Languages!

[Tawg]

Remember that time I started teaching myself Japanese? I sure do, since it was like just freaking right now!

I think I need to take a good number of days and transcribe the Katakana and Hiragana over and over until I know what they look like, and their sounds, ya know, before I start trying to learn about words or sentence structure lol.

It'll be fun though, and then maybe I can brush up my French (4 years in High-school, but that was 5-6 years ago) and I'll be Tri-lingual, how fun would that be?

I'm kinda jealous of foreign nations, since most of their population grows up learning at least two languages. Maybe it's just me, but I find learning fun, languages especially (More like, everything especially). I feel like Japanese will be an easier language to jump into, or rather keep a grip on, since anime is a rather accessible medium that could expose me to the language on a more regular basis, since my French knowledge dropped like a rock since no one speaks it, and it's not used in any popular mediums hardly at all.

Anyone else have any experience learning multiple languages? Or Japanese? Or teaching yourself one without an instructor?

 

[Raven Torrid]

Other than my native language (Croatian), I have also learnt English and German...and Latin too for that matter, but that doesn't really count.

I have a list of languages that I'd like to learn someday: Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish ...but I'm afraid that won't be any time soon.
Had a short glimps at Japanese before, remember I saw that it has two alphabets, one for them and one for foreigners if I remember correctly? ...interesting concept.

 

[Zephyr]

I grew up in a multicultural family and have lived in two countries when I was younger so I know quite a few languages. It's also a hobby of mine to try and learn them.

A friend of mine is studying Japanese and having a really hard time. He just doesn't have a knack for languages but he plods on regardless and is actually managing to do some small talk now so kudos to him.

I'm fluent in (or at least think I am LOL); English, Dutch, Hebrew, Yiddish, German. I use these languages daily so not a lot of problems there though Germans hate me for using Yiddish words and not using der, das, dem, den and such properly...German grammar is a terrible beast! It's the hardest language with grammar rules IMO as it feels counter-intuitive to me.
I also speak Austrian and yes it's very different from German, my dad used to go on holiday there a lot and had some hiking friends over there who still visit us once every year or so.

Other languages I know but are a bit so-so are Italian, Russian and reading Sanskrit(though very vague now it's been years and yup reading only). The latter because I was studying Hinduism for theology and I figured knowing it would be handy. I also know a few Vietnamese words because I had a friend who was Vietnamese, pretty funny. I also know a few words and basics of Papiamento a language spoken on the Netherlands Antilles islands as my uncle lives there with his wife who is a native. I stayed there for a couple of months and no way was I going to feel like a tourist, well I DID feel like a tourist but not as badly as other people.

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

I know a little bit of Japanese, only words related to combat though (through Karate).
My experience of learning other languages is that I can't.
Being British, my knowledge of other languages just about consists of how to order a cheese sandwich or egg on toast in a few.

I am (slowly) teaching myself Old English (Anglo Saxon) and I find that you really need to be very interested in the country, culture etc. of the language.
Having somebody who's better than you to converse with would be very helpful I would imagine.

 

[Sanai]

I am fluent in gibberish, gobbledygook and technobabble.

I also can pretty easily understand a fair bit of Latin (most of it is fairly self explanatory anyway if you know medical/scientific terminology) Old English (mostly just english with a few differences) and the occasional words/phrases in german, french and greek.

I also know smatterings of Indonesian.


edit: I also know a fair bit of the languages of the Tau and Eldar, thought I won't admit to it for fear of being purged by the inquisition.

edit: I also know how to speak 3 different kinds of english- English, Australian Slang and American English. You would be surprised how many people can't speak even two of those. (Alot of americans often don't understand some of the things I say)

Heck, alot of english speaking people can't even speak their native language properly.

 

[Daoshi]

Interesting thread !

I am currently studying languages and applied linguistics here in Australia majoring in Mandarin ( Chinese ).

Language experience:

Italian
Indonesian
Japanese
Korean
Chinese
Finnish

Chinese is by far my most proficient language with Japanese being second. Regarding English, that is quite interesting as I have taught American, British and Aussie English overseas for about 4 years.

With that said, I have a tendency to use poor grammar/incorrect tense especially if I have been speaking in Chinese all day :slapface:.

 

[Sanai]

Its funny the little things that get confused when I speak to americans or even British/Irish people- the confusion between cookies and biscuits
(To me a choc-chip cookie is a cookie, while anything that isn't cookie shaked with choc-chips is a biscuit, but english people seem to insist on calling cookie's biscuits which I find confusing)
Then there are the people who are incredibly confused when one of us Aussies say "She'll be right"
Then theres the american I once knew who insisted that both Australians and New Zealanders were called "Kiwis". An Australian is an Aussie, not a Kiwi. New Zealanders are Kiwi's.
Then theres the difference between chips, fries and crisps- in Australia we just call them all chips.

Then there is the strange insistence of Americans to use the Imperial system of measurement. It is incredibly baffling that they would cling to such an inefficient, backward system. (Of course, I understand on an intellectual level that it was and still is due to the cost of retooling an entire country to a different system of measurement, but it is still such an awkward way to run things)

 

[Sweeney Todd]

Wow, quite a lot of multilingual people here.

I grew up speaking English, Mandarin and Cantonese. I also learned Japanese in the past though I'm rusty now. If we count computer languages as well, I know some C, C++, C# and Java.

 

[Bravo_10]

Everyone knows this is the real reason we use the Imperial system of measurement.

Also, I've learned to speak German pretty well through high school classes, and I also speak my native English of course. I am also capable of imitating a wide variety of accents, which comes especially in handy when you're running a tabletop RPG!

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

If we count computer languages as well, I know some C, C++, C# and Java.

So, C then?
I also am reasonably fluent in C++, I've done some C# too, as well as Delphi back in the day!

I haven't tried Java though, what's it like?

 

[hairyjeff]

If you speak 2 languages, you're bi-lingual
If you speak 3 languages, you're tri-lingual.
If you speak 1 language, you're british or american.
But why is most european graffiti in english?

 

[Tawg]

Its funny the little things that get confused when I speak to americans or even British/Irish people- the confusion between cookies and biscuits
(To me a choc-chip cookie is a cookie, while anything that isn't cookie shaked with choc-chips is a biscuit, but english people seem to insist on calling cookie's biscuits which I find confusing)
Then there are the people who are incredibly confused when one of us Aussies say "She'll be right"
Then theres the american I once knew who insisted that both Australians and New Zealanders were called "Kiwis". An Australian is an Aussie, not a Kiwi. New Zealanders are Kiwi's.
Then theres the difference between chips, fries and crisps- in Australia we just call them all chips.

I don't think I've ever called any cookie a biscuit; not to say I wouldn't understand if someone started that talk around me, but I'd ask for clarity's sake. I do call pop 'Soda' though, which isn't even the term people use where I live, I just prefer the word.

EDIT: Actually watching BBC shows is kinda fun to get the exposure to British terms/slang. One that was pretty heavily steeped in 'foreign English' (To me) was Skins, if you know that show. They were always throwing terms around different than I'd expect to hear, and with fairly moderate accents.. Plus it's a fairly interesting show.

Also, not knowing the context in which you'd be saying "She'll be right" I am also confused, since that is not a confusing statement on it's own?

But certainly there'll always be vernacular differences between regions, or different vocabulary use; Most especially across larger distances like the US compared to other English speaking places. That's not too troublesome, and usually easy enough to just go with. Although I feel bad for people who can't pick up differences in vocab easily.. that would be pretty awful.

I'd kinda like to learn Korean though, although I'm interested in learning a handful of any of the oriental languages (Is the even PC?) just to see how different they are from each other.. since I can tell they are, but I don't have a firm grasp on the specifics.

Besides, knowing multiple languages could only open up my prospects for jobs in the future, which is probably a good thing.

The only language I have no desire to learn really is Spanish, which is mostly from the fact that it's the one that has been shoved down our throats for as long as I was in lower public schools. I just kinda have an unreasonable dislike of it since they try to push it so much, it's probably a fairly useful language, especially around America I imagine.. Although I wouldn't mind living in French-speaking Canada, especially since it'd help integrate French into my daily life, which I would really not oppose.

Wow, quite a lot of multilingual people here.

Hm, I had figured as much. I actually assume that 90% of the people around here aren't from the US. I certainly feel like most of the people I see talking regularly on here are from Europe or Australia.

 

[Kyo]

Hmm languages eh

Well I can speak English as it is my main XD
I am fairly competent in Japanese
A long time ago I remember doing French in school
Work has seen me pick up some basic polish / Slovakian
My girlfriend is Malay so I can put bahasa on here too as she teaches me little snippets all the time

 

[desfer]

Nice thread. Well, i speak Greek which is my mother tongue, English and German. I would really like to learn Japanese. As for computer languages that were mentioned, i've used many of them in the past (C, C++, C#, html etc), but now the only one i remember and can use effectively is Java.

 

[Bravo_10]

Also, I just realized that we lost our country banners. There used to be a little US flag below my avatar, but now everybody's is gone...

 

[Undead Teapot]

I'm fluent in English and sarcasm. ^_^

Even though I'm of japanese decent I know only food names. Growing up in Los Angeles, I have picked up a lot of Spanish, in fact I surprise a lot of my customers at work by knowing exactly what they are saying.

 

[Johnny-Crass]

I speak drunken fool fairly well

 

[The Dead King Of Dead Stuff]

A thread about language? ah the joy of nodding and smiling as tourists mutilate your Language

I myself born and raised in Canada know both French and English and through French learned Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (which just sounds like someone whose been brained with a brick speaking Spanish) I am currently learning German, which isnt too diffacult and one day i hope to learn Russian as i have a great fake accent

 

[Johnny-Crass]

 

[Tawg]

Also, I just realized that we lost our country banners. There used to be a little US flag below my avatar, but now everybody's is gone...

You know, I totally remember those existing once upon a time.. huh, changed when they did that revamp that gave us the 'Online Auras' then? Odd.

A thread about language? ah the joy of nodding and smiling as tourists mutilate your Language

I myself born and raised in Canada know both French and English and through French learned Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (which just sounds like someone whose been brained with a brick speaking Spanish) I am currently learning German, which isnt too diffacult and one day i hope to learn Russian as i have a great fake accent

Oh com'on, not everyone speaks so poorly in languages that they are not native to :zombie: ..Although I hear plenty of people mutilate English here in America.. and they aren't even foreign..

Russian would be an interesting one to learn, I had a friend who's family was first generation immigrants (His mother was born in Russia), so I learned a few spoken words. But Russian shares one of the bigger leaps that Japanese has, learning a new alphabet.

[Snip.IMG]

LoL.. Oh English, your the bestest. Also.. while we're speaking of English being simi-retarded.. has anyone else's languages started picking up REALLY stupid words in their official dictionaries? Because the fact that popular culture, made up words, are making it into the dictionary is a bit.. disheartening. (I mean really? "D'oh"?)

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

Sometimes I see the attraction of New Speak in 1984.
The idea of a language that is actually shrinking and not expanding sounds like a good idea sometimes.

Maybe you could have that as the core language and local dialects add words as they see fit?

 

[Zephyr]

Also.. while we're speaking of English being simi-retarded.. has anyone else's languages started picking up REALLY stupid words in their official dictionaries? Because the fact that popular culture, made up words, are making it into the dictionary is a bit.. disheartening. (I mean really? "D'oh"?)

Yup Dutch is being mutilated as we speak...it's horrible as they are basically gangsta slang words and/or Anglicizations that hardly make sense if you know English and sweet baby jc most Dutch are terrible at English!
Funny is that they think they are good but really aren't. Just listen to Dutch politicians speaking in English and shivers will run down your back. I ask my Dutch friends to speak Dutch as their accents are horrible and I can't understand a word they are saying, especially as they use those made up Anglicizations...ulgh.

Modern Hebrew is a strange beast as there is an actual institution to make new words for things they didn't have back in Moshe's time like microwaves and such.
The problem with Hebrew is that there is the ancient version a modern one AND differences between Sephardic and Askhenazi pronunciation. We use more of a -sh sound instead of a hard -t due to the countries we lived in(Eastern and Western European) as opposed to Sephardim who lived in the Mediterranean and Middle-East.
Sephardim claim theirs is the closest to the original ancient Hebrew but research has showed that the ancient pronunciation isn't really either way and probably lost. We don't even know what a few words in Scripture actually mean anymore! Being hated and persecuted throughout the whole world in every age pretty much f-ed us up and I am amazed we still know Hebrew at all. Good thing study is considered super important, much like breathing thou shalt study!

Because of the Shoah(h.caust) Yiddish too was almost lost but thanks to a major revival it's more alive than ever before, Ladino is as good as dead though(Hebrew/Spanish/other mix language) as Sephardim no longer use it.
I hate it when languages truly die, it's more than a language that will be lost; it's a whole culture.

As for wanting to learn I still want to know some Polish and pick up Latin, I only know some scientific terms but I'd like to know actual Latin instead of the names of animals and plants.

 

[Harland]

I know a fair amount of classical Greek... you know, Ancient Greece. Not particularly useful as a second language.

 

[Sanai]

Also, not knowing the context in which you'd be saying "She'll be right" I am also confused

Its a phrase unique to Australians, sort of expressing our easy-going attitude towards things.
Its sort of like when people say "No Worries" it generally expresses the opinion that whatever it is will sort itself out.
For example-
Bob: *knocks over a can full of trash*
Jane: "Shouldn't we pick that up?"
Bob: "She'll be right mate, someone will pick it up later"
Sanai: (2 hours later) "What.... who the hell knocked this everywhere" *Grumbles as he cleans up the mess*


Also, what the hell is "Pop" apart from a style of music?

 

[Lynks]

I believe pop would refer to what we call soft drink Sanai