Languages

[liquidnature]

What is your native language, and which other languages do you speak, read, write, understand - and to what level? Which languages, if any, would you like to learn?

I have always loved languages for as long as I can remember - even just the very idea of a language or culture different from my own would send my imagination running wild. As a young child I remember scrawling in pen on my palms any foreign words or phrases I would come across, not knowing what languages they were or what they meant.

My native language (mother tongue) is English, being born and raised, and having never once yet ventured outside of, the United States.

I have been actively learning Spanish now for a little over a year, and deeply love the language and its native speakers. An online test has determined my reading comprehension to be at a B2 level (advanced intermediate), but this tells little of the story. Speaking marks the least of my abilities. Not with pronunciation, which I find to be easy and am passionate about mimicking the intricate and unique sounds of a language, but rather in conjuring up the grammatically correct or even the apt, comprehensible words and phrases to use in daily conversation.

Though focusing on only one language for an extended time is probably the best and most pragmatic way to study a language (with the end goal being as close to native fluency as possible), I am admittedly much too interested in other languages to let many years of time pass without studying them, even if infrequently.

The other six languages that I want to learn are, in no particular order: Hebrew (previously studied for one year), Greek, Russian, French, German (begun in 2019), and Mandarin. These are the only ones which really grab me, for the time being. If I were to consider any others they would probably be Japanese, a Native American language like Nimipuutimt (having spent most of my life living on the Nimiipuu reservation) or dialects of Inuit or Yupik, Hawaiian, or an African language like Swahili.

My goal is to gradually over many years increase my knowledge and ability in each of these seven languages, with no real end goal in mind other than to partake in the culture and communicate with its speakers at a level that enhances my own life and, more importantly, the lives of others.

What about you?

[flip]

native english speaker, almost fluent in french, and know some german. also studied latin for four years, so that plus french makes italian mostly comprehensible (at least reading it), though i can't really speak it. i started learning both japanese and persian in the last two or three years, mostly because i was watching a lot of films in those languages, but i got sidetracked both times. might get back to one of those again though.

[Mario Gaborovic]

My native language is Serbian, I also understand 95% of Slovene and 50% of Macedonian. Other YU languages I don't count, they're all nothing more than dialects of a single thing.
Besides that I speak English and little German (which I understand much more when reading, my vocabulary is broad but what always distracted me is the similarity between words - they ain't so distinctively different like in English. For example: make and laugh is much more distinctive and easier to differ than machen und lachen).

I can also understand some simple lines in Italian, not because I ever learned, but because it's damn easy. Spanish the same.

Serbian is difficult for cases (it has 7), but its advantage is for being the most phonetic language in the world: each letter corresponds to the single sound, always pronounced the same. Another distinctive trait is that both cyrillic and latin alphabet are in use.

[rischka]

having spent most of my life living on the Nimiipuu reservation

this seems cool. are you native? i only speak english and some spanish

[Javier]

My native language is Spanish. My English level is B2 according to tests. Also studied Italian for some semesters at the university. I love it. I understand a very basic Mandarin too since I lived in Beijing for some months. French has always tricked me even though I have taken lessons. German, Korean, Catalan, Japanese, Russian and Portuguese are in my to-learn list.

[mesnalty]

Native English, and I'm Canadian so I did French for a while (but haven't kept it up much). I've studied a bunch of languages superficially, but the only one I've studied in depth is Spanish. I don't practice it much - I've probably had 2 or 3 conversations in Spanish in the last year - but as of a few years ago I knew it well enough to teach an intro course.

[Umbugbene]

Native English speaker, and I didn't get into languages until after high school (studied Latin & ancient Greek in school). Now I'm conversant in Spanish and German with pretty good familiarity with French. Italian is also pretty easy to understand. I've also studied Mandarin & Tagalog (useful because I'm living in the Philippines for a while now). I'm still actively studying German.

@Mario Gaborovic I'm surprised only 50% Macedonian. I read somewhere that the south Slavic languages formed a continuum from Bulgarian > Macedonian > Serbo-Croatian > Slovenian. Is that accurate? How much Bulgarian can you understand? Also, is there a trend in Serbian toward the Roman script, or has it been either/or for a long time now?

[greennui]

Native Swedish speaker. I can read, understand but not really speak or write German. Same goes for Spanish but on a much lower level. I used to study the languages in school and lived in both countries for a short while. I also understand Norwegian fairly well due to it's proximity to the Swedish language.

I'd like to brush up on my German or Spanish, still got lots of text books laying around the house.

[Mario Gaborovic]

@Mario Gaborovic I'm surprised only 50% Macedonian. I read somewhere that the south Slavic languages formed a continuum from Bulgarian > Macedonian > Serbo-Croatian > Slovenian. Is that accurate? How much Bulgarian can you understand? Also, is there a trend in Serbian toward the Roman script, or has it been either/or for a long time now?

That's accurate continuum. The reason I don't speak Macedonian is my lack of trying, nothing more. I simply don't need it. Bulgarian is very similar but a bit more distant, too; I recognize some words but never able to understand a whole sentence. For some reason, they speak much faster than the rest of Slavic nations. On the other hand, Slovene language sounds a bit like Czech.

Cyrillic alphabet is dying since digitalization took its toll. I don't use it myself anymore 'cause I can't bother to alternately change alphabets when surfing internet, plus all the content is in Latin.

[Umbugbene]

Thanks, all of that fascinates me. When I visited Serbia in 2011 I saw both scripts, but maybe a bit more Cyrillic. Apparently the Kazakh language will switch officially from Cyrillic to Roman by 2025.

[kanafani]

Native Arabic speaker. I went to a school run by french nuns till age 18, then switched to the US system.

[Mario Gaborovic]

Thanks, all of that fascinates me. When I visited Serbia in 2011 I saw both scripts, but maybe a bit more Cyrillic. Apparently the Kazakh language will switch officially from Cyrillic to Roman by 2025.

I'm curious what were your experiences like. Charles Cather from Illinois is by far our best-known foreign tourist; he stayed permanently.

[MatiasAlbertotti]

My native language is Spanish (or the version of it that we speak in Buenos Aires, that all our latin brothers love to make fun of). The only other language I can read and write decently is English. I've tried studying French, but I don't have the energy to commit to studying a language long enough to be able to learn anything of substance. I would love to learn Japanese or Mandarin, but I don't see that happening in the near future.

[roujin]

Native language is Spanish, but English has taken over for better or worse.

[liquidnature]

having spent most of my life living on the Nimiipuu reservation

this seems cool. are you native? i only speak english and some spanish

Thanks. I have never taken an official DNA test, but I would estimate I am about 10% Native, from my mother's side, which is enough to give me quite dark skin and incite everyone I meet to ask me what ethnicity I am. However I don't think much of that 10% is of Nimiipuu origin, but rather mostly from some of the tribes of western Canada/British Columbia and Alaska. I should take a DNA test some time.

[Curtis, baby]

Lol I feel so dumb reading this. I speak English. That's it. I can read a bit of French but usually not even enough to make out a full sentence

Among other things, one of my goals for 2019 is to get my French back to where it was when I was in high school. At some point I also want to start learning German. And I'm taking a Latin course this fall. All of my interest in foreign language, though, is really just to help me understand the roots of English better

[nrh]

only speak english. studied spanish through high school and took it very seriously, mostly because of my love for south american literature, and one of my great regrets now is letting those skills atrophy. would love to be able to study more and at least get my reading up to par but god knows when that time would come.

[Umbugbene]

I'm curious what were your experiences like. Charles Cather from Illinois is by far our best-known foreign tourist; he stayed permanently.

I wish I had more to tell, but I was only there a couple days on my way to Transylvania. I flew to Belgrade then took a train to Cluj. I stayed way out on Mirijevski Boulevard and covered the Old Town, including the fortress and St. Sava. I also went out to Genex Tower and snuck up almost to the top, but the revolving restaurant was closed. I love brutalist archtitecture, so I'll have to get back sometime to see all those "Spomeniks" in the countryside. I also love mountains and church architecture, so there's obviously a lot to come back to.

[Umbugbene]

To all those regretting their language skills slipping away... my experience is that if you've learned it once it will come back more quickly the second time. So your effort isn't completely lost.

[wba2]

My native language is Slovene, but since I don't live there anymore for some 30 years, and rarely speak and read it nowadays. Thus my German, where I'm currently residing, has become much better. I'm fluent in both in reading, writing and speaking, though.

Third best would be English, which is decent enough for speaking, a bit better for writing, and pretty good when I read stuff. That's been my main occupation, when it comes to English anyway, reading. I've been reading English language literature for some 25 years, so it's quite good.

Then there are a few languages I've been studying or trying to learn, and which I haven't mastered: fourth best would be serbo-croatian (which is basically spoken in many ex-Yugo countries). I can read it decently (50%, I'd say), speak it badly (10% to 20%), and understand it quite well (70%-80%). Macedonian is far away though, and even further is Bulgarian, which I don't really understand.
I can read and understand a bit of Spanish (20% to 30%), but can't write much. Same for Italian. I studied Spanish for a year at school, some 20 years ago, and didn't do anything since. But somehow it improved over the years. I never studied Italian, but found out that my understanding of the Italian language has somehow exponentially grown during the past 10 years. Why that is the case, I don't know.
Then I can read and write and understand a bit French (20% to 30%), but I used to be quite decent at it at school, where I studied it for 5 years. I would love to get back to that level sometime in the future (about 50%).
I also studied Japanese at University for 2 years, but forgot everything. Can't say or write a sentence anymore. Also have no current ambitions to change that.

I like languages and enjoy listening to them, but haven't studied any language for the past 10 years. Don't know if my interest will grow in the future, but the curious incident of my "learning" a bit of Italian (which I discovered by chance while watching Italian films and turning off the subtitles), has re-ignited some interest, as I used to be best in class at school in English and French, and found it very easy as a kid to get into the idea of understanding other languages. So I have some hopes, that I'll improve some of the languages I have a rudimentary understanding of at some point in the future.

[thoxans]

i speak uhmurican cuz i'm uhmurican and in uhmurica we reject every other culture in the entire world and revel gleefully in our own ignorance and intellectual atrophy and outright stupidity duh

edit: but foreign movies are still cool even tho i have to read them which is another thing that we hate to do in uhmurica

[Curtis, baby]

Among other things, one of my goals for 2019 is to get my French back to where it was when I was in high school. At some point I also want to start learning German. And I'm taking a Latin course this fall. All of my interest in foreign language, though, is really just to help me understand the roots of English better

Not taking the Latin course after all. Maybe sometime down the road...

I'm signed up for Duolingo and doing about an hour a day... mostly German but French too.

Any suggestions for learning languages and learning two at once? I don't really like Duolingo, but it seems like the most convenient. I'd prefer if there were some theory. Like WHY is it der Madchen and not die Madchen? huh?

[Lencho of the Apes]

I remember a series of books put out by Dover Pubs (I think) called Essential __________ Grammar. Back when I tutored English, I used one of those to organize my study plans -- they were very concise and very methodical, took 80 pages or so to go from the most basic fundamentals to a point of decent linguistic complexity. Have you seen those/would they be useful to you?

[brian d]

it’s das mädchen. anything with -chen on the end is a diminutive and becomes neuter by default.

i don’t know about two at once (i always recommend to students that they stagger when they take up a new language, so they get to a certain level of proficiency in one before jumping into another), but you have to find excuses to use it to create phrases and sentences. if you’re using a recitation-type program it never becomes dynamic. once you get the basics just start talking to yourself in the language if you don’t have anyone to talk to. when you don’t know a word, just skip it and keep going, then look up the words that keep coming up later. the more time you spend putting words together the easier it will be to remember and use them in real situations.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Been thinking a lot lately about language and language-learning. Trying again to learn French, presently well below fluency. My goals are to learn at least French, German, and Italian. Potentially also Latin and (Romanized) Ancient Greek. So many languages I'd love to learn, but I expect learning a different alphabet/writing system is beyond me. A local Indigenous language would be something I'd really value knowing as well. I have no goal of learning to speak these languages, mind you; just read and write and translate, though being able to understand it spoken would help me watch sound films without subtitles which would be great.

I love Duolingo because it's a game (I need more casual play in my life) and because it encourages you to engage with the language every day. But I see it more as one part of a language learning project, not the whole thing. I'll want grammar workbooks and such as well. I've taken to reading French kids books about movies, which I highly recommend; if you know the subject well in English, that makes it easier.

[Curtis, baby]

I remember a series of books put out by Dover Pubs (I think) called Essential __________ Grammar. Back when I tutored English, I used one of those to organize my study plans -- they were very concise and very methodical, took 80 pages or so to go from the most basic fundamentals to a point of decent linguistic complexity. Have you seen those/would they be useful to you?

I haven't seen those but it's pretty cheap on Amazon. I'll probably go for it in addition to something else, but I'll start with that, maybe it will be enough. Might want something for vocabulary, but Duolingo might cover that. It seems to be pretty good at introducing new nouns and shit

I've taken to reading French kids books about movies, which I highly recommend; if you know the subject well in English, that makes it easier.

That sounds like a great exercise. Any recommendations of specific books that I'd be able to find at a public library in an very Anglophonic (and more importantly very un-Francophonic) city?

it’s das mädchen. anything with -chen on the end is a diminutive and becomes neuter by default.

Right, shows how beginner I am haha. So what is it a diminutive of then? Like not of Frau I'm assuming...

i don’t know about two at once (i always recommend to students that they stagger when they take up a new language, so they get to a certain level of proficiency in one before jumping into another), but you have to find excuses to use it to create phrases and sentences. if you’re using a recitation-type program it never becomes dynamic. once you get the basics just start talking to yourself in the language if you don’t have anyone to talk to. when you don’t know a word, just skip it and keep going, then look up the words that keep coming up later. the more time you spend putting words together the easier it will be to remember and use them in real situations.

That is awesome advice, thank you. I will do that. As for the two languages, they are staggered in a sense. I studied French from grades 7 through 11 (but in Vancouver, it's kinda a joke... you become great at reading, okay at writing, horrible at speaking and worse at understanding) but that ended 15 years ago. It's not totally atrophied because you encounter French a decent amount here, just on bilingual shit and stuff

[Umbugbene]

...I expect learning a different alphabet/writing system is beyond me.

You might be surprised, but the writing system is the least of it. I took ancient Greek in high school, and we spent the first day on the alphabet. After that we were in the clear. Cyrillic is easy to learn as well... the Arabic and Devanagari alphabets are somewhat harder. From what I hear the Korean writing system is also very easy to learn, but the language itself is as hard as it gets except for Japanese. The hardest alphabetic script, from what I've read, is Tibetan.

[brian d]

it’s das mädchen. anything with -chen on the end is a diminutive and becomes neuter by default.

Right, shows how beginner I am haha. So what is it a diminutive of then? Like not of Frau I'm assuming...

It’s the diminutive of Mädel (little girl). You can do that with technically all of the nouns to make them diminutive. Works well with words and terms of affection: Liebe-Liebchen, Herz-Herzchen, etc. They all become neuter when you do it though.

[Curtis, baby]

Interesting. Thank you!

What languages do you speak if you don't mind me asking? At least ENglish/Spanish/Port./German I'm guessing?

[Curtis, baby]

One thing I read in an article about learning two languages at once is that one benefit is it allows you to translate between those two languages, and form neural connections relating to that language that don't relate back to English. So when I see "Ich bin ein Mann" on Duolingo, I'm trying to translate to "Je suis un homme" before the phrase "I am a man" crosses my mind... it's hard!