canadien me semble d'utiliser plus d'anglicismes, mais ils n'ont rien tant comme l'Académie :)

Rosetta Stone is okay, but it fails to teach solid communicative skills to actually carry a conversation or express your opinion. Nothing is a substitute with interaction with natives or full-on immersion. If you can find a local language group or even better, a language exchange (where you speak to someone trying to learn English for X amount of time, then you must shift the conversation to their language/your target language for X amount of time...they're usually really casual), your odds of developing fluency are much greater.

The only sentence I remember from my year of experience with Rosetta stone is zai zhuo zi xia mian de yi ge nan hair (with appropriate pinyin in there somewhere), which is hardly enough to get me around :P

[Oniya]

Ben le français canadien est beaucoup plus différent du français parisien, au moins de l'accent et si je me rappelle correctement je crois que les quebecois peut-être mal supportent (et vice versa bien sûr) l'autre...Le français canadien me semble d'utiliser plus d'anglicismes, mais ils n'ont rien tant comme l'Académie :)

That's what I thought.  ;)

[HockeyGod]

I support the full immersion method. After I returned from my summer visits to my relatives in China, I always noticed that my diction and vocabulary were dramatically improved.

I concur, I also found that I began thinking in the language when I was immersed in it.

[Noelle]

That's what I thought.  ;)

Reminds me of a little tidbit of news lately, that a group in France has put the kibosh on using 'Twitter' and 'Facebook' in news reporting -- not necessarily for the anglicisms but for the sake of fairness to other social media competitors :P

On that tangent, I always chuckle when I see anyone use courriel rather than just saying e-mail (Really? you mean mél wasn't good enough either?!), especially in Paris...Gasp, is the Académie really resorting to quebecois-ismes to save themselves from the evil English invasion?! One subject that interests me especially is the invasion of Maghreb and Arabic words into the French language, amongst others...kiffer is such a great verb, along with kif-kif...the rest are escaping me at the moment...

[Vekseid]

I've taken two years each of French and Japanese. I've forgotten most of them, though.

[Langueduchatte]

Vous devez m'excuser si je fais des trompes gramatiques ou orthographes...Il y a une fois quand je parlais francais presque couramment, quand j'habitais a Paris mais...maintenant... j'ai oublie tous la vocabulaire, la grammaire... et patati et patata.  C'est vachement difficile quand on habite dans un pays anglophone.  Il n y a pas assez des francophones pour maintenir le meme niveau de competence, et j'ai honte d'admettre, je n'essaye plus.  A vrai dire, je me debrouille, c'est tout.


But it's a lovely language (and can be very sexy too...)


I've got some (very) basic Spanish
And some would say equally basic English ( ;D )
And I try to have a minimum of "yes, no, please, thankyou" and a lot of mime language when I go to somewhere where I don't speak the language.  It gives people a laugh...


L

[Oniya]

There are two essential phrases to know:

Where is the bathroom?
I don't speak _______.