Languages You Speak/Would Like To Speak/Are Learning
Original post
Posted by Unknown user, 18.08.2007 - 17:35
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...
| Abattoir Staff Posts: 3648  |
Written by Valentin B on 12.10.2009 at 11:18 In few years you could became a polyglot  By the way, you named that you also learn Spanish (which is a very interesting language to me), so I have one question...what is the difficulty of learning this one comparing to some other languages?
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| Valentin B Iconoclast Posts: 10086  |
Written by Abattoir on 12.10.2009 at 15:06 thanks i can't really judge on that, i've been watching some soap operas when i was little (8-11 years, now that is METAL AS FUCK HUH? ) and i got a very very basic understanding of spanish at a very young age, so learning spanish now is far easier for me than for others. if you live in Slovenia though, i'd say Spanish is pretty much at the same level of difficulty as Italian, though people who speak other Romance languages(which mainly consist of Romanian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and a few others) have an advantage over people from other linguistic areas when learning Spanish or Italian(the best example would be that the pronunciation is generally the same, very VERY different from English, few common points in this aspect, and the latin-origin words are very similar, for example, Bread is:Latin- panis Italian- pane Spanish, Galician- pan French- pain Portuguese- pao Catalan- pa Romanian- paine dog: Latin- canis Italian- cane Spanish- perro(exception  )French- chien Portuguese- cao Galician- can Romanian- caine it's kind of like Swedes learning Norwegian, or Bulgarians learning Ukrainian(which as far as i know are almost the same language, same goes for the Western Slavic languages like Czech, Polish, Croatian etc) i'd say you get the Pimsleur program(PM me if you want it), it teaches you exactly the same way little kids would learn the language, very easy and occasionally funny, but you have to have a little patience with it(every part is structured in 30 lessons, 30 minutes each, and for Spanish there's 3 parts).
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| Elio Red Nightmare Posts: 4920  |
Dude, you have like the best teacher in the world, don't worry, your Italian will be perfect
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| Valentin B Iconoclast Posts: 10086 |
Written by Elio on 12.10.2009 at 16:09 you mean me?  so you knew Pimsleur personally or what?  you should try working with it, weren't you interested once in learning Swedish? now you can haha.
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| Diabolos Space For Rent! Posts: 1522  |
Il mio Italiano é molto bene, un tutore non é necessario per me
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| Elio Red Nightmare Posts: 4920 |
Written by Valentin B on 12.10.2009 at 16:11 I was talking about me @Diabolos: Your Italian is decent, but not that BUONO 
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| Diabolos Space For Rent! Posts: 1522 |
It's not even decent, but at least I still remember some things (and are you sure it is buono and not bene? )
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| Ragana Rawrcat Posts: 4919  |
Written by Valentin B on 12.10.2009 at 15:58 Shit. I have like... no advantages at all. XD I can learn Lithuanian. Only. Oh, *sad*. Written by Diabolos on 12.10.2009 at 16:14 Ya' now what's interesting... I don't learn Italian, nor I know it or smth but it's very easy to guess what's this sentence says. Well, except that word "molto". As for me - I can say 'ciao' and 'come sta?'. DD
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807  |
Written by Diabolos on 12.10.2009 at 16:26 Elio é Italiano.... che vuoi piu? Written by Ragana on 12.10.2009 at 20:32 Study Russian...Baltic and Slavonic languages are close to each other just like Celtic and Italic languages.... You may also consider learning Estonian....Latvian and Estonian share lots of loanwords....we even say that Latvian is just like Estonian....just add an S in the end of every word.... Finally....why don't we all go and study some Chinese....同学们！我们大家好好上学吧！
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| Elio Red Nightmare Posts: 4920 |
@Viggo: Diabolos was joking of course
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| Diabolos Space For Rent! Posts: 1522 |
Yep, I was joking (I guess Elio knows how to speak Italian )
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| Ragana Rawrcat Posts: 4919 |
Written by Ernis on 12.10.2009 at 21:31 I'm ALREADY studying Russian for... like 6 years or smth. It sucks, tbh. At least for me 'cause I'm bad at it and I can't stand the teacher who is teaching it (she doesn't teach at all - that's the reason why I know so less). I mean, I have no advantages since there are only two Baltic languages which are similar to each other. Ahahah, Estonian, yep - that might be interesting. Btw, I can't find Italian similar to Celtic. XD
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807 |
Written by Ragana on 12.10.2009 at 23:20 I have read a book. Italian Ho LETTO un LIBRO. Irish Ta LEABHAR LÉITE'am. He wrote a letter. French Il a écrit une lettre Irish Scriobh sé litreach. I'm broke. French J'ai plus d'argent. Irish Nil airgead'am ar chor ar bith. she says that it's dirty.... French Elle DIT QUE c'est SALE.... Irish DEIGH si GO bhfuil se SALACH....
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| AiwiAstwihad AiryanaKhvarenah Posts: 1421  |
Written by Ernis on 12.10.2009 at 21:31 Cant even imagine to be able to manage to learn the alphabets, let alone the rest! : I really like to learn French, German, Swedish and Finnish. But unfortunately don't have enough time for all of 'em at the moment, so will go to the one that's closer to English...Swedish perhaps?
---- You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness That you've not had to face
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| Ellrohir Heaven Knight Posts: 8664  |
I have new dream to be able to understand, speak and write in Russian...it is definitely the most beautiful Slavic language (no, Bad English, trust me Czech is not )
---- My rest seems now calm and deep Finally I got my dead man sleep 
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| Ellrohir Heaven Knight Posts: 8664 |
Written by Bad English on 27.02.2009 at 14:50 Finns have more funny things like that...i know there is a finnish family name "Lejno", which is a more polite term for "shit" in czech but nothing can beat German words "Kurve" (Curve in english), while by us "kurva" means "bitch", and "Kunde" (Customer), where "Kunda" is very vulgar word for female genitals 
---- My rest seems now calm and deep Finally I got my dead man sleep
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807 |
Written by AiwiAstwihad on 14.10.2009 at 14:29 Chinese doesn't have any alphabet....well...yes, technically the language can be written with both Latin and Arabic letters but the Chinese script uses characters..... Well....why study Swedish or even Finnish... عپی آیستی کایلت...سه پلکس سولل ه سوگوگی راسکه! Õpi eesti keelt...see poleks sulle sugugi raske! Learn Estonian...I mean...MS is an Estonian site too...it's special.... Dang...it's weird writing the word SULLE...it ends up being suALLAH....
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| AiwiAstwihad AiryanaKhvarenah Posts: 1421 |
Written by Ernis on 14.10.2009 at 20:12 You mean in Chinese every character is a word? Good idea, Is there any helpfull on-line sourse to learn Estonian that contains pronounciations too?
---- You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness That you've not had to face
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807 |
Written by AiwiAstwihad on 15.10.2009 at 12:37 Not necessarily....long time ago yes...every character was a word....but now most characters are just syllables/grammatical entities...nevertheless, a character is not a letter...it doesn't represent a sound but more a meaning which means you can guess the meaning it even if you don't know the pronunciation of it.... 车 That's car... 木 That's "tree"...but it's an ancient word...it does not represent the word "tree" in foreign language but instead can be used in compound words and syllables related to trees and wood such as 木头 which means "wood (the material)" although literally the two characters mean "tree-head".... 树 That's the modern day character for the word which means "tree"...if you look at it you can see the basic "tree" on the left side of the character...here it marks the meaning of the word....example..."root" is written with a tree, "silver" is written with metal, "pull" is written with hand, "run" is written with foot etc....lots of words in Chinese have the same pronunciation...the way to tell the difference is by the way they are writte...it's just like English where flower and flour have the same pronunciation but look differently.... No...I'm afraid there's no online sources for Estonian at all....and I don't recommend English based either...they seem rather poor and they have written the Estonian words the English word whereas the sound system of English is absolutely different from Estonian which results in people developing a heavy English accent when speaking the language....the only way is to record Estonian speech in Estonia and send you an mp3 through MSN or sth....
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| InfernoxDeath Posts: 20  |
Nice chinese tutorial! I'm going to pick up French soon... just the basics at a local private school. Can't wait! Perhaps you guys may assist me when i need help one day!
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 61303  |
Written by Ellrohir on 14.10.2009 at 14:53 Yeah curva seems in all slkavik means same, image rusian face when they saw Serie A game when Romani ultras put banner Commando Ultras Curva Sud
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die"  I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Ellrohir Heaven Knight Posts: 8664 |
squad of ultra bitches from the south...anything wrong with that?
---- My rest seems now calm and deep Finally I got my dead man sleep
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| Bad English Tage Westerlund Posts: 61303 |
Written by Ellrohir on 16.10.2009 at 01:19 say it to Roma fans but Curva is sector where goal ends you can enter therre for free or pay 3 euros yeah there better song about Arka lol Arka Gdyna Kurwa Swynya , probobly you know what it means
---- I stand whit Ukraine and Israel. They have right to defend own citizens. Stormtroopers of Death - "Speak English or Die" I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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| Eternal Flames Posts: 1570  |
I've been learning German again since the beginning of this year. I learned German during high school for a few years but had forgotten the majority of it. Started learning it again earlier this year and it's going quite well I think. Obviously, I'm not at a very advanced level but I find it quite easy to learn the language since many of the grammar rules and the idea of grammatical genders are similar to Croatian which I can speak rather fluently.
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| AiwiAstwihad AiryanaKhvarenah Posts: 1421 |
Written by Ernis on 15.10.2009 at 21:13 Thanks alot for the explaination. ...So it seems to be not that structured. I mean, you can conclude from what a word is derived but not vice versa. You just have to get used to it... Hmmmm...Then i think i'd better stick to a limited number of usefull words/phrases, like saying "MetalStorm fuckin rules!" in Estonian.
---- You who will come to the surface
From the flood that's overwhelmed us and drowned us all Must think, when you speak of our weakness in times of darkness That you've not had to face
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807 |
Written by AiwiAstwihad on 16.10.2009 at 13:20 Yeh...well...bout Chinese language...there is the ancient Chinese language....it is known as a written language but it's pronunciation is almost entirely impossible to reconstruct because the characters only bear a meaning and no pronunciation.... You could write Persian with Chinese characters too...it would be possible...whatever the language, the character and its meaning will remain unchanged....
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| Officer Comrade Posts: 3571  |
Hey Viggo, I have a question in Chinese language. I try to describe like this: in my mother language, when I call an older men, if his name is A, he is older no more than 10 years to me, when I talk with him, I must call him "Anh A", for older man more than 20 years to me, I must call him like "chú A" or "bác A", for more than from 40 years to 50 years, I must call him like "ông A", and same thing correspondingly to female based on her age. I mean in my native language there is such kind of classifically calling words/terms based on the age, also for family/kin relation, and many more things to or must to differentiate when talking between each other to each other. That is in the past historically and somewhat less and turns to more new in nowadays (in the my mother tounge). What I know and exactly understand that in Chinese language, they almost say "woo" or "wo", and the female says "Ni" but Im not sure if it changes when differences in ages, or identical-gender-conversation, or in kin/family relation, etc. I wonder if that kind of language stuff is same between 2 languages: Chinese and my native language, Vietnamese ?
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| Ernis 狼獾 Posts: 6807 |
Written by Officer Comrade on 16.10.2009 at 22:58 What? "wo" is I "ni" is YOU.... That's why what you wrote doesn't make any sense at all... I have no idea bout that...Chinese and Vietnamese aren't even related languages.....
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| Officer Comrade Posts: 3571 |
Written by Ernis on 17.10.2009 at 19:22 What I mean is: there is a way to write chinese in latin alphabet. For the languages, actually, those 2 languages has a deep roots relation more than 1000 years, only largely changed in dialect in late 19th (I guess but surely around that time), etc.. You know, I wonder, because thousands Chinese movies, TV movies are shown in VN televison, and Im sure everyday there is at least one Chinese movie are shown in my local TV channels, I listened the voice-over, so I have think about the language differences between them. A lot people who knows Chinese locationally, but I still want to ask some Chinese residents for sure, Anyway, simplified what I mean is: in English there are only "I" and "You" when talking but in VN, it is not same, and with what I mention above, I wonder if Chinese languages has same thing or not ?...???
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| Valentin B Iconoclast Posts: 10086 |
Written by Ellrohir on 14.10.2009 at 14:53 yeah, also there's the town Pula in Croatia, which literally means "Dick" in Romanian. also, http://metalstorm.ee/events/event.php?event_id=33592 i don't really need to explain how this translates hahahahahahahah
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