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

I grew up with English my entire life. My aunt, grandpa and Uncle spoke Italian growing up, so I knew it as a little kid, understanding it, and only spoke a little of it.

Took Spanish all throughout grammer and high school. It helped me when I went to the Dominican Republic.

I've been learning Arabic for the last 4 years. And it's the only language I actually caught onto. Belive it or not, it's one of the hardest languages to learn, and I picked it up very quickly. I can understand it 99% (Someone from Jordan) and I can speak it pretty good as well. My husband is fluent in Arabic and English, and writes beautifully in Arabic. I love it. It really is amazing. So that's how I picked it up. Plus all my workers are Arabic, so I hardly ever listen to English.

Maybe one day I'll learn how to write a sentence in Arabic. That would be beautiful.
 
^ Lemme guess, you're in the pizza industry in the greater NYC area? It's gone from an Italian-dominated to an Arab-dominated industry in one generation :)
 
Actually... No :D

We own our own plumbing, heating and air conditioning business. I still prefer Italian Pizza over Arabic Pizza any day of the week.
 
purepremium said:
I've been learning Arabic for the last 4 years. And it's the only language I actually caught onto. Belive it or not, it's one of the hardest languages to learn, and I picked it up very quickly. I can understand it 99% (Someone from Jordan) and I can speak it pretty good as well. My husband is fluent in Arabic and English, and writes beautifully in Arabic. I love it. It really is amazing. So that's how I picked it up. Plus all my workers are Arabic, so I hardly ever listen to English.

Maybe one day I'll learn how to write a sentence in Arabic. That would be beautiful.
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That is quite an accomplishment! Arabic is HARD!!!! A friend of mine is from Morocco and throws me a word or two here and there (which I quickly forget).

I wonder how much translators make. That would be a cool gig
 
My first language was Russian, but then I moved to America and now I speak mainly English.

I am learning French right now because I love that language. You could say "I have to take a major shit" in French and it still will sound beautiful (:
 
I am a native speaker of American English, and in terms of my regional dialect I'm definitely a born and raised NYC kid...I switch to more of a "standard" English in an academic setting though, it really depends who I'm around. I also have training as a linguist, so that gives me a whole different perspective than many have.

I've taken some Spanish, a year of Ancient Greek (it's next to impossible, and useless, I don't suggest it), 5 years of Latin (I LOVE LATIN, a lot...for you guys that know it, check out some Catullus poetry, if I had a time machine he's the one person I would love to meet) and recently took some German in college. I suppose with a little effort I could carry on a VERY basic conversation in German, and my Latin has gotten pretty weak at this point, but an ex-bf of mine and I would try to speak to each other in it on occasion, since we were mostly taught translation and that's about it.

Why languages? They are fascinating. Especially direction, German has a whole complex system for that. I'm more of a fan of learning ABOUT languages than learning the languages themselves. My family are standard NYC Italians, but for some odd reason I have little interest in learning it. I think if I decide to one day, I'd rather learn Sicilian, since it has much Greek and Arabic incorporated into it...Arabic is also on my list on long-term things to do.
 
I took a few years of latin, which is not actually a spoken language but... it's been a helluva help deciphering word roots & meanings!
 
BeckyLee said:
I took a few years of latin, which is not actually a spoken language but... it's been a helluva help deciphering word roots & meanings!
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Yep, me too hun! I learnt Latin for 3 years in high school and like you, it's constantly helping me decipher words, and especially in science e.g. species names. You can sometimes tell what the animal or plant is and what it would look like purely from the species name! Pretty cool :)
 
Being that I'm rubbing shoulders with Mehico, I try to soak up as much spanish as possible. I'm not fluent by any means, but I can usually converse with somebody. I just have to ask them to slow down because it seem like Spanish speaking people talk so damn fast.

I took a little bit in high school, but I've learned more through various jobs and just life in general. I'm always asking(annoying) all my Spanish speaking friends how to say certain things and all that. And not cuss words or crude shit, legit stuff :)

I know a lot of jobs pay a LOT more $$ if you can speak the espanol.
 
Wow. Some of you guys make me feel quite ignorant. I am a writing/literature major from the United States and the only language I know fluently is English. I know some Spanish (enough to read it), but I can't speak it or comprehend spoken Spanish. Realistically, I am going to become fluent in Spanish at some point . I am taking Spanish courses every year of college until I graduate (I am determined!) and am spending this winter break, which is a full month, traveling in Spain by myself. But Spanish and English are not enough for me. I am someone who has based his life around words.

The language I truly want to learn is Latin, and that will be much harder. I obviously will have no opportunities to travel to Latin-speaking countries. But I think, as a scholar of linguistics, it is critical that I become fluent in Latin at least within the next 5 years (by the end of my masters program). I am not taking Latin courses this semester, but plan on taking them starting next semester and onward. I believe it will help my understanding of English, which is the language I have based my career - and life - upon.
 
I speak English. I studied French for 5 years and Spanish for 1 year. However, since I didn't fancy the idea of going to France, I've lost a lot of it since it's been 7 years since I stopped studying it. Luckily my current roommate and I still speak French to each other every now and then (he's an English speaker, too, though).

Would really love to learn Spanish and Portuguese. Hoping to spend a good chunk of time in South America at some point, so it'd be nice to able to communicate with people to some degree. Also have quite a few friends whose native tongue is either Spanish or Portuguese and I'd love to be able to converse with them that way! Every time I learn a little bit it makes them so happy! :)
 
leiphos, if you're serious about Latin, you might consider doing a sojourn in Romania. They speak the closest living language to classical Latin (much more so than Italian, believe it or not). Some educated Romanians can read classical Latin without any training.

Lithuania is another country that a lot of language nerds like. There you'll find the closest living language to the Indo-European proto-language. It's surprisingly similar to Latin and classical Greek too, from what I've been told.
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
leiphos, if you're serious about Latin, you might consider doing a sojourn in Romania. They speak the closest living language to classical Latin (much more so than Italian, believe it or not). Some educated Romanians can read classical Latin without any training.

Lithuania is another country that a lot of language nerds like. There you'll find the closest living language to the Indo-European proto-language. It's surprisingly similar to Latin and classical Greek too, from what I've been told.
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Ooh thanks for the tip :)

Will be reading ancient history and Latin next year at uni.
 
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