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Saved!I always get a little jealous whenever I meet someone who is bilingual/multi-lingual, as having that extra language ability opens up so much more of the world. Good people of Favslist, I ask you, how many languages can you speak/write and which ones? When did you first start learning them? Are there any languages you would like to learn? And why?
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Just English for me. But after travelling to almost every country in Europe multiple times I can understand a bit of foreign writing. I can get the gist of things fairly quickly. I have hearing difficulties though so will never understand some foreigner speaking at normal speed. -
Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Haha, I have difficulties just understanding different UK accents :p What countries where your favourites? -
Saved!NodleyEditing … France, Belgium, Germany are the places I'd most like to live. I've been robbed/attempted to be robbed in Spain and Italy. Russia was f***ing terrifying. The Dutch are dicks and terrible drivers. Poland and Czech Republic were surprisingly good. Luxembourg was terrible traffic. The Swiss are complete nobs. Austria was stunningly beautiful. Denmark was so expensive I needed a loan for lunch, friendly people though. Norway was cold.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Germany and France are pretty much top when it comes to EU countries I wanna visit. Russia was always a curiosity, but it's a bit too intimidating for me :P I've only been to Italy and Belgium. Italy was good, but the people weren't all that friendly. Belgium was about 14 years ago on a school trip, so I don't really remember much of it. My friends have been to Poland and they seemed keen on going back. I'd like to check it out, but travelling Asia is my real dream.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … Yeah, I wanna see all the great sights of the world, Asia included. I've also been to Tunisia and Egypt and the countries are fantastic, but the beggars and others in the street make them intimidating and unsafe.
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Saved!CaffEditing … I can speak English and Spanish, but can also read [to varying extents] French, Portuguese, Ullapool-Scots, Catalan, Galician, Judeo-Spanish/Ladino, and Esperanto. -
Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Very impressive! :) Is there a language that is your "favourite"? i.e one that you enjoy the sound/rhythm of?
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Saved!SudertumEditing … German and English, as last was in school teached since 5th grade. Learned a bit French (1 year) and spanish (2 years) in school too but sucked at them. Understanding other germanic languages works partly, dutch is pretty similar to german, danish and norwegian share many words too. -
Saved!Silent GamerEditing … The only language I was taught in school was French, for about 5 years. Although I was pretty good at it, I never practiced it afterwards and I have pretty much lost all of my ability :(
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Saved!SudertumEditing … Have been in France and Spain, but did not try to speak their languages. In Spain it was in Barcelona which has "Catalan" as primary language so wrong area anyway.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Are there any languages you would like to learn?
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Saved!SudertumEditing … Yes, french, dutch and spanish are all interesting. Have myself diffyculties to learn them, was quite slow at learning german in childhood (got most of the time a D), then i had english it was usually an E.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I got an E in English too, and I'm English lol. That was due to changing schools though, they just entered me for the bottom paper. After I left school I did a Level 3 English test which is the equivalent to an A level I think. It was enough to get into University so it must be.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Like most subjects, I find that learning a language is a lot easier if you have an interest in the language beforehand. In school, I really wanted to learn German, but sadly, we only had teachers speaking Spanish and French. I doubt it would make little difference though, as I forgot the French that I did learn :P I've taken a greater interest in languages lately and over the next few months, I will be making a concerted effort to learn some basic Japanese. :)
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Saved!SudertumEditing … Yeah, changing school is the best way to screw up your grade here. The gap between all these school types in Germany are tremendous!
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Saved!MasterCrashEditing … I know Portuguese and English, but I can kinda speak Spanish as well, just because how similar it is to Portuguese. I can somewhat understand French and Italian (specially Italian) as well, but I never learn it. And I know some random Japanese words if that counts for anything. -
Saved!SudertumEditing … The subjects and selection in school was a pain, replaced a bad and got new bad one. Learning japanese? Asian languages are told to be more diffycult...
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Saved!MasterCrashEditing … Also, Alexander, there is no "Spanish" language per see, Catalan is what we normally call Spanish, and then there's a couple other variations that don't really change much.
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Saved!SudertumEditing … I know, Catalan which is mostly spoken in Catalunya is more related to Oczitain (typo?) which was spoken in Southernfrance ("soon" instinct) . So Castillano and Catalan are not that close related.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I speak Scottish btw, and Australian. Bit of Yank too.
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Saved!SudertumEditing … Ok Nod, i won't start to count the german dialects i can understand.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … What, you mean there's more than just German? Austrian maybe?
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Yea, Japanese has the added difficulty of not using the Latin lettering system. So your brain has to change the kana into letters you can understand, then you have to learn the meaning. This will hopefully go away as my knowledge of the kana themselves improves
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … @Crash Does Spanish' similarity to Portugese make you more interested in learning it, or are you not too bothered?
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Saved!MasterCrashEditing … Most of my knowledge of French, Italian and Spanish is just looking at the word and associate it to the Portuguese word it's more similar sounding. It works more times than it should, specially for Spanish and Italian. The exception being "pila" which means "battery" in Spanish and "Penis" in Portuguese. Which is fun because we have a lot of electronic products from Spain with penises included in them. :v
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Rechargeable penises :P
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Saved!MasterCrashEditing … I don't bother at all, I've been to Spain, and I didn't need any help understanding them, though weirdly enough they can't seem to (or don't bother to) understand us. Every Portuguese understand Spanish and no Spanish understands Portuguese :I
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Saved!SudertumEditing … "Plenty" of them nearly every region have their own dialect. Bavarian and Austrian is pretty similar but for some people from the northgermany it is like a different language, they need a interpreter for their own dialect! Most dialect borders are not significant, but the North to south gap is. Worst case is swissgerman, then these are talking in tv it is usually subtitled.
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Saved!MasterCrashEditing … Are they subtitled IRL? :O
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Saved!SudertumEditing … No, swissgermans learn also highgerman so they can speak normal if wished. :)
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … I'm waiting for google glass to implement real-time subtitling :P That would make it worth buying
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Saved!SudertumEditing … Due this gap the french and italian speaking population in Swiss "have" to learn highgerman and swissgerman.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Scotland is pretty much the same. The further North you go, it becomes near impossible to understand people, especially once you meet Scots speakers. And then of course there is the language barrier between English and Scottish Gaelic.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … I turned and walked away from a Scotsman in Glasgow once because I had no idea what he was saying. After the 4th or 5th time of saying "what?" I just gave up. I understand most Scottish people fine though because I did my army training there. He must have been the hillbilly verssion of a Scot, whatever that is... a Highlander or something.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Either that or one of the many, many crazies we have here :P
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Saved!NodleyEditing … He was probably drunk.
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Saved!NodleyEditing … On that same day we were delivering a commercial fridge to this shop and it wouldn't fit through the door, we had hydraulic jacks and everything, we even took the door frame out but no. Anyway, this old skinny ginger bloke walks up and asks if we want a hand. We laugh, this guys arms are skinnier than kate moss and he's covered in 40 year old prison tats that are just like blue blur on his arms. Next thing he picks this end of the fridge up and rams it through the door. The guy was a beast!
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Haha, Scottish people are deceptively strong :P I've seen old women who can probaby bench-press me :p Must be all that Irn Bru
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Saved!CaffEditing … While every 'murican accent is [somewhat] easy to understand, the Wisconsin dialect is still difficult to understand if you're not used to it. Especially because they pronounce "bag" as "bayg"...
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … I dare you to comprehend Scots :P https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cENbkHS3mnY
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Saved!CaffEditing … ^I can understand a good amount, but it's much easier to read it [and no, it wasn't easy, holy shit].
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Hehe :P
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Saved!PuddingEditing … English, Croatian - good in understanding, talking and writing both, Spanish - solid in understanding, basic in talking, rubbish in writing, German (learned it for 8 years, but haven't used it since finishing high school) - Ok in understanding, rubbish in talking and writing. Latin - Ok in understanding, rubbish in talking, basic in writing. Would love to improve my English and Spanish. Oh and if Matrix was real, I'd like to d/l the Japanese file instantly into my brain, please. -
Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Most impressive :) How often do you get to practice these languages? Are there people you know who speak them, or do you self-teach?
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Saved!PuddingEditing … English and Croatian - every day, probably the obvious answer. ^^ Spanish - well, rarely, but I did take up Duolingo to refresh and improve it. Should continue the courses, as they're pretty good. German is decaying and I'm basically not doing anything in order to stop it. Latin would be exactly the same as German, but I do get in touch with it every now and then, due to my profession.
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Would you recommend Duolingo? I've heard it's quite popular, but never looked into it myself.
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … I can speak English, write it and understand it pretty well. I don't consider myself as bilingual though. Learned Latin at college but I barely remember a thing. I learned Spanish but I stopped after highschool because the teacher wouldn't give me a higher score than 8/20. I also studied Chinese and loved it though it was not easy. At University I started studiying Japanese (3 years). I'd like to know it like I know English. I wanted to continue Chinese as well but my schedule wouldn't allow me to do so. I miss it sometimes. -
Saved!Leya KathEditing … (Oh and I'm French btw)
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Oh wow, I've heard Chinese is one of the most difficult :0 Was there any overlap between that and Japanese? I hear they share a lot of characters, albeit different readings. Did your experience with Chinese aid in learning Japanese, or even make it harder?
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Saved!PuddingEditing … Yup! Even though I've used it only for a week or two before stopping, it's really great! I had loads of fun, while actually learning something at the same time. Don't think it will get you to an expert level of knowing a language, but your knowledge will be pretty solid nonetheless imo!
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Saved!PuddingEditing … Whoa Leya! Chinese and Japanese? Impressive!
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … What is complicated in Chinese is first, that there is no alphabet (which is really disturbing the first year you learn it), second that there is no conjugation, instead you have some key characters in the phrases that indicates you the tenses. Key characters makes it more complex because there can be sometimes more than 3 different syntaxes to say the same thing. Thid thing is that there are 5 different tones: http://j.poitou.free.fr/pro/img/cjk/ma.gif . (1 = Mom / 2 = hemp / 3 = horse / 4 = insult / 5 = interrogative particle). In Japanese, you have two Alphabets: Kana, Hiragana + Kanji (which are pretty the same characters than in Chinese with, as you know it a different pronounciation)
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … To make it easy, Hiragana is the most used alphabet (also used for Japanese cities and Japanese names) and Katana is for words that have been imported to the country. For exemple: Computer, Hamburger, or again foreign names like Peter, or cities like Paris.
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … Learning Chinese first helped me a lot for the Kanjis because they have the same meaning, so it was easier for me the first year I started Japanese. I knew the numbers and some random words I could remember how to write. It was frustrating though because at the beginning I pronounced them in Chinese. ^^ . Overall, grammatically speaking, Chinese is more difficult than Japanese. :)
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Chinese sounds a lot more difficult than I imagined, but it seems like it was also rewarding and I'm glad you saw it through :) Although I have just started learning Japanese, I did learn all of the the Hiragana and a good deal of the Katakana back in February, so with a bit of revision, I should pick it back up again :) Then I can move back onto the Kanji. I'm not too fussed about being able to write for the time being, I mainly want to focus on speaking ability first :)
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Ahh, sadly Duolingo does not have Japanese, but I have an interest in other langauges so I will most likely check it out in the future :)
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Saved!CaffEditing … Duolingo is good, unless you want to be able to speak the language. Its speech recognition is absolutely horrible.
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Saved!PuddingEditing … Eh, Riley it's not THAT bad. :P
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Saved!CaffEditing … ^Yes it is. I tested it by mumbling random Bible verses in English [I don't know why either], and every time it counted it, even if it was disproportionately short/long.
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Saved!PuddingEditing … Well, I've only tested Spanish and it usually recognized it when I made a mistake.
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … Thanks Silent, but I think this is more rewarding to learn a language by yourself. :) I hope you'll succeed with Japanese. I think this is a nice start to focus only on one aspect first (reading in your case). If I just can allow myself, I suggest you learn a bit of grammar before getting into the Kanjis, because sometimes the conjugation can be tricky, plus the adjectives must be conjugated too. In three years of Japanese classes, we learned less than 200 Kanjis. But it's only my advice so do as you see fit. :)
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Thank you very much Leya :) I will take all the advice I can get :P
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Saved!Leya KathEditing … Hey @Silent Gamer! I posted a little post in here: http://www.favslist.com/forums/Help-Me-Learn-Japanese-645#23500. It's a bit messy and stuff but maybe it will help a bit... At least, I hope so. ^^'
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Saved!Silent GamerEditing … Ooh, thanks :) It'll definitely be of help :)
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