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What languages do you speak, are learning, or want to learn, and why?

LiquidMethod said:
"The Number of Languages you know is the Number of Times you are Human"
I've always thought that to ring true.

Jamshyd, our known languages are quite similar.Are you serious about Hebrew being easy? I guess it would be compared to Arabic.
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Nice quote :)

Hebrew, like Aramaic (another one I'd like to learn eventually), feels like a prototype for Arabic, which is pretty much what it is. Since all semitic languages follow a similar mechanism of trilateral-root verb construction, extrapolating meaning from one language to another can be easy. Since modern hebrew is a simplified form of Biblical Hebrew, that makes it doubly easy for a speaker of another semitic language to learn. The biggest hump in learning Hebrew, I find, is the orthography (which is probably the reason why people find it daunting). I also find that, for some reason, my slight dyslexia kicks in when I try to read Hebrew.

Btw, if you can't roll your Rs, you will have absolutely no problem learning Japanese =D.

LoveAlways: I believe the Chinese language you're looking for is actually Mandarin, since Cantonese, to my knowledge, is focused in Hong Kong and surrounding area. It did sound more interesting than Mandarin when I heard it the first time passing through HK airport.

I cannot imagine what a nightmare it would be for someone to learn Arabic from scratch. The cursive (and probably unintuitive) orthography, strange pronunciation, limited geographic distribution, and impractically-wide dialectic variation would have been enough to have made me uninterested. Then you have the problem of Standard vs. Conversational Arabic.

Except for maybe Iraqi and certain dialects of Syrian Arabic, Conversational and Standard are mutually unintelligible, making them practically two different languages (or three, or four, as you move from east to west). Assuming all this was not a problem, you then find yourself greeted by a mountain of seemingly pointless grammar that only makes sense after years of study (sort of like math). I have done Arabic all of my life and my (and most native speakers') grammatical level is still middle-school! I suppose in a way this is also the fascination with Arabic, since the grammar gets so complex and sophisticated it takes on a life of its own.
 
I now regret my marked lack of foreign language skills. I have only broken Spanish from high school. If I ever have kids, I would like to put them in a foreign language immersion school and get them learning their second language as early as possible (preschool, not high school).
 
My native language in English, I took French in HS for a year and retain a little, I took several years of Spanish in HS and college so I know enough to get around a bit. I took it in HS as an asset for field service but in college it was lliberal arts and I had to. I learned some Welsh in Wales as part of my field study of welsh culture. Those are the main words, the others Czech, German, Latin, and maybe a few others I know a couple words in :).
 
I speak English as it's my native tongue and sign language as my grandparents were both deaf.

I can sometimes get by with German but I'm far from proficient. Two classes in high school and some other stuff I picked up online.

Tag! Meine Deutch ist nicht sehr gut aber ich knalst sie Mutter.

Oh and I also speak a lot of computer languages :)
 
But the one I would really love to learn is Xhosa. It's spoken by 18% of the South African population and contains tones & clicks. (The "X" in Xhosa is a click sound). I thought it would be easy, but it's not like clicking your tongue, there are 5 different clicks and some come from deep in the throat. I don't know how useful Xhosa would be, more for my amusement than anything.
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Thats awesome!!
 
Im learnin spanish poquito from bein one of 5 white girls in my school but its only spoken i cant write it. more than half the girls speak spanish so i be catchin on more n more. i want to cuz ima b movin there eventually n how ima live somewhere n not speak the language thas mainly wat everybody talks out there? paterson got a very high hispanic population so it jus makes sense, i dot care whether english is "supposed' to be wat ppl speak or watever, u get in where u fit in, everybody is a minority sometimes so it aint nothin. plus i love bachata n reggaeton n alot of diff. spanish music so i can sing along better n kno wat im sayin :D
 
I've noticed something in my experiences some people whose native tongue is arabic. They seem to learn Spanish rather well with almost little or no accent. I'm not sure if this has something to do with their language or maybe I just came across people who can pick it up quickly.
 
My first language is English, and enjoyed 12 years of French Immersion. I still think a bit in 'Frenglish', but not as much as when I was younger. I'd hate to think what would happen if I tried to write something. Bloody French verbs.

I also speak a bit of German-- enough to be understood on basic things, and almost enough to follow the thread of a slow conversation. Much of my family's German, so I'd like to get more fluent. And if you speak English, it's a really easy language to learn.

On top of improving my German skills, I'd like to learn Mandarin for shits and giggles, and maybe a conlang. Quenya would be cool.
 
English and Spanish.. i cant speak spanish well, but i can carry on a conversation with someone somewhat and i know what my gparents are saying when they yell at me :D

i would like to learn Zulu.. just to throw people off
 
I want to learn more French because it sounds so nuanced, smooth, and sexy, and I want to learn more German because it is sounds so precise, exacting, and somehow Klingon like. Also, I would like to learn Dutch because it sounds like some kind of funky dialetic of English that makes sense to me on some kind of deep, guttural level.

Also, Sanskrit would be nice.
 
I speak english but am close to fluant in spanish (took 7 years starting in middle school, went through AP 5). I had no idea how useful it would be until I moved across the country to a state where a significant portion of the population speaks broken english at best.
 
Fluent: English

Academically taught: Latin, Japanese.

Self-taught: French.

Have recently been going back over Japanese and learning French, will probably be studying these both at university next year as part of a 3rd degree entirely devoted to language and linguistics. Also, want to learn Chinese as part of this.

Why all this effort?

(1.) Fascianted with languages and their mechanics (got 1st/40,000 people in final year English) and have a natural knack for them. So, ENJOYMENT.

(2.) Want to go into media/advertising; France is where a lot of major MNCs in this area are based and want to eventually retire to the South of France, drink codeine all day and write English/French poetry based on the epic Latin verses of Homer, dramatics of Sophocles and shorter poems such as Virgil's playful commentary of life. Thus, SELF-FULFILMENT.

(3.) Finally, from a purely BUSINESS perspecitve I want to start my career off in East Asia: China for it's growth and potential and Japan because I love their PEOPLE/CULTURE.

So there's 4 reasons.

If there is time, German would be next.
 
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I've been taking spanish in school (with a few short breaks) since 2002. I first started doing it because I realized that latin would be too hard, but then I actually reaalllly fell in love with it. I work in restaurant kitchens, so it's been super useful to me already, and that's a good way for me to at least get a little daily practice when I'm not taking a class.
Anyway, someday I hope to move either south or west, so it's definitely a plus to be bilingual spanish/english. plus, after my stupid art degree is finished, I'm either going into nursing or something in the veterinary field, and in this day and age, I think it's pretty absurd that so many medical and service industry professionals don't have the ability to communicate with the ever growing Hispanic population in america.

I was going to do study abroad in Quito for this summer (i'd still be there now!) but it couldn't work out if I ever wanted to graduate.
 
I took 3 years of German in high school, and four years of Italian in college. I can converse in both, but far from fluently.

My undergrad major for a while was linguistics, and I taught English as a Second Language for a few years.

If you want to study a foreign language, start as early as possible! The younger you are, the easier it will be, and the less-pronounced your native accent will be.
 
StarOceanHouse said:
I've noticed something in my experiences some people whose native tongue is arabic. They seem to learn Spanish rather well with almost little or no accent. I'm not sure if this has something to do with their language or maybe I just came across people who can pick it up quickly.
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becuz in arabic they roll their R's as well. that seems to be like the #1 thing that ppl got a problem with whe they learn spanish n it aint their natural language. the palestinian girl at my school could pronouce shit in spanish mad easy i kno jus wat u mean .
 
lacey k said:
becuz in arabic they roll their R's as well. that seems to be like the #1 thing that ppl got a problem with whe they learn spanish n it aint their natural language. the palestinian girl at my school could pronouce shit in spanish mad easy i kno jus wat u mean .
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There is some truth to that, yes. Besides the Rs, we can also pronounce the guttural H ("kh") of some peninsular spanish dialects very easily.

But I'm guessing that Spanish is particularly easy for most people on this forum is that cognate conversion to English is so simple.

For example, almost all spanish words that end with "dor" are the exact same as their english counterparts that end with "tor".
Elevador - elevator
Creador - creator

There are thousands of such examples as well. For a big resource on this, I recommend Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish by Margarita Madrigal (artwork courtesy of Andy Warhol ;)).

Btw, one curious thing I found is that, for some reason, my brain tends to easily mix up Hebrew and Russian while learning those languages, both in speaking and writing. This doesn't make sense as the two languages are completely unrelated as far as I know...
 
^^ Similarly, every English word ending in '-ion' is in fact French.

So creation, masturbation, option, caption, administration, etc are all the same.

Ofcourse you give it the sexy French 'cion' type sounding ending.

%)

Had a look at the Russian alphabet a while ago.... will be leaving that out of the picture for the moment, lol.
 
I speak English as my mother language; Dutch fluently as my standard, everyday language; rudimentary German and French; and medical and housecleaning Spanish. I would like to learn Italian and broaden my Spanish, as they are such beautiful languages.

I'd love to speak French, but it seems so hard. Very beautiful, but to me it just sounds like little birds singing.
 
my first language and english:)
i wanna learn arabic and old hebrew cuz im very interested in torah and quran and wanna study them:)
 
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