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Are you multilingual?

Otenba

Maverick
Are you multilingual? What languages are you fluent in already?
Have you started studying any new languages? How well do you think you're getting on with learning them?


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I decided to take up learning another language properly originally in preparation for a holiday abroad, and after that, I've just tried to keep that education going for a hobby. I have mostly done this through self-study, and nowadays by using phone apps, though I have managed to arrange lessons with a tutor a few times. Tutors migrated back to their home countries so the lessons stopped. Sadly I am not fluent in any other language yet, especially in comparison to my English (which is my mother tongue), but I feel my progress has been reasonable considering how much I work on learning.

When I was at school, I was given the opportunity to study both French and German as separate classes and when the GCSE exams were on the horizon, I was told my strongest language of the two was French so I took that for my exams. That didn't turn out very well; I don't think I cared enough about learning a language at the time - just going through the paces because, as always, schools have a standard to try and meet. I cannot remember what my enthusiasm levels were like for Japanese at that point despite my interest in anime.

Later, I barely learnt any Japanese for my first trip to Japan in November 2007, but this wasn't too much of an issue because I travelled with three other people and one of them (my now husband) was at a higher level of study than the rest of us combined, so helped to tackle any language barriers, but also the fact we stayed in Tokyo helped a lot too. For my second trip in March 2011, it was just my husband and I that went, and I had done a lot more studying of the Japanese language and found it only added to the overall experience. I was still not good enough to hold a decent basic conversation though. We had plenty of Japanese people come up to us to practice their English which was funny.
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I hope to go to Japan again in time for the Olympics being held in 2020 since my husband wants to attend that, so I have also started using smartphone apps alongside other resources to keep my Japanese learning going. My husband and I are also big tabletop gamers so I have also decided to pick up German again, ready for when we go to Essen Spiel someday. I cannot remember much of my lessons from school, but thankfully, learning resources for European languages are easy to find.

I did get over enthusiastic when I first started using the language apps for Japanese and German, that I started trying to learn Russian and Korean but I dropped them for now since my mind felt overwhelmed. I will try again at some point to learn them, and I also want to try learning Klingon for fun someday.
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I have also had the luxury of finding people online and knowing people who also speak the languages I am trying to learn. I appreciate the challenge of being able to understand what they are saying to me using my own memory instead of an online translator. It has been quite fun!

How about you?
 
I speak English, in a rather broad Yorkshire accent. I also speak very basic French, and Klingon (meh, I'm a Trekker from way back).

I wouldn't mind learning Japanese or Chinese though, I know how to say hello and goodbye in Japanese (Konichi-Wa and Sayonara) and from my Karate training I can count up to 10 in Japanese, "Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, Go, Ro, See, hatch, Ku, Ju"
 
I speak English and Danish. I only learned Danish through full immersion - 2 years living in Denmark. That was over 20 years ago and I have no one to practice it with now, though I do occasionally listen to Danish talk radio on Tune In Radio, to try to keep my skills up.

In school, I had 2 years of Spanish and never got past the point of slowly translating every word in my head. I later took 2 years of German and had the same experience. For me, full immersion is the way to go.
 
I have learnt a few languages over my lifetime - I speak English (native tongue), German, Greek and Romanian (fluent), French (used to be quite fluent but out of practice now), Spanish, Italian (basic) and some Polish and Russian that I picked up.
I started a thread here where you can practise writing in another language:
Write something in another language.
 
I also speak English and Danish, I learnt Danish after getting into Scandi Noir and I just had a weird affinity for the accent and language, I was pretty fluent within 3 months but I'm at the point now where I can even think and dream in Danish and my phone's language is Danish too. I can understand Swedish and Norwegian as a result too. I can understand Welsh really well and speak it a bit but after 20 years I still cannot grasp the grammar so I don't think I ever will.
 
I had to do Latin and French and German at school. I was really bad at learning another language so my mother sent me to Paris just before my exams and I just passed my French. I went to live in Germany and in the classes I gave up when they were talking about elephants and penguins. My brother became a German and French teacher. I am in a Spanish speaking country right now and wish that I could communicate. I can go shopping and do a few things but I struggle. I even had to have lessons in speaking English when I was 8 as my grandmother thought I had a problem. One good thing is that when I get threatened by people with guns I just tell them I don't understand and walk off.
 
I speak some Cat, next to no Dog,
and a little Chicken. Occasional
Coyote or Owl.

I have studied English, Spanish, and Latin.
English is my native language.
 
I did French and Spanish at school, but I've forgotten most of both, I could just about manage to order a drink in a French Pub though, erm, "Je Voudrais un Beir sil vous plait, merci" and if Dad was with me I'd order "Et voudrais un juice d'lorange sil vous plait, merci beaucoup"

But most people on the Continent speak decent English nowadays so it's not a major issue, and even if it was I have Google Translate on my phone.
 
One language! But I don't think it's anything to do with Asperger's... I was born and raised in Alberta, still live here... My dad was Russian and mom was British... My dad never taught any of his four children Russian, we only spoke English growing up...

Living where I do, when I was younger I never saw much need to learn anything other than English... People in more densely populated areas of the world seem to learn more languages, I work with many immigrants who know multiple languages, often as many as five...
 
No, I just know English. I took Spanish in high school but I was very bad at it. I took a bit of sign language in middle school but I don't remember much.
 
We are very shielded from any other culture around here. I did room with a guy from Finland in college though.

So no. Don't really care for what I call the big 3 (Spanish, French, German). Spanish actually irritates me.

Now I get a lot of odd feeds on my dish, and I find myself fascinated with some Taiwanese dramas with English subtitles, and watching them speak. Mandarin I believe it is. If there was anything I'd learn it'd probably be that.
 
Nope. Was always good with French in school but never took it past Grade 9 when it became voluntary.

If the silly idiot who basically decided my GCSE subjects for me had let me take French, I might've passed the exam.

But no, I was forced into Art and typing as well as the compulsory subjects, maths, English and Science.

And I failed everything :(
 
Not fluent in it, but I know a bit of Spanish. It's not enough to get me anywhere, but I can translate bits and pieces of it.

I would like to be bilingual at the very least (English/Spanish), useful skill to have here in my neck of the woods but that's going to take a little more dedication.
 
No, I just know English. I took Spanish in high school but I was very bad at it. I took a bit of sign language in middle school but I don't remember much.
That's a point that I forgot about ... I am very curious of sign language. A lot of learning options are available online though a lot of them are American Sign Language which I'm not sure is worth learning when I'm in the UK. Need to do more research at some point.

We are very shielded from any other culture around here. I did room with a guy from Finland in college though.

So no. Don't really care for what I call the big 3 (Spanish, French, German). Spanish actually irritates me.

Now I get a lot of odd feeds on my dish, and I find myself fascinated with some Taiwanese dramas with English subtitles, and watching them speak. Mandarin I believe it is. If there was anything I'd learn it'd probably be that.

Have fun if you're gonna try tackling a Mandarin Chinese! I hear the Chinese language variants are very difficult to learn because of the tones and sounds being so complex.
 
That's a point that I forgot about ... I am very curious of sign language. A lot of learning options are available online though a lot of them are American Sign Language which I'm not sure is worth learning when I'm in the UK. Need to do more research at some point
British sign language is easier if your joints aren't supple as it's two handed .
I have a dictionary of British sign language I would love to learn it but my memory is terrible now .
 

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