About languages

[12tone.]

How many languages do you know?  Which ones do you want to learn?

In high school we had to learn (Canadian) French.  I found it hard and never understood how it worked.  I wouldn't mind trying again or better yet, any Scandinavian language like Danish, Norwegian or Icelandic.

How about you guys?

[toledobass]

Only English for me.  I haven't been around it in forever so I doubt I could make out anything well, but when I was younger I could understand spoken Tagalog,  but I couldn't speak or read it.  I would like to learn it. 


Allan

[mahlertitan]

I am fluent (can read, write, speak) in both English and Mandarin Chinese, in addition I took 4 years of honor French is high school.

I would like to learn German some day.

[12tone.]

Only English for me.  I haven't been around it in forever so I doubt I could make out anything well, but when I was younger I could understand spoken Tagalog,  but I couldn't speak or read it.  I would like to learn it. 


Allan

What is Tagalog?

[mahlertitan]

What is Tagalog?

a widely-spoken Philippine dialect.

[Bonehelm]

Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese), English, Japanese, some German, Italian, Latin, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, Spanish and very little French.

[KevinP]

Some Japanese and some Korean.

Really loved learning to speak, read and write Japanese. It was a hobby.

Korean was too, but after moving here and being the perpetual outsider, that honeymoon ended.

I can generally communicate with my wife's family though (if she's out of the country or something), but hardly fluently.

[Mark]

Just English. Which is a really poor show, actually - I've always felt that a reasonably cultured English gent should be fluent in (at least) one European language.

If I had the patience and aptitude for learning languages (which I don't, if my disasterous attempt at French during my school years is anything to go by), then I'd probably want to learn Finnish, German or perhaps Italian.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

I'm learning German. I took two quarters of it as an undergraduate, and have tried at various times to re-learn it and progress to fluency, but have failed. Now that I have a good deal of free time, I'm trying to put in an hour a day and finally do it. If I succeed, I'll probably learn Russian next, if not Italian. I still remember un poquito of the three years of Spanish I took in high school.

[matti]

I wouldn't mind trying again or better yet, any Scandinavian language like Danish, Norwegian or Icelandic.

Or Swedish... if you learn one of these languages well, you get plenty of knowledge of the others for free, they are such close relatives. I speak only Swedish, but I can without much effort read Norwegian or Danish newspapers. Understanding a Dane speak is a bit of a stretch though! On the other hand, Finnish and Estonian are closely related, but although my Finnish is pretty fluent, I can't really read, let alone speak, Estonian.

[Mark]

Funny story about languages. I used to work with a Finnish girl, and one day she was doing a crossword puzzle in a Finnish magazine. She was stuck on a clue, so I asked her to translate it and said I'd give her the answer. Then it dawned on me that the equivalent in English wouldn't fit in the puzzle grid. Doh!

[matti]

Funny story about languages. I used to work with a Finnish girl, and one day she was doing a crossword puzzle in a Finnish magazine. She was stuck on a clue, so I asked her to translate it and said I'd give her the answer. Then it dawned on me that the equivalent in English wouldn't fit in the puzzle grid. Doh!

And she couldn't translate the English equivalent into Finnish, or didn't it fit either?

[Mark]

And she couldn't translate the English equivalent into Finnish, or didn't it fit either?

Don't know - we just fell about laughing at my stupidity.

[greg]

Only English for me.  I haven't been around it in forever so I doubt I could make out anything well, but when I was younger I could understand spoken Tagalog,  but I couldn't speak or read it.  I would like to learn it. 


Allan

cool! I have a friend who can speak it (says he speaks it every day with his family). Taught me a few words that I can't remember.... he was in my Japanese class (which i took for the last year of high school) and before that I took 3 years of Spanish.

Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese), English, Japanese, some German, Italian, Latin, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, Spanish and very little French.

you can't be serious..... i don't think that's humanly possible to know that much at your age.... you must mean "a few sentences/phrases of Japanese, German, Italian, Latin, Korean, Tagalog, Thai, Spanish, and French", right?

[greg]

I speak only Swedish, but I can without much effort read Norwegian or Danish newspapers.

that's why it's tempting to learn one of these languages- you could learn one and then without much extra study, actually know 3!  (it's good for bragging)

Icelandic.

good luck with that.... not much is out there to study Icelandic

[carlos]

Y dinos,Greg: como andan tus estudios de español?

[mahlertitan]

you know what, the best way to know if somone really knows the language he claims to speak, is to swear to him using the worst possible swears in that particular language.

[greg]

Y dinos,Greg: como andan tus estudios de español?

bien, hoy he conseguido de mi trabajo una revista en español gratis  ...... por qué en español? No sé! 
Creo que alguien comitió un error lol
pero sí que me está ayudando a aprender unos términos de los electrodomésticos, herramientas etc.....

hoy en día estudio más el japonés, pero el español es más accessible. O.... algunas veces estudio los ambos! Has visto el programa Héroes? Tienen subtítulos en íngles con escenas con diálogo en japonés y español  Ni me siento como si estoy derrochando el tiempo, y eso me gusta muchisimo....... de vez en cuando no leo los subtítulos y trato de ver si puedo entender lo que dicen, pero la mayoría de las veces solo entiendo un poco 

Heroes is on in an hour and a half!!!! 
(that took forever to post, i really need to work on my speed)

[greg]

you know what, the best way to know if somone really knows the language he claims to speak, is to swear to him using the worst possible swears in that particular language.

but what if they only know the cuss words of that language?......


anyways, i want to see Bonehelm type extensive paragraphs in the languages he claims to speak (besides the obvious ones). I'll only be able to check 2, but others will be able to check the Korean, Latin, etc.
the Thai one, i'm not sure anyone would be able to check though

[mahlertitan]

but what if they only know the cuss words of that language?......

well, than it is obvious to me that he does speak that language, and he speaks it well.