Language Learners

[Florestan]

I have fair reading knowledge of French and Italian;  with a week's practice, I could rehabilitate conversational speech.

I do speak and read Russian; no surprise, as those nearest and dearest to me are native Russian speakers.

Your kids are bilingual then?

I speak fluently English and French. I can have a fairly decent conversation in Spanish and Italian and a very basic one in Dutch.

I read fluently English, French, Spanish and Italian and I can find my way through Portuguese, Dutch and German.

Although I have studied Russian in secondary school for 4 years, because of lack of practice I don't remember much behind the most basic conversational level, although I can perfectly read the Cyrillic alphabet. As far as reading goes, I can read the Greek alphabet as well, although my Greek vocabulary is limited to isolated words and expressions.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Interesting question. Since I do legal translation for a living, I find it particularly relevant 

English. Native language. I'm American, but because I've spent so much time abroad and in different parts of the US, a lot of foreigners take me for Canadian due to lack of a strong US accent.
Russian. My best foreign language; not surprising since I live in Moscow and use it all the time at both work and home.
German. My second best foreign language. I can read it fluently (just finished Kafka's Der Prozess), and speak it quite well, although due to being in Russia I apparently have a Slavic accent in German (a German guy told me this just last week).
Czech. Spoke it pretty well when living in Prague several years ago; can still read it fairly fluently. 
Polish. Can read it quite well, used to speak it better than I do now because I was in Poland several times and had the opportunity to practice.
Spanish. Almost a native language because I lived in Argentina for a few years as a child. However, despite my good passive knowledge, I have a hard time holding a conversation in Spanish. I think it would all come back if I spent a concentrated period of time in a Spanish-speaking country. Currently reading Borges' Ficciones while commuting on the Metro.
French. Decent reading knowledge (I'm plowing through Baudelaire at the moment), but poor/fair speaking knowledge due to lack of practice.

There are also languages I've studied but wouldn't claim to speak at all, such as:

Lithuanian, which I studied for obscure reasons I won't get into here; and
Japanese, which I studied for a year just because I wanted to understand the structure, but have since forgotten almost everything except a few sentences and grammar rules.

Also had my brushes with ancient languages: Latin and Old Church Slavonic.

[greg]

Native: English
Studying: Spanish, Japanese

(Probably everyone already knows this.)
I studied Spanish for 3 years in high school, and a little bit before and after high school on my own. Pretty much the only thing I've used it for since then was helping my friend translate stuff he wrote in Spanish to English for class work- I haven't studied in a long time, though maybe one day I'll kinda re-learn it.

I've been studying Japanese on and off for 7 or 8 years...  I think I wasted my time for many years not learning anything just because I didn't have the proper resources and tried out methods of studying that just don't work. Now that I do have decent ways of studying, I've noticed huge improvements that I've never seen before. Still, though, this is the language to study if you want to take foreeeeeeeeever to learn anything (the only language that could possibly be worse is any of the Chinese dialects). It's very easy to pronounce words/sentences and you don't have to deal with gender/articles/complex verb conjugations, but the part that is just excruciating is the large vocabulary and the subtle uses of grammar that can only be understood if using subtitles or translations.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I've been studying Japanese on and off for 7 or 8 years...   

I think the only real reason to study Japanese is if you're really, really interested in Japan specifically. This is because 1. Japanese is very little spoken outside Japan, so it has no value as a lingua franca; 2. it's an isolate, which means it has no close relatives that will be easier to learn thereafter; and 3. as you stated, it's hard. So I hope you're really interested in Japan!

As I recall, the thing that drove me up the wall about Japanese was the counting system.

[karlhenning]

As I recall, the thing that drove me up the wall about Japanese was the counting system.

That was one of the most amusing bits!  But it would be vexatious out in the field.

Yes, the time-scale needed to acquire Japanese properly is one reason I gave it over.  In my case, an extremely impractical language, though its challenges were a welcome mental stimulation once on a time.

Andrei!  We haven't children yet . . . I suspect they'll be bilingual, if I live long enough to teach them English ; )

[greg]

I think the only real reason to study Japanese is if you're really, really interested in Japan specifically. This is because 1. Japanese is very little spoken outside Japan, so it has no value as a lingua franca; 2. it's an isolate, which means it has no close relatives that will be easier to learn thereafter; and 3. as you stated, it's hard. So I hope you're really interested in Japan!

As I recall, the thing that drove me up the wall about Japanese was the counting system.

I couldn't possibly agree more with that. 

The counting system would actually be pretty easy (at least, until you get to a certain number) if it weren't for the fact that, besides their common system of counting, they have other ways of counting that are supposedly based off of ancient Japanese numbers. These, being combined with counting markers which can sometimes transform slightly based on how they're combined into different words (or sometimes into words completely different) make it quite a crazy experience. So crazy that I pretty much just learn numbers as I go. 

And on that note... don't get me started about names.  Let's just say that if you have not seen a name before, you will not know how to pronounce it. I don't know of any other language like this- based on my (limited) knowledge of some of the Chinese names I've seen, I suspect that even Chinese isn't as bad as this. It's best to just learn real peoples' names one at a time, and eventually you might see them written again for another person, and you'll recognize it. Sometimes, there is logic to the writing, sometimes there is no logic at all. Often, there are at least 5 ways of writing the same name. 

[karlhenning]

I thought Velimir meant the use of different words depending on what the bejeezus is being counted . . . .

[greg]

I thought Velimir meant the use of different words depending on what the bejeezus is being counted . . . .

Yep, that's what I'm referring to.



Also, for people:
Hitori 一人　one person (exception)
Futari 二人 two people (exception)
Sannin 三人　three people (regular) etc.

And there are also counters for anything cylindrical (本), counters for flat stuff like sheets of paper (枚), and even counters for houses! (軒)  The above hitotsu, futatsu... list is for anything that doesn't match an already existing counter.
Counting the days of the month is also a pain... I prefer not even to think about it. 

[Florestan]

Andrei!  We haven't children yet . . . I suspect they'll be bilingual, if I live long enough to teach them English ; )

Hah!

May you live long enough to teach your grandsons English, my friend!

As for oriental languages, lately I've been exposed to a lot of Korean via some TV series broadcasted on the Romanian State TV. I caught by ear some phrases and words which I could use if need be. 

[greg]

Hah!

May you live long enough to teach your grandsons English, my friend!

As for oriental languages, lately I've been exposed to a lot of Korean via some TV series broadcasted on the Romanian State TV. I caught by ear some phrases and words which I could use if need be. 

Have you learned how to read the script yet?
Can you read this? 김정일 

[Florestan]

Have you learned how to read the script yet?
Can you read this? 김정일 

I can't learn the script by listening.

[petrarch]

Portuguese. Native language.
English. Fluently spoken and written. It's the language I use at work and outside the house. It's been 10 years since I moved to an english-speaking country (UK, USA, now Hong Kong).
French. Fluently spoken and written. It is the primary language on my mother's side of the family, even though everyone also speaks portuguese. Haven't practiced speaking it in a very long time, but I read a fair amount in french (french authors and some music literature).
Spanish. Can follow a conversation or a book fairly easily. Could probably "invent" my way through (by adapting my portuguese) if I needed to speak it.
Italian. Can follow a conversation or a book with some difficulty.
German. Have some very rudimentary knowledge of it, it is the next language I would like to learn just to be able to read the large amount of literature on music that is available only in german.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Portuguese. Native language.

So which Lusophone country do you come from? I can understand Portuguese (mostly) when I see it written, because of proximity to Spanish. However, the spoken language is either difficult to understand (Brazil) or impossible (Portugal).

Oh, and how's the Cantonese going? 

[petrarch]

So which Lusophone country do you come from? I can understand Portuguese (mostly) when I see it written, because of proximity to Spanish. However, the spoken language is either difficult to understand (Brazil) or impossible (Portugal).

Oh, and how's the Cantonese going? 

I come from Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese is typically easier to understand for a foreigner because it's spoken more openly, with broader and accented vowels and the intonation helps clarity. Portuguese from Portugal is much more closed and I would say somewhat guttural, making it harder on the ear. Foreigners usually say it sounds like russian. As an anecdotal episode, during a vacation trip to Brazil (my wife is brazilian) some friends of the family actually thought I was english (since we had just arrived from the UK or the USA), because they couldn't understand a word of what I was saying.

Haven't started on Cantonese . The issue I have with it is that I'd rather learn to read it (always had a fascination for the characters in japanese and traditional chinese), and that is an undertaking that requires enormous effort. I have figured out some of the symbols myself, but it is a weird feeling to know what they mean and have no idea how they sound.

[greg]

Haven't started on Cantonese . The issue I have with it is that I'd rather learn to read it (always had a fascination for the characters in japanese and traditional chinese), and that is an undertaking that requires enormous effort. I have figured out some of the symbols myself, but it is a weird feeling to know what they mean and have no idea how they sound.

Cantonese  ... (out of the languages you can actually learn well without having to go live in the area), that seems like the hardest language in the world to learn. 6 tones sounds like a nightmare! 

There is probably some type of popup dictionary for this. Hopefully, anyways...

[greg]

A question for Florestan: did you ever have spelling words when going to school?

Sometimes in elementary school, we would have separate words for spelling and vocabulary- like, 10 of each each week. I wonder if in countries where the language has such straightforward spelling (like in any Spanish-speaking country), there are just vocab words, but they have to be spelled right, too.

[Florestan]

A question for Florestan: did you ever have spelling words when going to school?

No. Spelling is a non-issue in Romanian: what you see (or hear) is what you get; when you learn a vocabulary word you automatically learn its spelling as well.

The straightforward and easy orthography is more than compensated for by a very complex and difficult grammar, though. 

[matti]

No. Spelling is a non-issue in Romanian: what you see (or hear) is what you get; when you learn a vocabulary word you automatically learn its spelling as well.

The straightforward and easy orthography is more than compensated for by a very complex and difficult grammar, though. 

Ditto Finnish. With very few, minor exceptions. The grammar issue is also similar: very complex.

And there end the similarities between these two languages. I happen to have a Rumanian student, an adult man, who is very confused with the fact how difficult it is to learn this odd, obscure, isolate language of ours. He certainly is not the only one - only the Hungarians may have some advantage, but even Hungarian is only a very distant relative to Finnish. Some similarities in the structures of grammar, I have been told, but the vocabulary is entirely different. Only three words resemble each other somewhat: fish, blood, and obviously.... mother-in-law.

[Florestan]

And there end the similarities between these two languages. I happen to have a Rumanian student, an adult man, who is very confused with the fact how difficult it is to learn this odd, obscure, isolate language of ours. He certainly is not the only one - only the Hungarians may have some advantage, but even Hungarian is only a very distant relative to Finnish. Some similarities in the structures of grammar, I have been told, but the vocabulary is entirely different. Only three words resemble each other somewhat: fish, blood, and obviously.... mother-in-law.

Apparently there are more.

How do you say blood and mother-in-law in Finnish / Hungarian?

[matti]

Apparently there are more.

Well, Estonian is such a close one, so close that I forgot to mention it. Yet, I speak Swedish and can read Norwegian and Danish newspapers without much difficulty. Estonian - nope. 

How do you say blood and mother-in-law in Finnish / Hungarian?

Blood in Finnish "veri", in Hungarian "ver".

Mother-in-law in Finnish "anoppi", in Hungarian "anyos"

Mind you, I don't speak Hungarian, but I have a Hungarian workmate who speaks perfect Finnish and who told me these things.- And with perfect I mean perfect: you could not tell she is not Finnish. Usually there's always something in the accent that reveals the speaker is not native no matter how perfect the speech grammatically is. In her case no such thing, she is quite surprising.