Languages

[Skycaptain]

English, can read French, but need more exposure to spoken French to get it back again. I tend to pick up basics in written language fairly quickly, but not spoken. 

 

[elmrain]

English is my native language and I can speak and read Japanese fairly fluently (bit out of practice with writing, but not too much). I can also understand written French, but have difficulty producing it these days. My German gets worse by the day, but I can still 'get by' if I need to.

[Koning]

On 11/26/2018 at 3:29 AM, njosnavelin said:

Ever tried explaining your native language to someone who wants to learn it as a secondary language? Yeah it is tough. You realize you don’t know your own language.

 

I am always learning new things about the English language and how complex it is. I wish there was more I knew grammatically about the language. 

A Hungarian friend of mine is learning my language. I know the answer to most of his questions, yet explaining the answers might often be difficult. As a native speaker, you are often not familiar with a lot of rules regarding spelling and grammar. You base the accuracy of your answer on a "feeling" rather than a "rule". An example is the difference between the Dutch adjectives "oud" and "oude", which mean the exact same thing, yet cannot be used interchangeably. To me, it feels natural to use "oud" (not "oude") in the sentence "een oud vrouwtje vraagt om geld" (an old lady asks for money). I never realized it's all based on gender and the article.

[Piotrek]

13 hours ago, Koning said:

As a native speaker, you are often not familiar with a lot of rules regarding spelling and grammar. You base the accuracy of your answer on a "feeling" rather than a "rule". 

That's so right. As a native speaker, you acquire your language naturally, which is completely different from the mode a person learns a foreign language, which is a conscious process involving learning rules.

EDIT: Interesting that you mentioned Dutch and especially the word "Oude". I was just listening to a song from the album called "Uit Oude Grond"

[Maiflower]

I'm able to read the Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Hangeul scripts but I can't actually speak any of those languages. I am fluent in English, while I do know a little ASL and Spanish, and a tiny bit of various other languages.

[GoneForGood]

English is the only language I really know. I have studied some sign language due to partial hearing impairment. I studied Spanish for a while when it looked like I might be living in Mexico part time. I am now trying to learn Finnish (I am engaged to be married and will be moving to Finland)

[SpaceDustbin]

I'm pretty much fluent in Dutch and English. I used to be good at German and French as well, but apparently not actively using a language for 8-11 years makes you forget some of it 

 

Since I've lived in Sweden and Denmark in the past few years, I also manage to get around with Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. I had classes for the former 2, and sort of got Norwegian as a bonus (thank you for a very similar grammar and word structure - though they could coordinate the pronunciation better  ) 

[laokatok]

German is my mother tongue, so that one's obvious. I started studying English in school in 3rd grade but my English was pretty much average or worse until I was forced to watch the new season of my favorite TV-show in English because the German dubbed version hadn't been released yet. I was in 5th grade back then and didn't understand anything, but one day, maybe a year later, it just clicked I guess? Anyway, I consider myself to be fluent in English. 

In 6th grade I started to take Latin classes in school but I forgot almost everything apart from a few words. In 8th grade I started to take French classes aaaaand I guess I would survive in France but I'm not even anywhere near fluent. 

I did an exchange year in Norway, so I'm fluent in Norwegian, understand Swedish very well (written and orally) and Danish sort of in written form.

Because of French and the little bit of Latin I have left in my brain, I sort of manage to decipher a bit of Spanish or Portuguese and because of German a bit of Dutch, but I guess that doesn't even count. 

[lapat67]

On 11/25/2018 at 10:31 PM, Vega91 said:

(Also do Old English and modern English count as different languages.) 

Just say "Thaes ofereode, thisses swa maeg" to someone who only speaks modern English and you'll find out that they are different languages.

On 11/26/2018 at 2:29 AM, njosnavelin said:

Ever tried explaining your native language to someone who wants to learn it as a secondary language? Yeah it is tough. You realize you don’t know your own language.

 

I am always learning new things about the English language and how complex it is. I wish there was more I knew grammatically about the language. 

Yes. But I do think monolingual people are particularly bad at this. So if you want to know more about English grammar, learn another language.

[Guest]

I grew up with German and English since my mom is German and my dad South African. In all honestly I do not grip languages well and I would often confuse the two. Now enter having to learn Afrikaans cause it was that or French. I now confuse German and Afrikaans easily even more. If I get into what I want to study next year I have to make a pick of languages again between Mandarin, French and Portuguese. 

 

I am better at reading a language then hearing it. Some people have commented that I have such a misunderstanding with even some basic texts and my horrible sentence construction is that I am mixing language rules up and all. Everyone else in my family are gifted with languages and can catch on easily. 

 

Its bad enough I make a fool of myself in English I want to avoid Germany at all costs XD I do not need that

[Lunala]

Fluent in English, but I have a slight understanding of Japanese because I took Japanese classes at my school and I remember a few random words/phrases/things from it but am not fluent in it. For example, I learnt that adding "Ko-" to an animal name makes it a baby animal. For example "neko" is cat, "koneko" is kitten, etc.

 

I also taught myself how to write in/read Morse Code in my free time (not technically a language but very similar concept?) so I could disguise some entries in my diary from my family, or use it to mess with people. >:D

[Guest]

Fluent in German (native) and English. Good passive Dutch - I can understand it well enough, both written and spoken, as long as the vocabulary isn't too technical, but I cannot actively speak or write it myself.

 

Also, while I'm nowhere near fluency, 8 years Latin in school still allow me to cobble up a decent translation of Latin texts, albeit with the help of a dictionary. 

 

Last and most definitely least... there are some sad remnants of two years school French... just enough to passively understand very simple sentences.

 

 

No sign language, no Braille, no Morse code either.

[Guest]

Swedish and English, Swedish is my first language. I do understand some Spanish, which I added as the third in question 5, if I had thought some more I would've picked five instead of three on that question since I sure can understand Danish and especially Norwegian (way better than Spanish). I forgot about them  

[Dot.2.Dot]

Languages were NEVER my thing. I've been in love with the English language since I was 12 when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I majored in it in high school and an AA in it that's useless. I fell in love with Sign when a group of children from the state's deaf school visited us and taught us a saying when I was in fourth grade. I was hooked since then but never had the opportunity to get really good at it. I took my mandatory foreign language class in high school but it was useless too since nobody in there would talk to me. I still remember some of the Spanish I took. I wish I had been better at it. I think knowledge of languages is helpful in communication. My brain just requires more time than school offers and I learn better with people than by myself so...  English is it for me. 

[Acing It]

English, German, French, Dutch, Italian and a few words of Scottish Gaelic.

Local languages: Swiss German and Flemish with literally a few words of Rumantsch.

[firewallflower]

I love language, although sadly the only one in which I'm fluent is English. I read Hebrew and can understand a good deal of it from reading; my conversational abilities, however, are only up for a halting and limited conversation. I also know some basic Spanish, and have a musician's vocabulary in Italian (i.e. I know quite a number of words referring to emotion or speed, but little else.)

 

And then, being the hopeless nerd and writer I am, I also designed a semi-working fictional language last year for a fictional world/culture of mine—though I don't actually remember enough words to speak it without having my dictionary to hand. Ridiculous as they may seem, I find fictional languages absolutely fascinating... almost as fascinating as real languages, which is saying a lot.

[MollyDMA]

I was gonna learn hebrew but my sister and I stopped going to hebrew school in 5th grade

[alaenya]

I've always loved learning languages! Though lately I've grown lazy x"D

 

My native language is Czech, then obviously English, I'm fairly good in Korean and I've learnt Japanese for two years, though I've forgotten a lot - mostly I can understand speech but creating a sentence myself usually leads to whipping out Korean instead. Then I've learnt a bit of German and Spanish but that's also somewhere deep in my unconsciousness

[andreas1033]

For people whom can speak more then 3 languages, did you decide which is the language that dominates your thinking?

 

ie can you think in your second, and third languages, or do you just think, only in your 1st dominant language?

 

Could you in theory, start thinking with your 2nd, or 3rd language, or what ever languages you know?

 

I personally always think, english is a very dumb phonetic language, and its given to us on purpose, to keep people dumb as dumb as they can be.

[Yara Kai]

I can speak romanian( my native language), english and french. And I can also speak and understand japanese but I have some trouble reading it. Romanian and english come naturally to me, french doesn't so I need to focus more when I use it. And japanese is the most difficult one for me to use. 

[user23974865]

Native Portuguese, fluent English. I can usually read and understand spoken Spanish without difficulty, but I never practiced speaking it and never properly studied it. The few times I tried to talk to someone in Spanish, I ended up switching to English (my pronunciation is good, but the words just don't flow naturally). Same thing with Italian, for the most part (the vocabulary is a little harder, but the pronunciation feels much more natural and clear to my ears). I can pass as a native speaker if I rehearse expected questions and answers for a situation, but then I stumble upon a word I don't know / don't remember, and I blank out. People get really confused... Like when I had to explain to an Italian official that I wasn't from Italy, but it wasn't one of the things I had rehearsed. 

 

I can understand Galician, but that's cheating. Portuguese and Galician are pretty much the same language.

 

I can read Hangeul and I've memorized the keyboard layout, but I haven't gotten around to actually learning Korean yet. It's been a permanent "next thing to do" for a while.

[SpaceDustbin]

On 3/9/2019 at 11:53 PM, andreas1033 said:

For people whom can speak more then 3 languages, did you decide which is the language that dominates your thinking?

 

ie can you think in your second, and third languages, or do you just think, only in your 1st dominant language?

 

Could you in theory, start thinking with your 2nd, or 3rd language, or what ever languages you know?

For me it depends on where I am, and what language I am surrounded by most. I'm Dutch, so naturally I used to think in Dutch, but since moving abroad, most of my communication (and most movies/series/books/music) is in English, which is now also the language I think in 90% of the time. That is, until I go home to visit my parents, but it always takes some days to make the shift . 

And every now and then I also think in Danish or German, once again depending on how much I hear/read the language.

 

So.... yes. It's possible, but it depends especially on how long you're exposed to a certain language

[andreas1033]

27 minutes ago, SpaceDustbin said:

For me it depends on where I am, and what language I am surrounded by most. I'm Dutch, so naturally I used to think in Dutch, but since moving abroad, most of my communication (and most movies/series/books/music) is in English, which is now also the language I think in 90% of the time. That is, until I go home to visit my parents, but it always takes some days to make the shift . 

And every now and then I also think in Danish or German, once again depending on how much I hear/read the language.

 

So.... yes. It's possible, but it depends especially on how long you're exposed to a certain language

Thats what i wondering.

 

Must be weird.

[Bris]

I only speak English well so I just answered 1 but I have been learning Japanese at uni for almost 3 years now. I still suck though... I wish I was more confident in speaking but unfortunately my social anxiety seems to have a massive impact on my ability to converse with people in a non-native language. And because of the kanji I feel like it will be a long, long time before I'll be able to read confidently without help from apps

[Flying Cat]

I know Polish (native), English and Spanish (but I haven't used it for ages, so my speaking capabilities are not so good, reading is better). I've tried to learn Turkish, but I didn't have much time for that and now I know only some basic words and grammar concepts.

[Guest]

I'm fluent in French and English. I know a bit of Italian and German. I'm not fluent in those two languages, but I can easily have an everyday conversation and I don't have any problems while travelling. I know a little bit of Japanese. The last two on the list are Latin and Ancient Greek, but they're a bit of a special case (I know them fairly well, but obviously cannot speak them.)

[OmegaTheMetamorphicDreamer]

I only know English.

[fooledbysecrecy]

my native language is finnish but i'm more or less bilingual now, started studying english at school when i was 9 so yeah it's been... over 20 years. living in england also helps haha. i'd like to say i'm fluent in both but i find the two languages tend to sort of blend together now and i'm forgetting words in each.😅 like i'm not even sure anymore which language i think in?? it's just one big mess.

 

i used to study swedish (the second official language in finland so everyone has to learn it) and german too but unfortunately puberty and rebelling against school and learning things happened. 🙄 (also it may be historical rivalry but especially in the middle of nowhere where i come from the attitude towards studying swedish is.. a bit not good.) wish i knew swedish better, it would be so much easier to understand other scandinavian languages! (i can read norwegian and danish to some extent, spoken danish is entirely something else!) i did an online course in icelandic some years ago,and knowing the basics of swedish certainly helped! but yeah i massively regret being an idiot at school. oh yeah i just remembered i did latin a bit as well. but have obviously forgotten everything.

 

one of my co workers is deaf so i've learned a few things in sign language over the past couple of years.

 

i love languages and would love to learn many more but where to find the time/energy/motivation etc..

[DragonSpirit]

Who said zero!?

 

I am fluent enough in French to understand most stuff if it is spoken slowly. I can read and write it well enough. Speaking it is the problem...

 

I'm in the process of learning biblical Greek BECAUSE I CAN. It's not going well.

[Strange-quark]

On 8/20/2019 at 1:45 PM, DragonSpirit said:

I'm in the process of learning biblical Greek BECAUSE I CAN. It's not going well.

I'm planning to as well, but we'll see.

 

@iff Can I protest for Basque being grouped up with languages that can be considered as variants/dialects of the majority language (i.e. they are regional and at least somehow related to the majority language)?