Category: Language and Culture
Hi! Is someone into languages, as much as I am? What languages are you speeking, which ones would you like to learn? In my education, I'm learning English, French and Spanish. I'd love to learn Italian and maybe Greek, but we'll see. I love languages and I love travelling, so this goes fine with each other.
Hey there! I am a huge fan of languages. I learned a bit of french in school, and would love to learn Japanese if I could. It also may be neet to learn spanish, and I may do that in university.
I'm into learning German and have picked up some things off and on, yet procrastinated with the 40-lesson pack I got at a bookstore. there's a website I found to learn German online, but i haven't gone there in awhile. I'd also like to learn the made-up languages of J.R.R. Tolkien like Quenya and Sindarin.
Oh wow I love languages!! I know English and Spanish and am learning some Dutch and possibly German. My mom wants me to take a Latin class in the fall so who knows, I might do it just to get a basis.
Hi Inesle,
Well, a while back when I was really into amateur radio, I got this idea in my head I was going to try and learn a few languages, because I always seemed to be coming across people who could barely speak english, and I didn't speak any other languages, so that made for quite a communication barrier. Mom got me one tape that had expressions for tourists who just needed to get by. Then she found a pack with 2 cassette tapes, a book and aGerman English dictionary. German was the language I started out ttrying to learn. The tapes were all in German with no english translation, so no go there. She found another set that had 12 tapes, and they had some variation drills, but there still wasn't enough english translation to learn German very well, so I couldn't build up my vocabulary enough to have any kind of a conversation. I listen to a German broadcast once on a short wave station, but I could only pick out bits and pieces. The announcer was talking about someone being in the hospital, but my poor translation mae it sound like his arm was in the hospital, not the whole person, haha. So much for my language learning.
wonderwoman
I speak some Italian enough to get by anyway..
smile on the whole Italians like you to make an attempt and they are usually very helpful, if you are confused ect,out of all the languages I'd say its the easiest..
Cool. Well, here's an offer: Who ever wants to learn some phrases in German, you can quicknote me or send me a private message, I can help you, I am from Germany.
I love languages! I'm a romance languages major, actually. I haven't started learning Italian yet, but i'll start that one in future semesters. I'd love to learn Arabic, Japanese and Chinese, too. I tried teaching myself German, Gaelic, and Sweedish a while back, but I never really learned anything substantial. I'm interested in linguistics, too, and always thought it would be cool to create a fully working, linguistically-sound language. Wonder how Tolkien did it? Lots of time , i guess.
Cool. I'll learn the languages which are important for the world, like English, French and Spanish. Chinese is getting more and more popular, so I might learn that later, but I'll see.
I like languages. I'm taking French and school, and in CHorus we singi n many different languages.
Hello, as for me, I would definitly like to learn quenya. One of Tolkien's invented languages. I do know finish played a role in the invention of quenya. There is a website called ardalambion which deals with the subject. I do have a corse on quenya but since jaws can't pronounce quenya, it's a bit of a problem. Anyway been going on too long, interesting topic. bfn.
Hm, never heard of Quenya. Sounds interesting though.
And Igpay Atinlay is unfay!
Hm, what did that mean, Caitlin? Can you translate it, please?
Well, let's see. I love learning languages and currently, I speak English, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien (from Fujian province in china), and a little of Italian. I hope to brush my Italian and during university, I took two semesters of dutch, german, french and Japanese. Crazy?
No, not crazy, but great!! I admire everyone who loves learning languages. Go on like that!! Great! I want to speak so many languages, too!
I speak some languages, too. I picked them up while I travelled and lived in diferent countries. I speak fluently Greek (modern Greek, not the classical Greek), English, Dutch, Hebrew and I can manage Italian, French, German (I can understand it better than speak it as it is similar to Dutch, but the Germans can't understand me when I speak in Dutch LOL) I have also taken 2 years of Japanese and can manage to hold a simple basic conversation. My dream is to live in Japan for some years and learn flunt Japanese. That was it from me. Geia sou, tot zien, lechitraot, adieu, ciao, bye, sayonara, aufwiedersehen, Star
Hey, great!! Thanks! Sounds good, you're all better than me!!
Wow! There's some very impressive lists there!
I'm proficient, (I hesitate to say fluent) in Indonesian. Also know quite a bit of Tegalog, one of the chiefly-spoken dialects in the Phillipines. I also have the barest smatterings of Italian and French, spanish and latin. Ancient greek fascinates me, but I'm a long way from being able to read it without a dictionary.
I'd love to learn Arabic, and I will one day, as well as spoken Manderin, since written Manderin takes close to a lifetime of study.
Salam, beannachdan ort, ankh idja, etc.
Erin
Once when I was in a room on for the people, a man came in my room, whose native language was spanish, but he was practicing his English. Just because I knew about 2 or 3 spanish phrases, he told me my spanish was better than his English, which I didn't understand, because he could carry on a conversation in English, where as I could only say a few spanish words.He said he could teach me phrases, but I think the only way you can learn another language is to study tapes, and listen to them over and over again. I think if you know enough of the language, you may can practice what you already know, but if you only know a word or 2 that you just picked up on, I don't think anyone can teach you online in classes.
wonderwoman
I think what Caitlin was saying in post 13 is translated to, and pig lattin is fun. It's really quite simple, just take the letter at the beginning of the word and put it at the end and ad ay. for example hello would be ellohay. As for learning a language, someone growing up speaking that language would be a lot better at it than someone who learnt it later. I myself speak turkish and english fluently.
To the Indonisian speaking I can say "bami pangang", "sate", and "nasi goreng" *smile* (you must have guessed that I like indonesian food!)
To the turkish speaking I can say "tamam", "evet", "abi shendi", "chock guzel", "guel buria", "turkche koniorsun? tamam turkche giliorum!" and a few more simple sentences and some words. My grandfather spoke fluent turkish as he was born in Izmir. I wish he had lived longer for me to learn the language from him.
Sounds as though you can speak it very well star, from what I can tell, though jaws is making a fine job of butchering it, lol. And as for the pig latin, I get the general idea, and I can make pig latin out of one word at a time, but I really don't think I'm up to conversing in it, and I don't think pig latin is a nativelanguage, haha.
wonderwoman
hey, suka makan apa? Nasi goreng? air bandung? apa lagi?
I had the same German pack someone described above with the two cassettes, a workbook, and a dictionary. I'm v.i., so I can read the book with my glasses and get the English translations. Only problem is I procrastinate too much and don't practice as often as I should and have never finished the 40 lessons. Anyone a good anti-procrastinator? If you've ever seen Lord of the Rings when the elves are speaking funny to each other, that's Quenya. I also have the course from ardalambion, but I would need to find an audio course. I bet there is one, I know there's one for Star Trek fans to learn the Klingon language.
Well I definitely think that if you learn a language at school you practice more often than if you learn it in your free time. Why? Because if you learn it at home, it's easy to say "Ah, not today, I'll practice tomorrow". But if you learn it at school then you have to have lessons at a certain time.
Ya I am learnign so much in school in French. I mean...It's jsut easier learning it at school, because it's so structured and you get help and you do it almost every day and things.
Hi Inez and Caitlin, you both make strong points, in school, once you've picked a foreign language, you have to study it in school, but you have other subjects as well, and I don't learn very well under pressure, and teachers put you under so much pressure to learn a certain amount in a certain time. When I was in school, I somehow could read french pretty good after a while, but I learned to read it really better than I could speak it i think. It seems I couldn't speak it very well without a book in front of me. I think I was better in a way at German than I was French, because I had no one putting pressure on me, and lecturing me if I was slow, and couldn't get some things.
But also, I couldn't learn as much, because there isn't a lot of english translation with the tapes, and since there was no way to read german in braille, I can't read it or write it, and can only spell a couple of words.
wonderwoman
pupe, hexa, leute, das, heute, hallo, that's the extent of the German words I can spell. And oh yeahtag, tagen, I think those are the correct words for day, and the plural, days.
wonderwoman
Well I agree but anyway I think it's easier to learn a language at school. In our school, you're not that much under pressure - teachers try to help everyone, we have small classes so the teacher can help each student better. I once had a native speaker as a teacher, which was good on one hand because you know exactly what it should sound like. But this teacher pt us under pressure. She thought like only because she knows how to speak French we all have to know it perfectly.
I took Latin in high school, just to try something different for my foreign language requirement. I've never actually used it as in spoken ti, but I can read it and still have some worksheets and books in Latin. But I've forgotten a lot of it, like I'd have a hard time translating a sentence and stuff like that. Our priest also uses it sometimes, well, we used to chant some phrases, but I forgot what they were, and wouldn't even recognize what they meant. A priest we used to have though sang some stuff in Latin once, and I was so happy because I understood some of it. that felt cool to understand it! *smiles*
Leilani
I hate pressure! Heh. French test Tuesday must study! Lol! See? Perfet example from pressure, is it not? Heh.
Caitlin
Also, I know what Wonderwoman means about being able to read better than speaking a language. I had also taken some Spanish recently, and although I've learned some things there as well as from what I've learned in junior high, I think I can understand it better when I read it and sometimes when others speak it, but I'm not to good at remembering the grammar rules, so my hard time is with speaking it. I'm also interested in looking up other different languages just out of curiosity, so I know some phrases here and there from other languages. I understand a small bit of Afrikaans because I have a pen friend from South Africa who wrote to me like that once, and because I looked up phrases on websites and stuff. Other languages, I've looked up but don't understand or remember as well.
Leilani
Latin? This is a dead language in my opinion. HOnestly - who speaks Latin? I mean okay, they say it's easier to learn other languages like Spanish or French that way, but you can learn this withouth Latin, too!!
wow. all are good in language here. i know english, malay, chinese, a little of japanese. now learning french and german. want to explore more to different languages lol. willing to teach? smiles.
o yeah, thanks Inesle for teaching me a little bit of German. i'm not a good student lol.
Yeah, I agree that I don't think anyone uses it as a language exclusively anymore, but it is in a lot of words that are used. Catholics use it as I'd mentioned about my priest, lawyers, doctors, and other professions use Latin phrases in their everyday jobs. So I think it is good to know because if you know Latin, you could easily recognize other languages and the jargon of certain professions. *smiles8
Leilani
Lol, Season, maybe I'm not a real good teacher either. I think languages are fascinating.
ok, I'm kinda borring, only know french spanish english and a bit of German. I can speak German better than I can write it because I just had an audio course. We should really set up a ventrilo conference for those who wish to practice languages? what do you all think
That's not boring - I can't speak anything interesting either, lol.
I think the most confusing thing about some languages is that the verbs and pronouns are the the exact opposite than they are in English. both French and German are that way. I'm going to mangle this sentense, because I've forgotten a lot, or most of the German I studied, so all I have to go on is the way it sounds, and I couldn't learn to read and spell in German. Ich kan de stadt plan nicht finden. I know I butchered it, but it means, I can not find the map, but the verb comemes after the noun or pronoun, so litterally, it would be, I can the map not find. If we rearranged the verbs, nouns and pronouns the way they are in English, Ich kan nicht finden the stadt plan, that would probably be very hard for native Germans to understand.
wonderwoman
Hey, i took spanish in high school for 2 years I loved it and would love to become fluent. I think it would be fun to get a basic grasp of hebrew both modern and ancient doubt that will happen though grin
Hello people! Because we have a new board up for these kinds of topics, this topic will now be moved to the language and culture board! Thank you, and remember,
I hate you all!
It's a really good idea to make such a board since languages became talking-point number one on here, lol.
maybe in the future we should come up with something like, "tell me your lifestyle" or, different culture, heheheh
I love languages, I especially like the really rare ones.
its not a good idea to use JAWS if your trying to learn an african click language. shit its hard as hell but I'm enjoying the challenge.
um you can't even master spanish and you expect to learn xosa or something?
I can speak Greek and English.
I am 23 now but i couldn't speak English until i was 18. In Cyprus we start learning English really early like 8 years old or something but i was never interested in languages.
But i had to learn English if i wanted to study what i like. I was interested studying something to do with radio or sound engineering and in Cyprus or Greece it wasn't possible for a blind person to study such things.
So my only option was to learn English and come to England.
I am glad now i can speak English because it is very useful. The internet is mainly English and computer software, manuals etc.
I also like the sound of Italian and Turkish and i might learn one day.
Nikos
Interesting topick by the way.
I'd like to learn Italian someday. Just when I don't know! :)
I learned German and French (oh and Latin) at school but was never much into languages - not motivated. However, since leaving school I became really interested in the Netherlands and have learned a good deal of Dutch - I've lived in central Holland for most of this year but most people speak English as soon as I try to speak Dutch. I'd really like to chat to any Dutch speaking members as I need to practise as much as possible!! I'm hoping to study here next year.
I guess as for other languages... I love Berlin and so would like to learn German (properly this time) - Dutch is useful for understanding German but not for speaking it. I'd like to learn a scandinavian language - such as Swedish as I love the sound of it. I'd also like to learn Japanese as the Kanji system is intriguing and I'd like to visit Tokyo and Kyoto.
I did French at high school and Spanish in college. I tried learning Italian on my own. I would like to learn more Italian and brush up my french. I could never get the french accent though.
Hey all I am learning Spanish for the last four years and I have been learning French for ten years, but a gap in the process and lack of practise has meant that my standard is quite low. I know some basic phrases in Bengali and speak Gaeilge (pronounced gaylga) or Irish which I have been learning since I was about five (twelve years ago), but being Irish, this is a given. I would like to learn Korean as a Korean girl has joined our year at school and even though she is here for five years to learn English I find the language (and all languages) fascinating. Can anyone tell me how to say please and thank you in Bengali? Im going to India in less than a week and nobody ever told us those ones. Thanx
Christina:-)
I speak Chinese, English, and French as well as a little Korean. I want to try and study more Korean as well as Russian and Hebrew, but, hehe, who knows if I'll ever get to them...