Languages

[lulu]

Ooh I'm glad this topic already exists!

I can ask basic questions and follow along with SOME conversations in Spanish. Not enough to consider it a second language, most of it has been passive. I was put in some immersion classes in grade school and have always lived in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. So that's pretty cool.

The household I grew up in spoke Tatar, I know a few words but it was never a language spoken TO me, just.. around me. I find it very comforting, and I'd love to learn it eventually, but resources to learn from English are scarce at the moment.

The language I'm actively learning is Russian... I'm always a bit nervous about people making assumptions about that, for reasons that we won't go into here.. we all know. There's a lot of Tatar history and family history that's locked behind this language, and it's a cool language to be honest. Learning the alphabet was easier than I thought (even cursive) but some cyrillic letters def have threatening auras. ф_ф Д_Д  I know it's going to take me years to gain actual proficiency but the little milestones feel great. This youtuber Language Simp has a video that sums up my feelings pretty well!

Anyway, learning languages is a roller coaster! I'm certainly gaining points in Humility. I'm curious if the other language learners have any stories to share, success stories or embarrassing ones?

[kurohaato]

English is my native language, though I also speak some French and I'm currently trying to learn Latin. Emphasis on trying.

I can also read and write hiragana, katakana, and some kanji/hanzi, but I have no knowledge of Japanese outside of the occasional loan word.

[Cobra!]

I went to Italy last week. We went to visit family in a village that’s basically in the middle of nowhere, on a hill.

Anyway, since my grandmother is no longer with, it was on my to translate everything, as I was the only one visiting that knew Italian.

Surprisingly, I didn’t struggle at all! I even understood people at full speed, provided of course they don’t use words I haven’t learned. It felt great!

I guess it might because we were in a country that uses the language all of the time, it felt easier to use it, because I had no distractions with any other languages. Only the occasional question from my mum and sister, and most of them were to translate into the language.

I don’t think my speaking was as up to snuff, though, but I was able to get my message across without much problem, and any problem I made I noticed after I said it. I can imagine if I lived there for an extended period of time, my grip on the language would be a lot stronger.

Either way, I think with that I can finally call myself fluent :D
I will practice more, though and make sure I’m even better the next time we go. I’ll be going to Rimini in the middle of July, and hopefully go to a big meetup happening near Milan at the start of that month, but I need to save up for that.

I’ve wanted to work towards a situation where I can live in Italy for a good chunk of the year and basically call it a second home for a while now, and my experience last week as strengthened it!

I can also read and write hiragana, katakana, and some kanji/hanzi, but I have no knowledge of Japanese outside of the occasional loan word.

I can read Katakana myself because I’m on and off learning Ainu, and can read Japanese loan words as a result, and it’s bizzare. Some game menus in Japanese games are Katakanised English, so depending on the game, I can say I can get by with Japanese!

I also know Cyrillic and Hangul but don’t know any languages that use them. That’s because I studied Russian and Korean briefly for a “Language Jam”, and never got past the point of learning how to read them.

[Memory]

I've been casually studying Japanese on and off for... oh, probably the last 20 years. Sounds impressive but not much has stuck yet tbh haha

But I've just moved in with my fiance and there's a plethora of Japanese-language games and manga there that I can use to practice (plus having each other to practice on will help). We'd both like to at least be able to hold a conversation and be confident we won't be horribly lost sans GPS before we end up making a trip to Japan.

I used to know a bit of Chinese as well, but it's been ages since I used that (about 15 years). Man, typing that makes me feel old ahaha. But having that knowledge did give me a boost in my Japanese studies re: Kanji at least so huzzah for that.

[lonelyjuly]

Stoked to see this topic exist!
I've been studying ASL (American Sign Language) pretty frequently for the past 2.5 years and I'm absolutely in love with it. It's such a beautiful language and I believe that it's fairly easy to get into.

I've also been trying to learn French for a while, but that's very on and off. I only know basic conversations, and even then I can't say I'm okay with that 

[Skykristal]

German is primary language, English is the one I learned. Primarily myself. I had English classes in school but I was terrible. I can also speak 2-3 words russian, French, Japanese and Spain. XD I'm not actively learning however.

[Nocturneon]

I speak English as my native language and understand Japanese near-fluently. I don't speak Japanese as well as I can understand it, but the same could be said about my English in some cases too. I've been trying to learn German off and on for about 6 years.

[Coby Cat]

My native language is Dutch, but I find myself preferring English. I think differently in English than in Dutch, if that makes any sense.

As for the languages I don't think in: I know enough French to get by professionally, and I can probably somewhat get around in German (as long as I ignore all the grammatical cases). I took a short Spanish elective in high school, but I never really got much out of that.

As for learning, my English pronunciation could use some improvement. Can't pronounce th at all, I just fake it. Ideally I'd brush up and expand my knowledge of French, but there isn't enough need for it to motivate me.

For media consumption reasons, knowing Japanese or Chinese would be useful. But I don't think I have the discipline to learn a non-western language with a non-latin alphabet, and there are so many other things taking up my time.

[shevek]

I was raised to be bilingual, with German and English, and visited schools offering bilingual programs (like several subjects taught in English etc.), but I still have an accent. I don't mind though.
Other than that, I learned Latin, Italian and Spanish in school, but being taught all three made it hard at some point because I had trouble keeping them apart, they can be quite similar. Since I don't use them, I've lost the skill aside from being able to translate everyday stuff.
I've also been learning Swedish on and off for a few years, and speaking is difficult and stuttery for me and I need a lot of time to prepare my sentences, but I can read and understand it well.

[devils]

Other than being a native Portuguese speaker and fluent in English, I kind of can read French. I got myself into Duolingo for a while, that got me to know the basics, but really what helps me the most is reading comics (unrelated, but France has an amazing comic book culture, lots of good stuff is published over there).

Portuguese is an interesting language, actually. Every country where that's the main language has their own expressions of course, but even the grammar can change from country to country, which I find to be pretty neat.

[Memory]

Fortuneatly, I have German as a native language, which means 0% conciousness needs to go into the grammar rules when talking, because German grammar is very complicated.

English must be the master of short words. When translating things inside a character limit from English to German, things can get really difficult. English, the language for the whole world. I hope it stays as simple as possible.

French is music. Spoken art. Not as important as back in the day, when French was "en vogue" for everyone who thought something of himself or herself like 200 years ago, but what a beautiful language to listen to. I'd like more coherence between the written word and the spoken word though.

The Hungaro-Finnish connection is interesting. Two countries, far apart, but they talk similarly. I wonder if the weather made the tone of those languages sound different. You know, Finnish is a bit rough and harsh, Hungarian sounds rather light hearted. And who could take this seriously --> Törökszentmiklós. But both Finnish and Hungarian have the concept of singing the language, so to have the tone raise up and down rythmically while speaking. Very astonishing to my German ears. I guess German is best used for giving orders, so there are different priorities.

[grovyle]

Went out looking for this thread specifically, glad to see it exists! I'm at a bad spot rn for motivation, and wanted to feel everyone's vibes regarding language learning hehe

My main languages are Spanish and English, I've become less humble over the years and just say I'm bilingual now, since there's virtually nothing I can't understand in both languages (except for some accents that are wildly different from mine, but that's true to any language I guess). I learn English through videogames, private classes and social media mainly, and I'm so glad I did because I was exposed to slang very early on and am now pretty comfortable using it.

And for the past three years I've been learning French. I honestly hated the language before having to learn it, and I don't love it now, but it's a welcome challenge. Basically without revealing too much, I want to move to a country where they speak French and one of the requirements for getting the permanent residence/citizenship is being really good at French. So I'm working on it! I took classes for a year, tried to teach myself for another year, and now I'm back to classes and listening to the ocassional podcast, youtube video or tv show in French, but I like taking classes best at this point. Once I'm a bit more proficient (I'm at about A2 level now) I think I'll skip the classrooms and just keep learning by myself. But there is wayyyy less content/sites on French than there are in English, and they're used by less people, so it'll be harder than with English I think. Earlier this year I also made a French friend which is happy to help me, and I'm planning on spending a year in France in the near-mid future to speed up the process. Very excited to see where that takes me!

[PurpleHello98]

My first language is English, but I've been learning French for about thirteen years now! I started when I was a little kid, and went to a French immersion school for a while! I was literally fluent at age six. But sadly, after a while, I had gone through both the grades that school had at the time, and had to go to an English school instead, so I regressed a lot. I'm slowly but steadily picking it back up, however! At this point, I'm either A2 or B1---According to Duolingo, I'm in the A2 unit, but it's somewhat too easy for me, although I'd say grammar is my strong suit---some of Duolingo's A2 vocab is a little shakey, but I know the majority of it and I believe every grammar concept there, too. So I'm pretty proficient, I guess, since I can understand a great majority of the French I hear whenever I listen/watch/read/etc., although I really need to work on watching/listening to more French, and trying to familiarize myself with other accents. (The Quebecois accent is very jarring and a little bit distressing to someone who only grew up talking to teachers, etc. that were French and Belgian.) Also, I've been taking Latin classes since 6th grade and I'm learning Korean on Duolingo! Although the Korean is going a little poorly with memorizing verbs.

Went out looking for this thread specifically, glad to see it exists! I'm at a bad spot rn for motivation, and wanted to feel everyone's vibes regarding language learning hehe

My main languages are Spanish and English, I've become less humble over the years and just say I'm bilingual now, since there's virtually nothing I can't understand in both languages (except for some accents that are wildly different from mine, but that's true to any language I guess). I learn English through videogames, private classes and social media mainly, and I'm so glad I did because I was exposed to slang very early on and am now pretty comfortable using it.

Once I'm a bit more proficient (I'm at about A2 level now) I think I'll skip the classrooms and just keep learning by myself. But there is wayyyy less content/sites on French than there are in English, and they're used by less people, so it'll be harder than with English I think. Earlier this year I also made a French friend which is happy to help me, and I'm planning on spending a year in France in the near-mid future to speed up the process. Very excited to see where that takes me!

I wish I had French friends! I have a French-speaking friend, but that's because he went to the same immersion school as me. I think it'd be really cool to have a French pen pal or something!

[deuil]

english is my second language, i really want to learn lithuanian. i tried to self-teach myself a few years ago, with apps and whatever i could find online, but i didn't get that far unfortunately, and had to stop after a few months.

i wonder if i could do something with my site to journal my language learning and make me get back into it...

[BlazingCobaltX]

I love the process of learning languages, especially how they relate to the languages you already know! For a bonus assignment in uni I wrote a paper on two language learning experiences I had, and why one was more congruent with theories on second language acquisition.

On a native speaker level, I speak Dutch, Farsi, and English. I am grateful that my mom put a lot of effort in teaching her children Farsi, her native language. She was always patient with explaining the whys and hows of the language, and as a result I am more proficient in the language than other heritage speakers. As for English, it goes hand in hand with Dutch.

The main language I'm trying to improve is Spanish. I had a long route with this one: It was my elective for most of secondary school, yet I could hardly speak it. I eventually went to study abroad in Spain, and my mission statement was as follows: "If I don't speak Spanish after living there, I will give up on it entirely." Thankfully, it was there that the language finally clicked. I had become a pretty good speaker by the time I left. Unfortunately, there are very little opportunities for me at home to practice. My level is kind of between someone that uses Duolingo and someone that can jump right into a conversation; I find it hard to figure out what learning materials I need. I try to keep my skill up by engaging with Spanish content, especially memes these days.

Additionally, I learned Chinese during a summer school course. It was short, intense, but I retained a lot of the study material. I can still read some hanzi too! I had dabbled in Japanese as a teen, but kanji was far too daunting. Being able to read some hanzi helps with deciphering some Japanese as well, although I am not studying either language at the moment.

I can read Cyrillic Script (though I don't know a single language that uses it; I wanted to learn Mongolian, but couldn't find helpful resources really. Same story with Pashto, which is why I'm learning Arabic instead).

I find it curious that you are learning Pashto via Arabic. How come your interest in the language?