Do You Know Any Foreign Languages?

[The Simpleton 2]

Do you know any foreign languages? In some countries like mine, people are required to learn more than one language to keep up with people from different regions (I had to learn Hindi and English besides my mother tongue Telugu). I know there are other countries too where people speak different languages across different states. But those can't be called foreign languages - they're within the same country! :PSo do you know any language which is not usually spoken in your country? These days it seems to be some sort of a craze to learn foreign languages with the hope of landing a plum job, or for visiting the country it is spoken in, or just simply for the fun of it.I picked Japanese as a target, because it's somewhat similar to my native language. The only thing that bothers me is the writing system, which involves over 2000 kanji (symbols). Learning those perfectly could take a lot of time :(So what are you learning?

[rob86 2]

Salut Simpleton! I know English and French. I live in the only officially bilingual (french and english) province in my country and while it isn't necessary to learn french, a lot of people do study it in school. While I've always found French a rather boring language, much too similar to English to be interesting, it does make feel good to know more than one language. I would feel embarrassed to only know one when most people outside of my country know at least two or three. I remember how they used to tell us in school that English was one of the hardest languages to learn, to motivate us to learn French. Well, as far as I can tell, it seems like one of the easiest. French was much more complicated, and Hindi, Japanese, Chinese.. any language, well it's all Greek to me, as they say.I've always had an interest in other languages, and have tried to learn some, but my brain can only handle so much. It's pretty hard to learn a language unless you're totally submersed in it. I've forgotten a lot of french because I don't ever speak it. I do attempt to learn the essentials of many languages, the greetings (Hey there!), the romantic words (My, aren't you beautiful! Be still my beating heart!) , and the swear words (^#$^$!@ You!). As for Hindi, well I know how to say a few things, but I rarely hear Indians talk, so I have a feeling I pronounce everything wrong. I don't think I could ever learn the "alphabet" symbols other countries use either, that seems pretty close to impossible. I think people from countries such as yours are more adept at learning languages because it's so essential. Language learning is a skill you become good at with practice. What's really amazing is that people from foreign (to me) countries can spell better than a lot of the English people I know. "Wots the deel wif that den?". It'd be neat if in the future scientists could inject languages into your brain, I guess like they do in the Matrix :lol:Au revoir!

[Baniboy 3]

Persian, Azerian, Finnish, English and Swedish. And after I've finished this year, I'll have to choose one extra foreign language(I'll choose Spanish I think..),I'm rather good with languages, I know most of the languages above to say what I want to say without stopping to make up the sentence first except Azerian and Swedish (I hate swedish, but we have to learn it around here).

Edited September 14, 2009 by Baniboy (see edit history)

[-Sky- 0]

Yeah, I know some German, Italian (My original language), French etc. Not that too good at german yet, though I am still learning. Any others??

[SpiderVV 0]

Foreign Languages I don't really know but I know a lot of English (I practise it since I'm 5 but sometimes I suck.) some Spanish and of course, not foreign my own language Portuguese. Trust me, Portuguese is easier than you think, just not the accent, it's weird for you English/Italian/German/French/Russian, etc people just ike the UK accent is a bit weird for me

[-Sky- 0]

Foreign Languages I don't really know but I know a lot of English (I practise it since I'm 5 but sometimes I suck.) some Spanish and of course, not foreign my own language Portuguese. Trust me, Portuguese is easier than you think, just not the accent, it's weird for you English/Italian/German/French/Russian, etc people just ike the UK accent is a bit weird for me

Oh my god, thanks then SV. I'll take that as a compliment. I don't know much Portuguese, however I am learning some. Not that great at it at the moment to be honest.

 

@ SV:

[The Simpleton 2]

Hmm French, Spanish, German seem to be on everyone's minds. Japanese is taking so long to learn so I'm thinking of starting to learn French/Spanish as well. They are supposed to be easier to learn than Japanese, which will take 3 more years to learn. But I know it'll be worth it. I like the tone of the Japanese language and I'm really fascinated by it. French sounds good too....

[Spudd 0]

I'm American, so English is my native tongue. My mom tried to teach me and my siblings Spanish a long time ago, and I've retained some of it, but I don't speak it fluently. I also had some friends in my neighborhood from Russia, so I tried learning that for a few months. I only remember a few words of Russian though. Then last year, I took a Japanese class at the community college. I passed my first quarter by some miracle, but flunked the second, so I only know about 15 Kanji. Still, I speak more Japanese than the other languages I've gotten hints of, so I guess you'd call Japanese my second language. I'm considering retaking that second quarter this year, to raise my GPA.

[The Simpleton 2]

Cool another supporter for Japanese I'm not attending any courses; just learning on my own and though I have been lazy, I've managed to get in 120 or so kanji and maybe 2 levels of grammar/speech so far. But there's still a lot more to go and I'm really excited about it all! An appeal to all those who're learning French/Spanish : Could you please share some of your online learning resources with me please? I'm interested in learning those languages soon. Thanks for that.

[darko100 1]

I learn German , know Macedonian and English. How's it going? Wie geht es dir? Како си? In the place where i live there is a project for learning German , so everyone is learning German from 1st grade to secondary school

[web_designer 7]

i know three languages very well, arabic, english and french. well, not very well but good at speaking understanding and writing, and a little bit of turkish . right now i am living in a country where a lot of people speak spanish so i thinking of learning some spanish words when i will have a time . for me, i always think that learning languages is very awesome, i find it fun and interesting experience to learn about others people life and traditions. so i know i will continue learning more new languages whenever i will have a time in my life.

[mrdee 1]

In my case, that is Dutch, English, German, French and Italian.We had to learn 4 languages in secondary school, and I traveled a lot and worked in a lot of different countries, so that was useful for me.I also learned a bit extra by self study.Because of doing karate and most of the instructions from 1st kyu being in Japanese, I began to develop an interest in that language, but it is burning on a very low flame at the moment (Until I have a bit more time).Due to working in Greece (and having studied classic Greek at school) I also learned a bit of modern Greek, but the problem is, if you do not maintain those things, they easily get forgotten.An Iraqi friend of mine also started teaching me classical Arabic, but he moved away, so I am stuck, although he said that I would begin to speak it soon since I picked up the grammar quickly.Maybe it will happen one day, who knows.I am and have always been a language maniac, unfortunately there are only 24 hours in a day.

[iAssistant 1]

My native language is Tagalog and we are studying English in school so I speak both. I know a little words from other countries such as Spanish, Mandarin and Japanese but I can't really communicate. I want to learn but if you are not using it frequently, you will just forget it. It is better to have an exchange partner where you can talk always so you will never forget it.