About languages

[greg]

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

that can be useful, to say a word another person doesn't understand..hehe 

[Lilas Pastia]

Français d'abord,  English second, and enough Italian to understand a conversation when it's not in some dialect . Spanish is not hard to read, but understanding it is another matter. My daughter who speaks it fluently still has trouble sorting out the accents (Cuban, Dominican, Puerto-Rican, Mexican, the list is endless).

German is ok as long as it's an opera libretto . I can recognize a sentence or family names in at least a dozen languages. But knowing it's Hungarian or Turkish doesn't give me much of an advantage...

[Renfield]

Concerning Bonehelm, I don't see why it is impossible for him to speak all those languages to at least some rudimentary extent, at his age. It might be unlikely, but it is certainly possible.

As for me, I currently speak English, and Greek: the latter worse than I did a few years ago (due to lack of practice). Otherwise, I know a smattering of words and/or grammar rules from French and German, but my main "lingual" concern is to elevate both of them to a level of proficiency I'm satisfied with, and at the very least add Latin, and better Ancient Greek than I currently know.

Two more languages I'm significantly interested in are Japanese and Russian.

[mahlertitan]

Concerning Bonehelm, I don't see why it is impossible for him to speak all those languages to at least some rudimentary extent, at his age. It might be unlikely, but it is certainly possible.

of course it's possible, but not likely.

[12tone.]

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.

Swedish is good too, but I don't have experience with either hearing it, looking at text or trying to speak it.  The language that I have done a bit of study with is Icelandic.  I've been listening to Icelandic radio shows and watching 'the news' from Iceland for awhile now.  I love the sound of the language, how it moves.  Very interesting.  Also the island itself is so wonderful.  Don't know about how the people there act (kind or mean).

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.

I found French unbearably hard.  It just did not make sense.  Maybe if I tried again, I could grasp a bit more.

Finnish looks good!  From what I've heard (looking up people speaking languages on Youtube), Finnish looks like the harder of the five (Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Finnish).  Not only does the language look like a completely different language (a weird one at that) but listening to how they talk, it sounds beyond possible.  But I mean they talk, so it is possible 

I'm learning German.

What's the difficulty on German?  How long do you need to press on through the rough stages to get to 'grasp' how it works?

[matti]

Finnish looks like the harder of the five (Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Finnish).  Not only does the language look like a completely different language (a weird one at that) but listening to how they talk, it sounds beyond possible.  But I mean they talk, so it is possible 

Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language, as the others you mentioned are Germanic. So you're right, it is a completely different language.

What's the difficulty on German?  How long do you need to press on through the rough stages to get to 'grasp' how it works?

Well that depends... but talking about families of languages, English is a Germanic language too. Mastering English is a major bonus for your German studies. For me, getting the genders right is difficult, but that's for the most part a cosmetic matter.

[Bonehelm]

Re-read my post, guys...I said I speak fluent Chinese and English, and the rest I only know some.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

What's the difficulty on German?  How long do you need to press on through the rough stages to get to 'grasp' how it works?

German has tons of grammar, although as a native English speaker, I can't say for sure whether it has more than English. However, probably the most difficult part for me is that there are few rules for determining the gender of a noun by looking at it. One must always memorize the gender (M, F, or N) with the noun, which is easier said than done. OTOH, German pronunciation rules are quite constant and the language does not have many exceptions, except possibly for words of foreign origin.

As I said, I took two quarters of it as an undergraduate. These courses meet daily, and I had a fair amount of practice speaking it, and I have a good idea of what words should sound like, inflections of phrases, and the like. I am currently reworking my way through my old Deutch Heute textbook (1992 vintage), and am on Chapter 8 out of 14. Lately, I've been feeling a little better about the progress I've been making. Still, it is difficult to be an intermediate and maintain motivation. I don't really know enough at this point to understand much of what I hear on German internet radio, or enough to carry on much of a conversation with the native German speakers at my workplace. After a few more chapters (genitive case, adjectives, simple past tense), I should be able to converse a lot better.

I'm interested in Russian as well. Has anyone here tried to learn it?? Our native Russian speaker in our lab advises me that it is very difficult.

[KevinP]

Yeah, but it wasn't clear whether 'some' modified all the languages mentioned afterwards or just German.

[Mozart]

I speak English and I'm more or less fluent in Spanish. I am currently learning Italian. I would like to learn Czech (If I am going to live in Prague), and Swedish, and I wouldn't mind learning French and Portuguese.

[carlos]

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)

Bien,Greg!. Tu español es excelente!. Un par de detalles para
tener en cuenta:
..he conseguido EN mi trabajo
comEtio, no comitio
..estudio ambos ( LOS sobra)
...como si ESTUVIERA (nó estoy)
Pero,insisto, tus progresos son notables.

[Kullervo]

I was studying Finnish but I've been fairly lax about it lately. When you study languages you need time alone to speak the words out loud repeatedly — something I can't do with other people around. 

[mikkeljs]

hmm, jeg taler kun tysk og engelsk, foruden dansk. Men dansk er også et vidt begreb! Selvom landet er meget lille i forhold til USA fx, er der så stor forskel i dialekterne, at en jyde og en københavner somme tider ikke forstår hinanden. For slet ikke at tale om bornholmere. 

[karlhenning]

I'm interested in Russian as well. Has anyone here tried to learn it??

Yes, and what I found really invaluable was a six-week intensive course.  At the end, I could still speak only haltingly, but it gave me an excellent foundation, and wtih subsequent practice, my Russian became quite tolerable 

[greg]

hmm, jeg taler kun tysk og engelsk, foruden dansk. Men dansk er også et vidt begreb! Selvom landet er meget lille i forhold til USA fx, er der så stor forskel i dialekterne, at en jyde og en københavner somme tider ikke forstår hinanden. For slet ikke at tale om bornholmere. 

dude, i don't think we have any other Danish people on this forum lol

Bien,Greg!. Tu español es excelente!. Un par de detalles para
tener en cuenta:
..he conseguido EN mi trabajo
comEtio, no comitio
..estudio ambos ( LOS sobra)
...como si ESTUVIERA (nó estoy)
Pero,insisto, tus progresos son notables.

gracias, Carlos, por las correciónes!
sí, yo temo que no estaba seguro de mucho que escribí 

[greg]

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

Re-read my post, guys...I said I speak fluent Chinese and English, and the rest I only know some.

my bad..... i interpreted the "some" to mean just German instead of extending to the other languages you wrote.
ok, i get it now 

[val]

I speak three languages: Portuguese, German and French.

Regarding my poor English, I am ashamed, but I must say that I am even worst speaking it than writting.

[Kullervo]

hmm, jeg taler kun tysk og engelsk, foruden dansk. Men dansk er også et vidt begreb! Selvom landet er meget lille i forhold til USA fx, er der så stor forskel i dialekterne, at en jyde og en københavner somme tider ikke forstår hinanden. For slet ikke at tale om bornholmere. 

I would also eventually like to learn Danish so I can read Kierkegaard in his own language.

[greg]

I speak three languages: Portuguese, German and French.

Regarding my poor English, I am ashamed, but I must say that I am even worst speaking it than writting.

don't worry, read my posts long enough and you'll get to where you've totally unlearned the language- therefore you have an excuse if you need to speak English- you can't! 


there's several languages i've been dying to learn for a while:
Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese), Korean, Finnish, Russian, German, (and a little less) French and Portuguese.
The sucky thing is that you really can't become fluent in that many languages, it's not humanly possible except for unusually gifted people....
The best idea i've had, possibly, is to somehow study ALL THE TIME. Just learn 2 words every hour and repeat them again and again until they sink in, and then at the end of the day study for an hour. That'd probably be the most you could do humanly possible, but i bet it'd really get old after awhile 

[Kullervo]

Greg, if you are serious about it and have the free time, I would suggest the Teach Yourself brand language tutors. I enjoyed working with the Finnish tutor, but I don't really have enough time to dedicate myself to it. Happily, they are much cheaper than the ridiculously-expensive Rosetta Stone series.