Thread: Languages

English is my native language and the only one I would claim to be fluent in. I took 4 years of French in high school and, surprisingly, remember enough to get by on my visits to France. I studied Russian for one year in college, but honestly don' remember much of it.

I know a few words of Korean and Vietnamese. I am currently struggling mightily to learn Japanese so that I am able to speak with my in-laws. It's straining my abilities, but my wife assures me I'm coming along. If only I had enough time in the day after work and everything else is done...

I got started with English from playing the Sierra adventures (Police Quest, Space Quest) with a dictionary. But what really got me going was when I started reading English books. That got me a rich vocabulary and an understanding of the grammar. The second big leap for me was when I worked for a Space Agency and spoke nothing but English all day. The native English speakers told me that my English is much better than theirs. The reason was that I learned 'proper' English while they sometimes used the dialect they grew up with.

People I know raise their kids perfectly bi-lingual (Dutch French) from the cradle. One parent speaks French, the other Dutch. The kids learn it naturally and it gives them a huge advantage in life.

We taught our daughters basic sign language from the moment they were able to wave their hands. That was a real joy. They were never frustrated due to communication problems, because from 6or 7 months they could tell us whether they were thirsty, hungry, tired, ... And since we always used the words with the signs, they started talking coherently at a very young age, especially my oldest daughter. She could speak in perfectly pronounced full sentences by the time she turned 2. This always got some funny reactions from people who didn't expect that.

My native language is Finnish of course, and i'm quite fluent in Swedish (Finland is bilingual country where both Finnish and Swedish are official languages, although most people here refuse to speak or understand Swedish).
Think i'm doing ok with English as well, although i still make mistakes every now and then.
I can understand and speak Estonian quite well, but learning to get better with it. Same goes with German. I can speak and understand some but there's still lot of work to do.
These are all languages that i have to use more or less frequently.

Once i planned to start studying Russian, just for fun, as it is a language that sounds beautiful but i do need at all. I have a friend who teaches Russian here and she said that there is no much use for me to try to learn a language i'm not planning to use. Language skill is something that gets forgotten pretty easy if not used.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I didn't mention Latin because I haven't used it since high school. And to be honest, I have to admit that I would be lost in Latin so I can't really add it to my list.

However, I found Latin fairly easy to learn as a language. Much easier than French certainly. No funny umlauts, cedilles or accents, waaaaaay less exceptions to the rules of grammar, and you basically pronounce the letters the was they are written.

I had to study Latin for eight years back in my school days. I never understood why, although it was very easy and logical language to learn. Now i know that Latin was an excellent basis to learn other languages as it is related to so many modern languages.

I am the typical American that only speaks one language... American English.

I have been trying off and on to learn Mandarin the past 5 years though. Tonal languages are tough.....

Studied Japanese for 3 years at an Aussie uni and 1 year at a Japanese university. Then worked in a Japanese company for 10 years (speaking only Japanese every day). Speak the language fluently and read and write reasonably well.

I am so jealous of you! I have been learning japanese and french from the Pimsleur audio tracks and find it a very good tool for learning languages.

I am also going to embark on learning the kanji and hirigana and the other one that I can't remember just now - katakana, I think - make it a life project, main reason... so I can play japanese import games, plus I am fascinated by the japanese language structure and culture.

I am an English speaker who never had the opportunity to learn another language while young, which seems to be the key to becoming truly bilingual, trilingual, etc. With that said, I can conduct a physical assessment in Armenian, having learned to ask a number of short health questions and understand simple answers. Not fluent at all, but can get that job done, and talk about the weather and fishing. My wife is a native Spanish speaker, so I have learned to have simple conversations in Spanish and to understand more than I can speak. I truly wish that I had had an opportunity to learn other languages before my Noam Chomsky's postulated "language acquisition device" expired.

I have learned arabic to the extent that I can ask questions about ones health and general niceties. In the last 6 years I have become really proficient in both the Afghan(dari), and Iranian forms of persian or farsi. I also picked up enough pashto to give general hello's and goodbye's.

i speak anerican english and bad english. i have been trying to learn irish gaelic for a long time, and i finally found out that rosetta stone language courses are free in the army so i have been using that but dont have much free time here to learn much.

so for everyone who speaks multiple languages i have been told that english is the hardest language to learn, is there any truth to this?

-dan-

I speak 3 languages fluently but Japanese has to be the hardest language on the planet. I've been struggling for almost 4 years with it. I can put a phrase or two in romanji but that's it. Hiragana, Katakana, etc. is like ancient egyptian to me.

+1 on comments about immersion and having a use for the language you want to learn.

Being surrounded by a community of speakers would make it much easier - or perhaps the next best thing is to create yourself a 'community' - reading, watching videos, listening to music/podcasts.

I can also find it tricky when the speakers speak my language - much easier for everyone to speak English, than have to patiently deal with me the mainly-monolingual.

I don't know what the multi-linguals think, but I do believe you should at least learn a little of the language of a country you visit or work with. Even if you're 'hurting their ears' with your version of their language, it acknowledges that the world doesn't just speak English. (I believe it mostly speaks Mandarin and Spanish these days??)

Well -that's just a few tired thoughts from me for this evening.
Vertu saelir / Ha det / See ya!
Michael (with apologies for Icelandic/Norwegian spelling... especially if I've just done the feminine plural for the Icelandic... I'm a bit out of practice)