Metal Storm logo
Languages You Speak/Would Like To Speak/Are Learning



Posts: 772   [ 4 ignored ]   Visited by: 297 users

Original post

Posted by , 18.08.2007 - 17:35
The idea is simple... Talk about the languages you speak, and the ones you would like to learn. What are they? Why do you like them? What is that you don't like about them? How and where did you learn them? What is your mother language?

Personally...

- (As you *might* have noticed) I speak English. Not really well, but I think I can say I know the basis. But it is not my first language: French is. I don't want to sound pretentious or anything, but I speak French really well. Yet, it is the third language I learnt.
- My mother language is Arabic, it was the first one I learnt as I am Moroccan and was born in Morocco. But my parents speak French more than Arabic, and I started going to a French school when I was 5, thus, I started forgetting Arabic. I was still as able to understand it as before, but I couldn't speak it anymore, past my 8th birthday. (Some other important factors were involded, but it is not necessary to mention them.)
- The second language I learnt was Spanish, because of/thanks to Spanish TV channels and my grandmother, who only spoke Spanish and Arabic. But when we left the city where we were living (Tanger, just in front of Spain), I stopped watching Spanish channels, and left my grandmother as well, and then, forgot Spanish too .
- That's when French comes. It became my first language around 8. As the French school system wants it, I started learning English at 11. And I unexpectedly didn't have any difficulty with it. I have always had the best mark in that subject, without making any effort for that. Unfortunately it is still not enough. I realised my level was not as good as I thought it was.
- The next year, (I was 12) I chose Latin, but I had to stop after a few months, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to start Spanish the following year. I started re-learning Spanish at 13.
- But since I took Spanish at 13, I couldn't take German at 15. I had too many subjects and the teachers wouldn't let me add German. Yet it is the language I really want to learn. I like the sonority of it, and I watch German TV channels just to hear it, even if I don't get a word of it .
- As a consequence, the two languages I can speak the best are French, and English.

As you see the topic is vast, there is a lot to say...
29.04.2014 - 14:40
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...
29.04.2014 - 17:08
Leni

I'm learning German, want to learn Finnish and Icelandic.
Loading...
29.04.2014 - 20:41
Ernis
狼獾
Written by Leni on 29.04.2014 at 17:08

I'm learning German, want to learn Finnish and Icelandic.


Finnish? Here ya go...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvBu8SCQNoM
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 19:11
Tormentor666

Chinese!!
----
WARFARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 19:54
Tormentor666

Yeh, I know. The thing is that I got this job opportunity very suddenly and got no time to even start studying Chinese. It took just two weeks to go from unemployment to a flight ahead to China to work as an English teacher. It wasn't like I planned to come here beforehand. I just took the train when it passed by. So now I have hard work ahead trying to learn Chinese.
----
WARFARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 21:20
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by Ernis on 30.04.2014 at 19:35

Written by Tormentor666 on 30.04.2014 at 19:11

Chinese!!


Given your location, it's a necessity... you won't survive in Asia without knowing their languages... top academic staff and higher officials do speak English but everyone else will pretty much just expect you to understand Chinese...

how about S Korea abnd Japan , alsos hit whit english ?
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 21:46
Tormentor666

I think very few people actually speaks English in Japan... there're chances to find someone, as there're chances to find them here or in Spain, but I guess it's not the usual thing
----
WARFARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 23:16
Ragana
Rawrcat
German. Again. I already have background but I have left out a lot of stuff, so it's been quite messy. This time, though, I'm learning it from a Latvian perspective because at least I can relate to the grammar... Thinking in English does not help at all.
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 23:24
Karlabos
Meat and Potatos
German grammar is so weird. The verb has specific places to go on the phrases depending on what kind of phrases it is. Plus all that dativ/akkusativ stuff. And why the hell do they give sex to objects? Everything should be just neutral as in English.
----
"Aah! The cat turned into a cat!"
- Reimu Hakurei
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 23:29
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Written by Karlabos on 30.04.2014 at 23:24

German grammar is so weird. The verb has specific places to go on the phrases depending on what kind of phrases it is. Plus all that dativ/akkusativ stuff. And why the hell do they give sex to objects? Everything should be just neutral as in English.


eng grammer is more primitiv and easier from other german lang group grammer (I can speak for eng, ger and swe/nor, maybe dannish
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 23:42
Ragana
Rawrcat
Written by Karlabos on 30.04.2014 at 23:24

German grammar is so weird. The verb has specific places to go on the phrases depending on what kind of phrases it is. Plus all that dativ/akkusativ stuff. And why the hell do they give sex to objects? Everything should be just neutral as in English.

English is a ridiculously easy and rather boring language... You're just putting words together and that's it. Where's the fun in that?
German language, however, is not even difficult when compared to any of the Baltic languages, so this should be a piece of cake for me... All that dativ, akkusativ stuff you mentioned... German language has only 4 cases.
Loading...
30.04.2014 - 23:58
ANGEL REAPER

Written by Karlabos on 30.04.2014 at 23:24

German grammar is so weird. The verb has specific places to go on the phrases depending on what kind of phrases it is. Plus all that dativ/akkusativ stuff. And why the hell do they give sex to objects? Everything should be just neutral as in English.

you should learn some slavic languages ..where everything has different form depending on place,position,function ,object ,subject ...dativ/akusativ ...in serbian there are 7 forms for nouns (Russian got 6) .Also evrything have its voice and sex (?) : like different form for female,male and children and objects... also verbs change depending on previous stuff
----
"Cross is only an iron,hope is just an illusion,freedom is nothing but a name..."
"Build your walls of the dead stone...Build your roofs of a dead wood..Build your dreams of a dead thoughts"
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:00
Karlabos
Meat and Potatos
Written by ANGEL REAPER on 30.04.2014 at 23:58

you should learn some slavic languages ..where everything has different form depending on place,position,function ,object ,subject ...dativ/akusativ ...in serbian there are 7 forms for nouns (Russian got 6) .Also evrything have its voice and sex (?) : like different form for female,male and children and objects... also verbs change depending on previous stuff


Yeah. Someone said also that Hungarian has 16 cases.
Nah, thanks.. I'm too old for this shit.
----
"Aah! The cat turned into a cat!"
- Reimu Hakurei
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:05
Ernis
狼獾
Written by Karlabos on 30.04.2014 at 23:24

German grammar is so weird. The verb has specific places to go on the phrases depending on what kind of phrases it is. Plus all that dativ/akkusativ stuff. And why the hell do they give sex to objects? Everything should be just neutral as in English.


Bah... don't say that everything should be as in English...
English, by the way, is not exactly the easiest languages either...

Indo-European languages (including English and Portuguese) have had grammatical gender for ages... While modern English only uses gender for personal pronouns, every Portuguese noun should have a gender...
Also, that "dativ/akkusativ" stuff is called grammatical case... Indo-European languages (including yours) had nine cases... Portuguese has merged all of them into one (technically, several were dropped already from Latin which is the predecessor of Portuguese)... English has two, German has three... Russian has six which is pretty ok... try to learn Finnish which has 15 or so cases...

Try to learn Finnish, by the way... no gender, no future tense... should be easy, innit?

Written by Tormentor666 on 30.04.2014 at 19:54

Yeh, I know. The thing is that I got this job opportunity very suddenly and got no time to even start studying Chinese. It took just two weeks to go from unemployment to a flight ahead to China to work as an English teacher. It wasn't like I planned to come here beforehand. I just took the train when it passed by. So now I have hard work ahead trying to learn Chinese.

Good luck with your new life in China. I loved it there. If you ignore the pollution and the internet censorship, life's pretty fun there. And you'll learn Chinese fast. It's a matter of months if you really want it...

Written by Bad English on 30.04.2014 at 21:20

how about S Korea abnd Japan , alsos hit whit english ?


I work at the airport. I have to talk to people from all possible places on earth... Japanese people have rather limited command of English... and these are people who travel (i. e. are prepared for being expected to know some English for basic conversations abroad) Japanese people in Japan and Koreans in Korea have even more limited knowledge of foreign language... Chinese people in China can't really make it past "Herro!" and "Don't wowwy! Originar copy!"

South-Europeans know little English... Try to go to Spain, Italy, France or Greece and see if people speak English there... the hotel staff may spill a few words (because their contract requires it) but a few yards down street the guy at the grocery shop will just roll his eyes when you try to speak anything other than his language...

Many people in Estonia don't have good English... hell yeah, many people in Estonia don't even speak Estonian...

Many Finnish people don't speak English... That doesn't apply to the younger people...

Hungarians don't really speak English... not even the youngsters... if you know German, then try that instead...

I say the best non-native speakers of English are the Swedes, Norwegians and the Danish... and the Dutch as well... Young Germans do pretty well but don't count on the older generation to answer you in English...
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:13
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Ernis - I know asians here well lets say all speak eng wary well, weeker as I but well (damn ask jean and andreja j about my english, we spoken in skyle)
I have been in Italy everywhere english was good 70% was awesome, my old man was greece anbd not tourist place, englsih was OK ...

I havnt been much abroud, all I know I am scot and I get that scotisgh accent even more as JOOE and Jean does in that film what I posted in side 22 ---

so far I have been lucky whit english everywhere .....not in Pärnu, in maxima, I tryd buy olives asked what prise is that, there were 2, young girl , she was eee, I .... eee .. I hardly can comunicate whit her, then older woman came, I try speak broken russian , she explained ....

I had shit in Fin between Tampere and Oulu , she young girl in restraut didnt speak english and swedish, she was 18 ... I need 20min to get basic kebab plate ....

in latvia many dont speak english and also latvian

I had no probs whit german, I sgarted english at age 7 till 11 my tecaher were from usa, she didnt speak latvian, I lost so much in the grammer, it was so horible, actually, IMO thats why my grammer scks, I was better in german at that time (learned rus in the street) ..but age 15 my german start go down and down ,,,,,
----
Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:40
Lucerna

I am Dutch, so I naturally know Dutch. I also consider myself fluent in (British) English, considering I spend a reasonable portion of my time either typing or speaking it.
I have a rather elemental knowledge of French and German, which means I would be able to survive if I were dropped in a random French or German town.

About cases: they are funny, and interesting, and sometimes necessary, for example in Latin (where word order is only slightly relevant to the meaning, and the cases indicate almost everything).
It's funny when native English people say their language is difficult, because it really is not; it has been simplified over time really a lot (and I wonder why?). Old English is a real proper language.

I would like to learn Serbian at some point.
----
达到光亮之前我是个小龙 | Last.fm
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:47
ANGEL REAPER

That being said i figured out that once you learn couple foreign languages you can easily learn new language ...i mean easier than first or second foreign language . that being said i never learned spanish but i can manage to figure most of it when i read it (its a bit harder when i listen to it )..i am getting better ,maybe i will learn it in future ...
----
"Cross is only an iron,hope is just an illusion,freedom is nothing but a name..."
"Build your walls of the dead stone...Build your roofs of a dead wood..Build your dreams of a dead thoughts"
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:51
Lucerna

That is probably true. After all, when you learn your first foreign language, you typically learn about the types of constructions there are in a language, and you realize better how languages work in general. Usually languages are based on pretty sound logic, and there are some exceptions that you should simply learn by heart. Once you've done that, it's mostly buildin vocabulary. I figure that as you learn more languages it becomes easier to learn new ones, because you can relate it better to what you already know.

Also, that feeling when the first person to reply to my post ending with "I would like to learn Serbian" is in fact Serbian.
----
达到光亮之前我是个小龙 | Last.fm
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 00:55
Ernis
狼獾
可是中文呢?嘿,小青龙阿!你不是个会写中文的人吗?
Hei, little green dragon up there? How bout your Chinese?
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 01:03
ANGEL REAPER

Written by Lucerna on 01.05.2014 at 00:51

Also, that feeling when the first person to reply to my post ending with "I would like to learn Serbian" is in fact Serbian.

what me? no that was probably random occurrence
----
"Cross is only an iron,hope is just an illusion,freedom is nothing but a name..."
"Build your walls of the dead stone...Build your roofs of a dead wood..Build your dreams of a dead thoughts"
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 01:09
Lucerna

Written by Ernis on 01.05.2014 at 00:55

可是中文呢?嘿,小青龙阿!你不是个会写中文的人吗?
Hei, little green dragon up there? How bout your Chinese?
It's absolutely terrible! Unlike my signature might suggest, I don't know any Chinese at all. Can you verify if my signature is even grammatically correct (and if not, could you provide me a correct alternative)? I more or less made an educated guess using a dictionary.
----
达到光亮之前我是个小龙 | Last.fm
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 01:16
Ernis
狼獾
Written by Lucerna on 01.05.2014 at 01:09

It's absolutely terrible! Unlike my signature might suggest, I don't know any Chinese at all. Can you verify if my signature is even grammatically correct (and if not, could you provide me a correct alternative)? I more or less made an educated guess using a dictionary.


My Chinese ain't as good as it may suggest. What I get from your signature is "I'm a little green dragon. I just reached the light." Is this what you wanted to say?
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 01:20
Lucerna

Does 青龍 mean a green dragon specifically, then? I was going for simply "dragon". The message I was trying to say is "I was a little dragon, before I reached the light".
----
达到光亮之前我是个小龙 | Last.fm
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 01:58
Vombatus
Potorro
I just started with German again. Lots of free time makes want to do at least one productive thing, but I'm not feeling like taking a regular summer course or something... My level is bad, like A1 (studied really badly for 4 years, but that was 6 years ago with no practice in-between). So picked up some old german course books, and maybe I'll get some private lessons...
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 02:03
ANGEL REAPER

Ah yes the wonders of german p0rn

btw only german i know comes from porn ...and partisan movies .... that sounds disturbing ...
----
"Cross is only an iron,hope is just an illusion,freedom is nothing but a name..."
"Build your walls of the dead stone...Build your roofs of a dead wood..Build your dreams of a dead thoughts"
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 02:47
Ragana
Rawrcat
Written by Vombatus on 01.05.2014 at 01:58

I just started with German again. Lots of free time makes want to do at least one productive thing, but I'm not feeling like taking a regular summer course or something... My level is bad, like A1 (studied really badly for 4 years, but that was 6 years ago with no practice in-between). So picked up some old german course books, and maybe I'll get some private lessons...

Welcome to the bad-German-club. 4 years is a lot, though!

Written by ANGEL REAPER on 01.05.2014 at 02:03

btw only german i know comes from porn ...and partisan movies .... that sounds disturbing ...

Cute. However, I can't imagine Germans talking a lot when starring in a porn movie...
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 03:02
Vombatus
Potorro
Written by Ragana on 01.05.2014 at 02:47

Welcome to the bad-German-club. 4 years is a lot, though!


Well, I wouldn't dare to call it 4 years of "studying"... it was the typical 2 hours a week class at school when I was a lazy-ass 14 or 15 years old kid

I regret my lack of interest and not making an effort back then... But I still remember loads of grammar and the basic stuff, just lacking vocabulary to keep up a conversation. Hope to get a decent level by the end of the summer *wishful thinking*
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 03:30
Ragana
Rawrcat
Written by Vombatus on 01.05.2014 at 03:02

Hope to get a decent level by the end of the summer *wishful thinking*

Well, I just read about this guy who learned German language up to C2 level in one summer. Apparently, he had had German in school, but it was more like your case with 'studying'. So, I guess anything is possible!
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 08:51
Tormentor666

Written by Lucerna on 01.05.2014 at 00:40

I am Dutch, so I naturally know Dutch. I also consider myself fluent in (British) English, considering I spend a reasonable portion of my time either typing or speaking it.
I have a rather elemental knowledge of French and German, which means I would be able to survive if I were dropped in a random French or German town.

About cases: they are funny, and interesting, and sometimes necessary, for example in Latin (where word order is only slightly relevant to the meaning, and the cases indicate almost everything).
It's funny when native English people say their language is difficult, because it really is not; it has been simplified over time really a lot (and I wonder why?). Old English is a real proper language.

I would like to learn Serbian at some point.


It's not exactly that the language has been symplified, it just evolved from another form, and it happened to many other languages. That being said, I'd like to point out the fact that, despite the name, Old English and English are not the same language evolving during time, and aren't really intelligible with each other for that matter, as are intelligible Old Castillian and modern Spanish. Anglo-Saxon is a complete different thing. I'd rather state that Anglo-Saxon is the primary father of Modern English, although it wouldn't be accurate either, at least it's easier to understand for people not specialised in this matter.

Anglo-Saxon looked really cool (I was about to say "sounded", but no one actually knows what it sounded like, so), but once you're a bit into it, you come to realise it's not complex at all. Okay, it had cases and all that, but it's rather easy.
----
WARFARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Loading...
01.05.2014 - 12:41
Lucerna

Yes, Old English is completely different. We covered parts of Beowulf in English class, and it was pretty much impossible to decipher, haha. I guess the term "simplification" is wrong here. What I meant to say is that the English spoken today is much simpler than medieval English (and whatever came before that). Modern English seems to be quite a mashup from various language trees.
----
达到光亮之前我是个小龙 | Last.fm
Loading...