Languages - Do you Triumph or Faiiiil?

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Pretty much the same as everyone here, I can easily survive on English but my french is pretty much just good at reading text and listening to others.

 

Then there´s Danish which in my opinion I´m quite decent at and knowing Danish means you pretty much know the basics of Norwegian and Swedish.

Also being a native speaker of Icelandic helps a lot with that too.

 

I dappled in German for a bit but I just couldn´t.

 

Also a pro-tip on those keen on Danish, the best way to speak is to show a potato down your throat.

The same can be used with German, except the potato must be burning hot.

A potato? But you're right, the Scandinavian languages are very much alike. Most Danes can automatically understand a lot of Swedish and Norwegian.

 

I'm terrible at languages... after 4 years of being taught French I could say "My name is Wesley" and that I lived in Sleaford... that was all. I think, and I'm not even joking, that I got 1/100 in the final test to see if you should take it as GCSE. There were a few problems with me learning French though.

 

Firstly, I wasn't actually comfortable with my own native language... I struggled a lot until the age of about 14 when I suddenly seemed to be pretty good at it; but, more importantly, started to enjoy it.

 

The second problem came when I improved with English though. In my school your languages lessons were linked. So, if you were in top class for English you were in top class for French, etc. And being terrible at French I was also in a very low class for English; which made me hate French even more. This was especially the case when I finally started with GCSEs, thinking, "Finally, I'll be in a English class I deserve! No longer French will ruin me! Hurrah!" (or something like that). However, they decided not to change the grouping system... so although I scored higher in my English tests than half the class in the top set, I was still kept in the second from bottom set. Man... I hated my school for that.

 

Motherfuckers...

That's just ridiculous. What were the reasonings behind this grouping?

[Wesley]

I think they thought it was a good idea and that somehow language development of your own native language and a foreign one was linked. Enough to have the groups made the same. As for not changing the groups once I stopped taking French... laziness I guess. I used to hate my school for the way my English went. I really started to get "into" English and started to enjoy it in GCSE, but got accused of stealing an original piece I wrote. Basically they thought that someone in such a low group couldn't write a interesting piece. Agh, anger...

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I think they thought it was a good idea and that somehow language development of your own native language and a foreign one was linked. Enough to have the groups made the same. As for not changing the groups once I stopped taking French... laziness I guess. I used to hate my school for the way my English went. I really started to get "into" English and started to enjoy it in GCSE, but got accused of stealing an original piece I wrote. Basically they thought that someone in such a low group couldn't write a interesting piece. Agh, anger...

I hate that kind of treatment. It pees me off. >:-/

[Shino]

Pee them off Keyboard Danny.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Languages I can speak to near fluency:

 

French, German, Italian, Chinese, English,

 

Languages I can understand in written or spoken form:

 

Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Shanghainese (yes it's a different language!),

 

That is all.

 

Are you one of those people? The ones that just...are good at everything?

 

Bastard. That's really impressive.

 

I was reading this thread and thinking about how if you don't use a language you lose it. I was just wondering whether non-native English speakers on here, such as Danny, find that posting on a forum in English helps at all. I mean I would imagine it would be like practicing and so it might work in reverse, say if I were to post on a Spanish forum I might pick up a bit. Also the changing the language settings on games sounds like a quality tip, especially with RPG's. I'd imagine FPS's would be less helpful.

 

I can remember some very basic Italian, French and a bit of Spanish from school and holidays. Usually I'm much better at reading in other languages, when speaking my mind goes completely blank and sentence structure goes straight out the window. Also hearing about Latin makes me want to try it out. I've got a copy of Winnie the Pooh downstairs in Latin and I think I'm going to get it.

 

That's an interesting idea, or collection of ideas there. Although, with Dutch for example, it seems really tricky getting the spoken element of the language nailed, or the pronounciation of some words. Like, I'll look over a few words, think in my head that I have it down right, and it turns out it's huuuugely wrong.

 

I may try that. Although, I'm a bit stumped as to how I can practice the spoken part, so that I know exactly what I'm reading actually bears a resemblance to the language I'm trying to speak.

 

I think they thought it was a good idea and that somehow language development of your own native language and a foreign one was linked. Enough to have the groups made the same. As for not changing the groups once I stopped taking French... laziness I guess. I used to hate my school for the way my English went. I really started to get "into" English and started to enjoy it in GCSE, but got accused of stealing an original piece I wrote. Basically they thought that someone in such a low group couldn't write a interesting piece. Agh, anger...

 

I'm very sure that we had the same system in our school. So, top set English = top set French. Also, I think it was either year 8 or year 9, but you also took on Spanish, too. So, it was tough enough with English, Welsh and French, but top set English = top set French and then Spanish, too. You had no choice in the matter.

 

I ended up liking Spanish, and I wanted to take that for A Level instead of French. The problem? My School didn't do it. So, you take on a language for a few years, enjoy that language, and then you stop learning it. Gah.

[navarre]

I did GCSE German at school, and got a B. Can't really remember much now. Despite being forced into doing a language (I believe my education would've benefitted more from me studying Geography than German), there was never the incentive. The general arrogant state of mind of English being the only language you need to actually know was preventing me from ever taking the subject very seriously, and to a certain degree, that state of mind proved correct, especially when you venture round Europe and the locals don't even bother trying to speak to you in their language.

[Blue_Ninja0]

Languages I can speak to near fluency:

 

French, German, Italian, Chinese, English,

 

Languages I can understand in written or spoken form:

 

Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Shanghainese (yes it's a different language!), Latin

 

That is all.

 

Christ, how many brains do you have. Don't you mix them up sometimes?

 

 

Well I know Portuguese (duh) and English mainly to media exposition. Movies, videogames, internet, school and lot's of other day to day stuff. English is everywhere so it was pretty easy to learn it. It's on itself one of the easiest languages to learn so it made it even simpler.

So I basically know only 2 languages. I understand lot's of Spanish since it's very similar to Portuguese (even though I hate to listen to it, sorry guys) and a bit of French from school, but that doesn't count.

 

If there would be a 3rd language for me it would be Japanese. But that requires some dedication because it's not around me. Contrarily to English, that took absolutely no effort. It was basically forced into me, I really needed the language for my hobbies.

 

About the English pronunciation you guys were talking earlier. Indeed I find it easier to understand American English than the original because the only English I ear is from the movie industry and videogames. But now I love to ear the British one though. Used to find it very weird before.

[Supergrunch]

Uncle Supergrunch is here!

 

Native in: English (RP). Thank god I get this one for free.

 

Reasonable at: Japanese, although my written could do with work.

 

Okayish at: French, Spanish.

 

Know only fragments of: German, Finnish, Icelandic, Russian, Ancient Greek, Middle English, Old English.

 

Used to be decent at, but have now forgotten: Latin.

 

Know only linguistic points about: Various things, from Turkish to Dyirbal.

 

And personally I think the British system for language learning is pretty awful. The focus seems to be on helping people to be tourists, which is all very well if you want to be a walking phrasebook, but not very good if you actually want to speak the language. There's no decent way to get good at a language without an in-depth look at the grammar (and/or immersion), which people shy away from because it tends to be difficult and unrewarding at first. But then starting to learn languages always is hard, yet very rewarding once you get any good.

[Jonnas]

Very much like the other Portuguese people here, English is all over the media, so it was pretty much a necessity. With the grammatical pointers at school, English became very easy to pick up.

Most of my family is Portuguese, but the other part is Venezuelan (which greatly helped my Spanish. Just because any Portuguese person can understand Spanish doesn't mean they can actually speak it).

I also know my way around French (somewhat) thanks to school. I see it once in a while, and it's a good thing I'm no stranger to it.

Other languages I've become kinda acquainted with include German, Italian and Japanese. I can understand some of it (especially Italian), but without any idea of proper phrasial construction, I'm lost.

 

Now, is it true that the first foreign things the Brits learn are tourist phrases? That explains so much

 

Seriously, I've seen a post here saying that's a good place to start, but I heavily disagree. You're not learning anything, you're just memorising phrases (without any idea as to why they're like that).

Speaking out of personal experience, a good place to start is with simple words (for children) and conjugations of common verbs (for those older than that).

After learning a fair bit of phrasial construction, everything else starts flowing in more easily. Including tourist phrases

 

One thing we were usually taught in our English/French/Whatever courses was the country's culture. I recall having to talk about the US states, the Brittish Royal Family and the immigrant situation in France. That was quite helpful, and certainly raised interest in my class.

[chairdriver]

Sweet and romantic, isn't it? The sparrow symbolising his unrequited love for his dear Lesbia.

 

Except the sparrow isn't a symbol of his love. It's a symbol of his friggin' penis. The point of the poem? He's gone impotent. But try reading some of those lines again with that symbolism in mente. That's hardcore porn material right there.

 

Catullus stuns me.

 

We studied that exact poem at school. Our teacher was pretty lame, and I remember he started chuckling to himself when he told us that Sparrow and Ostrich were the same word in latin. We all sat there like "..."

[Noodleman]

I did German for GCSE got a C, the only times ive used it since have been to woo two German girls (100% success rate). I have no idea what I said probably something about a monkey being in the tree.

 

I'm planning on going down old South Americany way at some point in the future for an extended period of time, so i'm going to start learning some Spanish for that.

[chairdriver]

Latin's pretty filthy is general. Everything has something to do with sex, somewhere.

 

We were studying Cicero's In Verrem, and at one point in his speech he accuses Verres of having been promiscuous in his younger years, with both men and women - and the teacher went on a 10 minute tangent talking about the attitudes towards homosexuality in Rome, and Greece, which was pretty interesting (and creepy), and then the only girl in the class (there were 4 guys and a girl) pipes up with "I just don't get homosexuality.", and then instantly one of the guys says "Ruth, we all question whether you get sexuality in general."

 

It was just the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life, considering she was a 19 year old fat munter with the worst skin and social life you could ever dream up.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I've got a lot of spare time on my hands now, so I'm going to make a bigger effort to get more acquainted with the language of people from Belgiumland. More specifically, Dutch or Flemish.

Nothing to do with your squeeze being native with that language of course

 

 

I, like many here was forced to learn French, muchos boring. A few years back I tried learning Hieroglyphics, and more recently Welsh as I have a friend I went to uni with and was gonna move down there. I got one of those "interactive" DVD things which only tells you so much, IE, not a lot.

[Paj!]

It was just the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life, considering she was a 19 year old fat munter with the worst skin and social life you could ever dream up.

 

LOL! Rude, considering we've been to her house before.

 

But she did stalk my family (literally) to the point of insanity. We had to leave the country for her to stop. (okay, we were going on holiday anyway, but that's beside the point).

 

She was really bad in English too. In the middle of some great philosophical debate about the themes of To the Lighthouse, she just said, "I...don't GET To The Lighthouse." *silence* "Well, I GET it. I just don't like it." We were just like GTFO PLEASE.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Nothing to do with your squeeze being native with that language of course

 

 

I, like many here was forced to learn French, muchos boring. A few years back I tried learning Hieroglyphics, and more recently Welsh as I have a friend I went to uni with and was gonna move down there. I got one of those "interactive" DVD things which only tells you so much, IE, not a lot.

 

Course it has, sucker.

Although, I did have a very good Dutch friend before that, but the language seemed too strange for me to actually speak. But, seeing as I may be going there quite a bit, and being around her family a lot when I am there, I probably should make more of an effort to learn. I feel a bit of a tart sitting there, smiling and nodding, and speaking using basic but broken phrases.

 

Whoa dude, you're learning Welsh? Crazy bitch.

I wanted to learn Hieroglyphics, but when I was younger I didn't understand how Egyptians actually communicated thrown spoken language. I thought you'd speak what you saw. So..."foot, hand, fish, fish." It didn't make sense in my head!

[Pookiablo]

Flinky's question: The UK education system does indeed do fuck all to promote learning languages, which is a plus for me as I got into a top UK university, most probably because competition wasn't so great for the course but fucking irritating too. So many people are like "Why learn languages, everyone speaks English anyways". This is ignorant. Go live in another country and you'll realise that it's very much like it is here, only a few people will be able to converse with you in broken English. The company I worked for in the centre of Paris, had French as the office language and surprisingly few people could fluently speak any English. Having a language or two by your side is really a great asset, especially in today's globalised world.

 

Razz: I agree with playing games in other languages, it's amazing what pearls of wisdom you'll find.

 

...Und der Sieger ist...Ness!

 

EDIT: Damn I'm tired and making mistakes

Edited September 7, 2009 by Pookiablo

[Fierce_LiNk]

Flinky's question: The UK education system does indeed do fuck all to promote learning languages, which is a plus for me as I got into a top UK university, most probably because competition wasn't so great for the course but fucking irritating too. So many people are like "Why learn languages, everyone speaks English anyways". This is ignorant. Go live in another country and you'll realise that it's very much like it is here, only a few people will be able to converse with you in broken English. The company I worked for in the centre of Paris, had French as the office language and surprisingly few people could fluently speak any French. Having a language or two by your side is really a great asset, especially in today's globalised world.

 

Razz: I agree with playing games in other languages, it's amazing what pearls of wisdom you'll find.

 

...Und der Sieger ist...Ness!

 

That mindset which you point out does annoy me, too. A lot of people would probably be happy if the whole world did just speak one language, or if there was one culture, and not too many of these people are in a hurry to visit different places. Maybe for a holiday or something, and then they use English to ask for directions to the bar, heh.

 

I guess we are quite lucky in the respect that English is widely spoken, or used widely in music and films. So, in that sense, unless people actually want to live or visit outside of the UK, there just isn't a need for them to learn an additional language. It's a shame as language is a way to connect to different people, or to begin to connect to their culture. I might be wrong, but I think a lot of people in Britain are quite apprehensive about doing that, and would rather keep themselves to themselves? Maybe, but then its a generalisation, not everyone would be like that.

[rizz]

I did French at high school. I hated it, which I blame a lot on my teacher :P In GCSE I got a D. Then I finished school, I thought that was it with French. Addmittedly I was never much cop at the languages, but somehow remained in the (bottom of the) top classes.Then when I was in France a short while back I met a girl over there and it's funny how quickly things can change :P

 

It was actually since last summer I thought about trying to pick up French again as I was over there for a festival which has become my favourite. However, for 1 weekend a year, it's hard to get yourself to actually do anything about it. But since I met this girl it's a bit more encouragement, even though she speaks ok English anyway. She wants me to go over and visit her so I imagine that will be great for learning.

[Pantsu Man!]

I don't remember what happening at the beginning of my High School life, I think I started with just French first. Then Spanish got introduced a year later which we all had to do for the next 2 years aswell as French. Then in Year 9 you could choose your subjects and you had to choose a language because we suddenly became a language college.

Even though I was in the top set for both languages nothing has stuck with me. I never thought I'd do well at all with either of them. Hell I thought the double L in Llamo (that's name isn't it?) was a capital U. Only after a few months did I finally realise my mistake.

I also took Italian extra classes which I didn't actually pay attention to and so nothing stuck. My school, I found out in Year 10, was meant to be linked with a Japanese school but because of HSBCs strong ties with China, or something, they linked with a Chinese school and so extra Chinese lessons came up. I'm annoyed I didn't do this, but I distinctly remember it being on at dinner time on a Thursday. No idea why I didn't go.

I was really, really interested in China and learning the language but then, suddenly out of nowhere, one day in Year 10 my mind suddenly skipped across some bodies of water and I became infatuated with Japan. Ever since then I've been trying to learn the language. After 5 years I've got the hiragana and katakana nailed, and only now am I starting on the kanji. The hiragana only took me a few weeks to learn...

Oh and there's also Russian/Ukrainian which I know how to read and write. I also understand a few words but I will never be able to hold conversation.

Life story ahoy!

[T-3]

Interesting to see that so many people on here have experience with German

I'm from Germany, so it's obviously my mother language.

 

My 2nd best language is English, though it probably became a little rusty, ever since I left school. I also had fairly good grades in French and I can still understand some of it, but I more or less lost the ability to say something in it.

I had Latin too, and although it wasn't exactly my forte, I can still understand some basic stuff.

 

About a year and a half ago I tried to teach myself Japanese. I made it to a point, where I could read kana and build some basic sentences, but I had to take a break from it due to limited time. I guess I'm going to restart soon.

At some point in the future I'd also like to learn Spanish and Italian.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Whoa dude, you're learning Welsh? Crazy bitch.

I was, I haven't done anything since writing down all the words given from the DVD, as such you can't string many sentences together.

[Ten10]

Well it is my first day out of the country and I've already forgotten the one Portuguese word I learnt. Goodbye. B something......

 

I mildly remember French and Spanish from school, picked up a few Japanese words and phrases here and there, but that is about it.

[Raining_again]

Interesting to see that so many people on here have experience with German

I'm from Germany, so it's obviously my mother language.

 

My 2nd best language is English, though it probably became a little rusty, ever since I left school. I also had fairly good grades in French and I can still understand some of it, but I more or less lost the ability to say something in it.

I had Latin too, and although it wasn't exactly my forte, I can still understand some basic stuff.

 

About a year and a half ago I tried to teach myself Japanese. I made it to a point, where I could read kana and build some basic sentences, but I had to take a break from it due to limited time. I guess I'm going to restart soon.

At some point in the future I'd also like to learn Spanish and Italian.

 

I wouldn't say that you have rusty English, not in written form anyway!

[Ganepark32]

@ Paj - haha. I had that once with the Rector where it was a 1 on 1 speaking test in his office and I had the sheet of paper in front of me which I was to prepare for the talk with and when it came to him asking me the stuff, I just went 'What?'. He just stopped and said to go. A lot of my class had it actually. Was an all to often occurrence and he didn't like it. Best was we had done essays the previous lesson and he walked us into the classroom, kept us all standing and throw a pile of papers down on the desk in front of us, spouting 'You know what these are? These are a bloody disgrace.' And went on to say how he'd never had so many bad essays in his teacher career, blah blah. Made us sit for 40 minutes doing German vocab revision. Situation was made worse by the fact after all the shouting he said 'Oh Chris, your essay was pretty good actually.' I just sort of sank in my seat.

 

He was a nasty teacher but you certainly came away from his lessons at the end of the year being able to speak the language.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

Latin's pretty filthy is general. Everything has something to do with sex, somewhere.

 

We were studying Cicero's In Verrem, and at one point in his speech he accuses Verres of having been promiscuous in his younger years, with both men and women - and the teacher went on a 10 minute tangent talking about the attitudes towards homosexuality in Rome, and Greece, which was pretty interesting (and creepy), and then the only girl in the class (there were 4 guys and a girl) pipes up with "I just don't get homosexuality.", and then instantly one of the guys says "Ruth, we all question whether you get sexuality in general."

 

It was just the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life, considering she was a 19 year old fat munter with the worst skin and social life you could ever dream up.

Haha, exactly! Who's to say Latin is a boring language to read?

 

It's funny, at my gymnasium, there are about 2/3 girls and 1/3 boys, and the same goes for my Latin/Greek group. We were originally 2 boys and 7 girls. 2 have left the group, but we're still outnumbered! :p It doesn't help that both our Latin teacher and our Greek teacher is female as well.