Which languages do you learn and why?

[Emery.]

As in the title? Which do you learn, or learnt in the past, and why?

[ItWasNiceKnowingYou]

English, French, American sign language, German, Braille,and I want to eventually learn some Arabic and Cherokee Indian-based languages :)

Why? I guess I have this natural fascination with being able to think & speak/write in a different language :D

[Alamoraine]

I used to know some Japanese from living there when I was a kid; I don't remember much now aside from a few colors, numbers, and initial greetings, but my mom swears up and down that she used to take me with her to the supermarket so that I could read the packages for her.

I also took German in high school just for fun; everyone else was taking Spanish and I felt like being different. =P No regrets though; German is fun to say and it comes in handy now and again; one time my husband and I were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and when the Nazi was fussing at Indiana after he jumped a guy and took his outfit, I started to laugh really hard; when my husband looked over at me, I told him I could actually understand what he was saying to him. XD

[argar]

Technically speaking it would have to be English.

I spoke Spanish in my household, but thanks to the Public Broadcasting Service, shows like Sesame Street also taught me English at the same time.

So Spanish was first, English a really close second.

The reason is probably because it makes it easier to navigate things in public school, and America in general, if you speak English.

[Midnight Star]

Japanese, because I like some of their popular media. The gaming industry their in particular is great. I'm at a conversational level in this language :)

Right now I am increasing my vocabulary, but that's basically it.

I'm studying Swedish, Finnish, and Spanish right now. I just like languages. That's all for now, but it won't stop here.

[Grumpy Alien]

I took Spanish and had some Spanish around me until I was 14. Then I studied French. I can only speak English though. I really like French. I would like to learn alllll the languages!!!! but that's not only impossible, it's hard for me as well. I'm not good at them. If I could learn any other languages, it'd be French and Russian.

[Yatogami]

I like and learn Japanese because its rich culture, and I am a fan of its media. Its not quite like other languages.

[Kuebiko]

English, obviously, for obvjous reasons.

Chinese because it's compulsory in my country (you have to learn a mother tongue, mine's chinese)

Russian because it's fun

Swedish because I was waiting for the Russian Duolingo to come out.

[Larkaloke]

I learned German mostly for family reasons (my oma was Austrian, and much of my family in general has Germanic-speaking roots), but that was mainly why I picked it first rather than why I decided to learn it at all. I've found languages to be quite interesting for a long time, and I wanted to get started somewhere! So far, German is the only one I'd say that I can communicate reasonably in; my reading and writing are both better than speaking/listening, but I can understand things I watch and listen to as well. I've been letting myself get a bit rusty lately, doing not much other than reading the occasional article, so I should get back into actively studying more; I need to work on my vocabulary.

I'm currently working on learning French, because I decided that it's the most practical foreign language for me to know -- after all, French-speaking Canada is by far the closest area to which I live where a non-English language is frequently spoken, and I've already been there twice. I'm finding this much more difficult, but I'm plugging away at it. I can recognise some simple sentences now, which is... progress.

I don't intend to stop there. Obviously it's not realistic to learn all the languages there are, but if I could, I would! Next on my least will either be Spanish (as being another widely-spoken language and all, and I at least know some people who speak it, which makes it more practical) or Welsh (because I think it's neat and because I have a fair amount of Welsh ancestry). Finnish, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Russian make up the next group of really interesting languages to me, but I don't know if I'll ever get that far.

[dragon_cake]

I learnt Korean in high school (some basics were taught to me also as a child) and still trying to improve on it since my family were born from Korea and only know very little English. I thought it would be nice and useful to communicate with them.

I'm focusing learning Korean and Japanese even though there are many more languages I'm interested in understanding.

I want to learn Japanese so I can read in another language and speak to others in Japanese or understand what they are saying. One of the major reason I'm interested is because of the anime, manga, music, and extensive video games.

I'm trying to also learn Spanish since it's commonly spoken other than English and it's usually in text in most places so I would love to be able to read in that language fluently.

Other languages I'm interested in learning later are German, Swedish, Italian, Russian, and Portuguese.

If anyone wants to help me learn, I have an account I can share on memrise, hellotalk, and HiNative.

[Maiflower]

I've tried learning a few languages.

Portuguese - I had the choice between Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Latin. I didn't want Spanish because it's too popular. I didn't want French because it's so complicated. I didn't want Latin because nobody speaks Latin. That left Portuguese. Then, I remembered my dad speaks Portuguese. It's also the 2nd most common language in the area.

Russian - First time, just because I like Cyrillic (the alphabet). Second time, because I discovered a Russian band I like, so maybe I can learn some Russian from theme.

Esperanto - It supposedly is the easiest language, and if you speak it already, it makes other languages easier to learn.

[The Maple Leaf Forever]

Serbian and English are my native languages. The former because I was born in a Serbian family, the latter because I grew up in Canada.

My parents started teaching me French before I was five, it being one of Canada's official languages. I had a lot in school and I worked two summers in Quebec.

In 2003, I moved to the Czech Republic (except for 2010-2011, I lived there until recently; I returned to Canada less than a month ago. I learned Czech there, mostly by using it (and used my Serbian - another Slavic language - as a template for learning Czech). While I was there, I also taught myself German. I like the language (and Germany) and it's a pretty useful one to know if you live in central Europe. I would like to expand my German skills, but don't have much opportunity or time to do so at present.

I have just started to learn Mandarin. This is because there are a lot of Chinese immigrants to Canada and it could come in handy as a job skill.

I also studied Latin and Ancient Greek in school and at university; however, the former is quite rusty and the latter I never learned properly. I didn't really like it and it's a very difficult language.

In my family, language learning was encouraged. Both of my parents are multilingual.

[Emery.]

I learnt English for years and years, for the obvious reasons of it being the most international language. I no longer learn, but as I moved out of UK, I want to keep it going by reading books, watching films and so on.

I learnt German, because I had to choose between it and French at school, and my parents chose it as being of more use in here, and I think they were right. I want to learn it a bit more and have an internship or PhD in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.

I learnt also French for one year, just as a hobby, and managed to learn some basics.

I'd like to either come back to learning French or learn a completely new language like Mandarin, because laguages are interesting, even though sometimes hard.

[Gloomy]

I learned Spanish in school since 1. Taking some sort of humanities or foreign language class was one of the requirements to graduate and 2. People told me knowing Spanish would make me more marketable in finding a job, since I live like 20 miles from the Mexican border and there's a lot of Spanish speakers around here. I've forgotten roughly 75% of it by now though.

[Skycaptain]

French, German and Latin at school. The end result is that I'm tolerable in French, can just about form a basic sentence in German, and Latin has been forgotten.

I'm going to have to learn a little basic Spanish for Worldpride next year

[Homer]

School:

- English (I really used to rock that but I forgot quite a few things. Not happy about that decline :( )

- French (forgot the most but at least I can avoid starving in French :D things get going limping if I spend a day or two over there)

- Swedish (was offered at school and as I sucked at French, I thought "why not". Skill level: See French)

Otherwise:

- Danish (for work. I can form some basic sentences as well as read and understand texts properly but listening comprehension is... utterly difficult)

I'm still tempted to learn Icelandic because I really really love this country. Oh and Croatia is a nice place so maybeee.... there are too many languages out there.

Disliked languages spoiler (not meant to offend anyone ;)):

Spanish, sounds like a jackhammer. Latin b/c I can't talk to anyone in Latin so where's the point? Also some asian languages where all the words sound the same but aren't.

[SpaceDustbin]

I learnt English, French and German in high school (also Latin and Ancient Greek, but those are not really active languages).

I learnt some Swedish a few years ago when I was studying there, and now I'm learning Danish, because I moved there for my job. I terribly misjudged Danish :lol: It looked so easy, because when written it's similar to Dutch, and it's similar to Swedish. So... easy to pick up right?! Hahaha... yeah. I was so innocent.

[Jea]

German and French are my mother tongues, I learnt English and some Spanish (and Latin) in middle and high school, then kept using English a lot (Spanish lays half forgotten in a corner, but I want to get back to it at some point, it's easy enough). I've been studying English since, I became near-fluent in that. I've lived in Sweden for a short while, so I picked up some of it, and I intend to get better...and to learn Danish once that's done, although I know it's difficult.

I learnt English, French and German in high school (also Latin and Ancient Greek, but those are not really active languages).

I learnt some Swedish a few years ago when I was studying there, and now I'm learning Danish, because I moved there for my job. I terribly misjudged Danish :lol: It looked so easy, because when written it's similar to Dutch, and it's similar to Swedish. So... easy to pick up right?! Hahaha... yeah. I was so innocent.

^you sound similar to me XD

Do you, like the two people I know who tried to learn Danish, also say that the biggest difficulty because it's not pronounced like it's spelled?

[Homer]

^you sound similar to me XD

Do you, like the two people I know who tried to learn Danish, also say that the biggest difficulty because it's not pronounced like it's spelled?

This video sums it up perfectly.

[Novine]

I know some Spanish....I learned it in elementary, middle and high school.

I learned a little German and Norwegian from Youtube.

I need to get back into a more structured language learning program because I think being bilingual or trilingual is so cool!

[lalapp]

I just learn Enghlish because I need to study it! In Korea, we supposed to learn it becoz I wanna be a cabin crew.

Also I started learning English 4 years ago, because of 1D!

[Momoo]

I learned english and french during middle and high school but I forgot almost everything about french. My english on the other hand got better since my study courses are only in english.

I also started to learn a bit dutch during high school because I thought it could be useful since I live near the border.

In college we had to choose an additional foreign language to english and I chose arabic since I tought it was interesting and I knew nobody else who would over a middle eastern language.

[InsomniacAnna]

My mother tongues are Spanish and Catalan, and then I learnt English at school and academies and now I'm trying to learn Russian, I don't know if I'll try to learn another language in the future, I guess I will

[UraNepu]

English, it was kind of necessity, then it became a valuable tool for me as I'm dyslexic in my native tongue.

Japanese, out of love for the language and culture.

[Kazu]

I'm currently teaching myself German. I'd like to live in Switzerland at some point, and even though Swiss German is different than High German, I figure that if English isn't enough for me to get by there, being able to communicate in German would probably help at least a little bit. Because I'm learning on my own, my pronunciation's pretty awful, but I can read simple sentences alright. I want to take actual classes at some point so I can improve my communication and listening skills though.

I want to learn Icelandic, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Korean, and either a Celtic or Gaelish language too. I think languages are fascinating and I'd love to learn as many as possible to be honest!

[cavalier080854]

French, it was compulsory at school. I've never been to France, except to go from the UK to Germany and back again without stopping.

[King Al]

English because I had to move to England for my babbo's work. Spanish because some of my family are Spanish.

[God of the Forest]

English for my native tongue, Spanish because the area I live in is 30% Hispanic/Latino/Mexican and it pays to know their language and Portuguese because I am going to Brazil for a month next year for work and that's gonna be important. :D

[Guest]

French. My father is fluent and my great grandmother is from Alsace-Lorraine. I thought it would be good to learn the language that my family is from :)

[artzcat]

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