Languages

[Me-Ike]

Do you have a favorite language which is foreign to you?

Or are you maybe deeply in love with your own?

Do you speak multiple languages?

Do you maybe have a favorite word or accent?


As an English major, I can't imagine a language more beautiful than English. All the different varieties (Scottish! Be still, my heart.), the seemingly indefinite uses and words (the vocabulary of English is, while taken from many other sources, one of the most complex), its elegance (it often takes me twice as much words to express something in German than it does in English). English and I are really hitting it off.

I'm also minoring in Spanish, but I must admit to not being fluent. It's not a necessity at my university, which doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to speak it. I love its sound, but I'd be glad if the tenses, condicionals, etc wouldn't all be differentiated by only one or two letters. Its grammar may be relatively easy, but remembering all those suffixes is giving me a headache.

I could go on (and on), but I'll check myself. I'm really interested in what you like.

 

[kimc]

I speak French and a little Spanish. I would LOVE to learn Italian.

 

[Goliath]

I like both French and Latin.

My Latin crumbled into dust years ago, but my French is gradually getting better, thanks to FSL classes at work.

 

[Me-Ike]

I speak French and a little Spanish. I would LOVE to learn Italian.

I had to choose a Romance language other than Spanish and take some classes. It was a toss up between brushing up my school French and learning Italian, but sadly I opted for choice number one. Didn't do me any good.

I like both French and Latin.

My Latin crumbled into dust years ago, but my French is gradually getting better, thanks to FSL classes at work.

I had to sit through two years of Latin due to my majoring in English, but all that remains are some words and a certain twitch of the eye whenever I hear ablative.

 

[Omnius]

I'm fluent in my native tongue and English. I can read and understand German, I can also speak it, but my vocabulary is not that big and I suck at the grammar. I understand a little bit of French, a few words, i f t h e y s p e a k s l o w l y . . . .

I'd love to be able to speak Sindarin or Klingon .

 

[Amaris]

My native language is English, but I also love learning to speak French. It's been touch and go for several years, but I'm starting to become proficient with the French language.

J.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

Even though my grammatical grasp of the language is absolutely and utterly horrible, I do like to use English. I've gotten so used to it, that these last few years I'm more comfortable speaking my thoughts in English then in Dutch. But then again, I haven't seriously read a book translated into Dutch for the last 8 years or so. Especially fiction books sound very strange to me in Dutch.

 

[Rii]

Stuff White People Like #115: Promising to Learn a New Language

 

[Me-Ike]

I'm fluent in my native tongue and English. I can read and understand German, I can also speak it, but my vocabulary is not that big and I suck at the grammar. I understand a little bit of French, a few words, i f t h e y s p e a k s l o w l y . . . .

I'd love to be able to speak Sindarin or Klingon .

I had a lecture today which is usually held in German. Today they invited a guest speaker and she went at it in French. Slowly, she spoke not. 90 minutes later I learned exactly nothing new.

Do any of you have favorite words or is that just me?

I love, for example, the German word moin. It's a northern German greeting and you can't get any northerner than that. Not counting that tiny bit of land called Scandinavia.

 

[B.J.]

I'd love to learn Russian. Not because of any interest in the language itself, but because of my aerospace background.

 

[backstept]

I like Russian

 

[Goliath]

I had to sit through two years of Latin due to my majoring in English, but all that remains are some words and a certain twitch of the eye whenever I hear ablative.

I took a year of German for reading knowledge, but I found it baffling.

Any language with sixteen ways to say "the" is too foreign for me.

I just wish I had more opportunities to actually practice my French--especially my spoken French. Passive bilingualism is actually a requirement for tenure, here. And while I've gotten to the point that I can read work-related email with little difficulty, I still struggle, at times, to understand my francophone colleagues in our department meetings.

It's very frustrating. It's like--one minute, they're making perfect sense--and the next, they're talking gibberish, with a few French words thrown in.

 

[trekkiedane]

Do you have a favorite language which is foreign to you?

It's all rhubarb to me.

Or are you maybe deeply in love with your own?

How anyone could be in love with an evolved language is beyond me.
I do however like the way my own language uses existing words in new combinations to form new words instead of making up totally new words.
Example: The Danish word for cartoon is a combo of the words for drawing and series.

Do you speak multiple languages?

No, just Anglo, German and Danish.

Do you maybe have a favorite word or accent?

English with an Irish or Scottish accent perhaps.

Klingon .

Me too

 

[Me-Ike]

I'd love to learn Russian. Not because of any interest in the language itself, but because of my aerospace background.

Learning a language as different from English as Russian, it would be really helpful to have an interest in the language and culture itself. Otherwise it becomes hardly more than a chore.

I had to sit through two years of Latin due to my majoring in English, but all that remains are some words and a certain twitch of the eye whenever I hear ablative.

I took a year of German for reading knowledge, but I found it baffling.

Any language with sixteen ways to say "the" is too foreign for me.

I just wish I had more opportunities to actually practice my French--especially my spoken French. Passive bilingualism is actually a requirement for tenure, here. And while I've gotten to the point that I can read work-related email with little difficulty, I still struggle, at times, to understand my francophone colleagues in our department meetings.

It's very frustrating. It's like--one minute, they're making perfect sense--and the next, they're talking gibberish, with a few French words thrown in.

Thank you. We try very hard to be ridiculously different.

A friend of mine is also currently learning French and she is a big supporter of listening to French podcasts. There are (as she claims) plenty, they are free, often interesting, and it helps you to train your auditory comprehension.
As for speaking, well, no idea. I'm currently having the same problem with Spanish. There are possibilities, but I have so little faith in my spoken Spanish that I don't dare practise with anyone living.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

You're French! Of course, I should have known. I can see that by the mustache on your avatar! Good day to you, sir.

 

[trekkiedane]

I took a year of German for reading knowledge, but I found it baffling.

Any language with sixteen ways to say "the" is too foreign for me.

I feel a song coming on:

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

Tausen tolle Sachen,
gibt es überall zu sehn',
manchmal muss man fragen,
um sie zu verstehn'.

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

 

[Shaytan]

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

Tausen tolle Sachen,
gibt es überall zu sehn',
manchmal muss man fragen,
um sie zu verstehn'.

Der, die, das!
Wer, wie, was?
Wieso, weshalb, warum?
Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm!!!

Now I remember why I was so happy to stop studying German 12 years ago. Declensions were a personal nightmare.

 

[Goliath]

Well--can you tell me how to get to Sesamstraße?

 

[trekkiedane]

Well, to be totally honest, I learned German watching Star Trek (no bloody generation, station or whatnot) dubbed in German!

 

[Goliath]

A friend of mine is also currently learning French and she is a big supporter of listening to French podcasts. There are (as she claims) plenty, they are free, often interesting, and it helps you to train your auditory comprehension.

That's a good suggestion. My FSL instructor tries to get us to listen to Radio Canada, the French-language service of the CBC, but I never, ever listen to the radio.