Which languages do you speak?

Did most of you learn another language from school in a traditional slaccroom setting? Or did some of it come from either family/friends speaking it so much that you just kind of picked it up? Anyone else do the full immersian gigs?

SuDZ
 
I learnt Malay at school, and did Chinese in the immersion setting. I did improve a bunch and I still think immersion is the way to go, but unfortunately I was a lazy bum and our teachers weren't very well trained.
 
I started learning English when I was 5 with a private tutor, and then I had English lessons in Primary and Secondary School. I did full immersion of English first in Damascus, Syria (1 year) because almost all my friends were Irish, and 3 years later 9 months in the US, because of my dad's job.

Italian I learnt at a Language Institute and French at university.

And Spanish... well.. I was born with it!!
 
French, many years of classrooms and some travel in francophone parts of the world.

Spanish, classroom.

Lithuanian, classroom to begin with, immersion in country to enhance.

German, living in country, but not terribly immersed. English is too widely spoken around here, and my neighbours are glad for the opportunity to practice.

My kids have become fluent in Japanese, Lithuanian and German in anywhere from 4 months to a year, simply by being dumped into school, usually knowing absolutely nothing to start with. It's amazing and totally embarrassing as we struggle along like bumbling idiots and they rattle on like locals.

Interesting side note, I don't know if it's true, but I've heard it from a couple of different sources - Soviet spies who were sent in for language training were immersed for the first six months, but were forbidden to speak the language they were learning at all. They just had to listen for those first six months, and after that they began taking lessons and such. Apparently, that's the most effective way to pick up a language, and is essentially what we all do as infants.

:tumbleweed:
 
tumblezweedz said:
Interesting side note, I don't know if it's true, but I've heard it from a couple of different sources - Soviet spies who were sent in for language training were immersed for the first six months, but were forbidden to speak the language they were learning at all. They just had to listen for those first six months, and after that they began taking lessons and such. Apparently, that's the most effective way to pick up a language, and is essentially what we all do as infants.
Click to expand...
Very interesting ! I'll keep that one in mind.
 
Fluent in English.

Can get by in Spanish and Danish. Hopefully fluent in Danish in the next few years.

Learned Spanish in high school, my grandpa spoke danish to my mom, but we didn't learn it much.
 
la la la languages

fluently: english
i've studied french in school, but haven't used it in so long that i'm pretty rusty. i can get by with it though.
i'm trying to learn german and italian for my trip and would love to speak czech as well.
 
Fluent: English, born with it and been speaking it all my life & Malay- learnt in school.

Speak some of: Mandarin- did more than 3 years basic stuff at school, Cantonese- picked it up from mum growing up around the dialect, French- learned at university still learning, Spanish- always been amazed at the language, a natural for me, self-taught.

smatterings of these: German- mum speaks it fluently i learnt a little from her, Arabic- spent a few weeks of immersion setting in the language
 
Fluent English
Almost fluent in Spanish, 6 months in Spain really helped
Arabic, know the alphabet and know some general phrases.
 
I'm pretty good in German. Being tested in it now for a job. I would say fluent, but I haven't been there or used it much in almost 4 years (held a job when I was there...).

Arabic is my latest mountain. I'm starting Intermediate in a week and a half. I have a few phrases in Moroccan.

I can understand Italian, just because of my family, but I would be hard pressed to come up with something original on my own. (My favorite sentence I made up on the spot is when we learned gerunds at community college - "La sedia sta mangiando la sedia." Anyone know what it means? ;) )

I can say a bit in Czech and am obsessed with non-Syrillic Slavic, but have not bothered to fill in my knowledge gap.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE languages!
 
I'm not particularly good at languages. I took French in high school, but its been so long I can't really speak it beyond a few phrases. Its amazing how much vocabulary I retained though. And actually that has allowed me to read a lot of french, I think I would get by quite easily in France. I've been thinking lately I should take some French classes because I would probably pick it up fast now.

I took Latin in college, just for 2 years. Very useful because you have to learn grammatical structures in such detail. I found it makes picking apart sentences so much easier when you don't fully understand them. And between english, french, and latin I can get by in any romance language country.

I went to Peru earlier this year knowing nothing more than how to count to 10 really. I would have learned more except that my trip was planned on really short notice. I'm working at learning spanish now that I'm back home though, I think I can even find people here to practice conversation with once I get a little bit better.

I'm curious how people do with accents? I was watching a DVD of the TV series Rome the other day and I got to the special features at the end. Kevin McKidd has the most absurd scottish brogue, and the girl that plays Octavia has a beautiful irish lilt. Their characters on screen all have this generic british accent. It got me to thinking how many actors can pull off flawless accents. The guy who plays Apollo in Battlestar Galactica is another good example, he is british but has no trace of a british accent on screen.

So obviously all those examples are one english accent to another, but I wonder if thats just a natural talent and some people find it easy to speak all manner of languages with good pronunciation?
 
I tend to learn without a proper accent because I feel like Alex Trebek whenever he corrects pronounciations on Jeopardy. Kinda like a pompous ass. Which is silly and self-conscious. But once I get firmer footing on what I'm saying, I either pick it up from movies or conversations, and my accent can immediately adapt. But I did theatre :p
 
I speak English of course , Spanish (lived in spain for 4 years) and Ive nearly beat Japanese... (moving there this winter)..
 
Fluent: English

Some: French. I'm going into French 5 AP next year, but I'm not really close to fluent. I can have pretty decent conversations, though. (:

More than 25 words: Japanese, maybe? I took a class a couple of summers ago, and if I thought about it I could probably get 25 words, haha.

My friend at work is attempting to teach me Farsi. I can count to ten and and say 'My name is Paula', and 'There is a dog in the trash can' :p
 
Fleunt : English and Spanish

Some: French - working on it again with a few courses after a 4 year hiatus in coursework.

More than 25 words: Italian?
 
That line about CNN is fucking harsh, btw

Fluent - English (native), German
Capable - French, Spanish, Dutch, Czech
Know some (swear) words - Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Serbo-croatian (Austrians lump Bosnian onto S-C, making Bosno-serbo-croatian. Anybody know if that's legit?), Italian, Afrikaans, Polish.

I learned French from my mother and in high school, German from my grandfather and in college, and I'm currently trying to teach myself Dutch (to use with a fellow American who seems to know it by virtue of having the name Hoogerhuis) and Russian, but Russian is slow-going. I've been working on it off and on for a month, but only really have the alphabet and numbers, and half a dozen phrases (thank you, my name is..., how to call somebody a dick). However, if anybody out there is trying to find ways to verbally defend themselves, they need to check out the Swearsaurus. Last I checked, it had curses and curse words in at least 150 languages. The Serbian ones are some of the best, I used them to impress south slav flatmates a ton this year. My favorites for sheer brutality were "may god make you to look for your children with a geiger counter," "may your mother recognize you in a hamburger" and "I hope you see your house on CNN."
 
Fluent: English
Some: Afrikaans
A little: Xhosa

When I moved to the UK everyone was always saying "Wow, you speak really good English!" I was a little confused at first, until they started asking if I speak African....haha
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top