What language(s) do you/ would you like to speak?

[Haven]

Wow, I''m impressed that so many of you are fluent in mutliple languages.

As for me, English is my native language, and I grew up taking Hebrew classes and speaking it every summer in intensive Hebrew sleepover camps. I wouldn''t say I''m fluent, but I can read, write, and speak Hebrew quite well. (Both biblical and modern Hebrew)

I took Spanish from the 7th grade through college, so that would be ten years of classes. I wouldn''t say I''m fluent in Spanish either, as I''ve never lived in a Spanish-speaking country, but I can read, write, and speak Spanish, and I have no problem communicating with students'' parents who speak only Spanish.

And that would be it for me: English, Hebrew, Spanish. How utterly boring compared to all of you!

I would love to learn Latin, I wish I had attended schools that required Latin. My family is German, so I''d like to learn German as well, as I can only understand the key words and phrases. What else? Italian and French are beautiful, I''m going to Greece this summer so it would be nice to speak Greek. Hmmm . . . I think I''d like to learn as many languages as possible, really! And THEN I''d like to travel to every country that speaks each language! Arabic is interesting, too, it sounds so similar to Hebrew that I think I could pick it up.

 

[Selkie]

I took Spanish in high school, and still remember a fair amount of vocabulary, but the grammar trips me up. I can usually understand 50-75% of Spanish conversations between native speakers, which can be very entertaining. I can''t speak it very well because I get self-conscious and trip myself up. DH was born in Cuba, but moved to the US when he was a toddler, and learned to speak English from watching TV. He''s still fluent in Spanish though, and I''d hoped to re-learn by immersion, but it''s not really happening. He and his mother converse in the most egregious Spanglish ever, switching languages mid-sentence. His dad speaks minimal English, and the Cuban accent is pretty tricky (they drop word endings right and left) so I have a hard time understanding their conversations. I really need to get the Rosetta Stone software or something.

I''d love to learn some obscure language, like Basque or Breton, but I definitely do better with Romance languages. I seem to have a knack for spotting Latin word roots, so I think I would have rocked Latin if I''d ever had an opportunity to take it.

 

[nebe]

I speak English fluently and I'm learning French from my FMIL, FH refuses to teach me. If I could have any superpower, I'd want to fluently speak any language I heard. Seriously.

Unfortunately I'm terrible at languages, I took 4 years of Spanish and I can only ask if I'm allowed to go to the bathroom

.

The languages I wish I definitely could speak are:

- French (Parisian French, and Canadian French [I'm learning Canadian, my future family speaks fluently]),
- Spanish for practical reasons,
- Italian because I want to move to Tuscany,
- Russian because there are a lot of Russians in my area,
and probably
- Korean so I could understand what the manicurist is saying about me. LOL

 

[upgrading mama]

I am bilingual in Greek and English. (I am 100% greek and grew up speaking greek in the house.)

I can get along in conversation with french and spanish, but I definately understand more than I can express in those languages.
I definately should relearn more french, since I live in Canada and with our business we get a lot of people visiting from Quebec and it would be helpful!

 

[Deelight]

My first language was Serbian though I was born in Australia though as my mother used to tell me when I went to kindy I was teased and from that day forth I resolutely refused to speak any other language apart from English, mind you I could understand perfectly, kids are massively cruel creatures. When I was 9 mum took me to visit relies in Yugo and in about 3 weeks I relearned the language so now I am fluent in both English and Serbian, can read Serbian Cyrillic and can understand most Slavic languages enough to get the gist of the conversation. It is funny listening to my sister and I speaking as we float through either language fluently without missing a beat dependent on which serves us better. I also know minimal French most of what I knew learning it for 5 years in high school has been lost ahhhh one day I will learn it again.

I would really love to re-learn French and possibly Japanese I am fairly good at learning language I think it is the nice thing about being raised bi-lingual.

 

[Delster]

Date: 11/21/2007 7:57:48 PM
Author: SanDiegoLady

Date: 11/19/2007 1:11:24 PM

Author: Delster

I forgot to add the languages I''d like to learn! I wish I spoke French properly, I''ve never studied it but it just sounds soooo romantic to me. I''d love to improve my Italian. Spanish sounds like so much FUN to speak, I''d love to give that a try too! My long time wish has been to learn a Slavic language - Russian, Czech, Croation, Polish. One day!


Hmmm, just remembered now that knowing German also means I can read Dutch and catch the gist of it. I can''t speak it at all and can''t really follow conversations in it. Had forgotten that.


Hey SDL and somethingshiny I read once (I think it was in a Bill Bryson book) that modern American English is actually closer in pronunciation to the English spoken in Shakespeare''s day than Received Pronunciation is. I found that really interesting, since it''s often implied (over here, anyway!) that American English is somehow inferior and so many dramatisations of Shakespeare use RP as if that''s the ''ideal'' in English pronunciation. So don''t knock American English too much!

Really? I''m SHOCKED! lol Oh my stars.. we simply use SO MUCH SLANG! lol

Oh but so did Shakespeare!!!

 

[Alienor]

I am bilingual in French and English.

I know spanish and latin but lost most of it, while trying to perfect my english.

 

[anchor31]

Date: 11/21/2007 10:32:50 PM
Author: nebe
I speak English fluently and I''m learning French from my FMIL, FH refuses to teach me. If I could have any superpower, I''d want to fluently speak any language I heard. Seriously.

Unfortunately I''m terrible at languages, I took 4 years of Spanish and I can only ask if I''m allowed to go to the bathroom

.

The languages I wish I definitely could speak are:

- French (Parisian French, and Canadian French [I''m learning Canadian, my future family speaks fluently]),
- Spanish for practical reasons,
- Italian because I want to move to Tuscany,
- Russian because there are a lot of Russians in my area,
and probably
- Korean so I could understand what the manicurist is saying about me. LOL

Nebe, is your BF French Canadian from Qc?

 

[Lill_The_Thrill]

My mother tongue is Armenian, and we speak it in our home.

But i was born (and still live) in Sweden, so I speak Swedish fluently

I speak/write fluent Persian

I speak fluent English, (lived in the US when I was younger), I need to work on it though, I'm pretty rusty

I speak french on tourist-level, and understand some arabic.


I would absolutely LOVE to be able to speak french fluently, It's such a beautiful language.

 

[nebe]

Date: 11/22/2007 3:19:44 PM
Author: anchor31

Date: 11/21/2007 10:32:50 PM
Author: nebe
I speak English fluently and I''m learning French from my FMIL, FH refuses to teach me. If I could have any superpower, I''d want to fluently speak any language I heard. Seriously.

Unfortunately I''m terrible at languages, I took 4 years of Spanish and I can only ask if I''m allowed to go to the bathroom

.

The languages I wish I definitely could speak are:

- French (Parisian French, and Canadian French [I''m learning Canadian, my future family speaks fluently]),
- Spanish for practical reasons,
- Italian because I want to move to Tuscany,
- Russian because there are a lot of Russians in my area,
and probably
- Korean so I could understand what the manicurist is saying about me. LOL

Nebe, is your BF French Canadian from Qc?

He''s from the town we live in but his family is from Qc.

They visit for two weeks bi-yearly and none of his aunts or uncles from there speak fluent English (which leaves me out of the loop unless FMIL translates for me as FH forgets

). His grandparents on his mother''s side live here but they have such heavy accents that I have a hard time following them. His parents speak CF to eachother and I''m beginning to be able to pick up the gist of conversations, but FH and his brothers don''t speak french unless it''s to his nephew (who is 1.5yrs and bilingual, lol) so I rarely pick up anything in our house.

I''m trying!

 

[Pandora II]

Date: 11/21/2007 10:32:50 PM
Author: nebe
I speak English fluently and I''m learning French from my FMIL, FH refuses to teach me. If I could have any superpower, I''d want to fluently speak any language I heard. Seriously.

Unfortunately I''m terrible at languages, I took 4 years of Spanish and I can only ask if I''m allowed to go to the bathroom

.

The languages I wish I definitely could speak are:

- French (Parisian French, and Canadian French [I''m learning Canadian, my future family speaks fluently]),
- Spanish for practical reasons,
- Italian because I want to move to Tuscany,
- Russian because there are a lot of Russians in my area,
and probably
- Korean so I could understand what the manicurist is saying about me. LOL

Don''t want to put you off, but I lived in Arezzo for 6 years and nearly went stark-raving bonkers.

I was sooooo bored by the end. It is unbelievably small-minded and provincial and I ended up longing to leave.

Yes, the weather in summer (-10 in winter) is gorgeous, yes it looks nice and the food/wine is good, and that''s why I was so torn about leaving. In the end I got very ill and had to go back to the UK for a bit - I am so glad I came back.

I speak Italian to mother-tongue standard and had loads of Italian friends, all of whom were very well educated, but all anyone talks about is local gossip and cooking - no-one can see further than their own town

.

I''d love to go back to Italy when I''m old - but it will definitely be either Como or somewhere very similar in the North. It''s just so much more cosmopolitan.

 

[anchor31]

Date: 11/24/2007 1:20:57 PM
Author: nebe

Date: 11/22/2007 3:19:44 PM
Author: anchor31

Nebe, is your BF French Canadian from Qc?

He''s from the town we live in but his family is from Qc.

They visit for two weeks bi-yearly and none of his aunts or uncles from there speak fluent English (which leaves me out of the loop unless FMIL translates for me as FH forgets

). His grandparents on his mother''s side live here but they have such heavy accents that I have a hard time following them. His parents speak CF to eachother and I''m beginning to be able to pick up the gist of conversations, but FH and his brothers don''t speak french unless it''s to his nephew (who is 1.5yrs and bilingual, lol) so I rarely pick up anything in our house.

I''m trying!

Neat! There aren''t many Qcers around here. I''m currently in Montreal for college; I grew up in a smaller town about an hour north from there. I can imagine how difficult it can be for you... There are many areas where most of the people don''t speak English at all, like my father''s family (although my father speaks it fluently) and my FI''s mother''s family. My mother''s from the Ottawa region, so my siblings and I learned from her when we were young.

 

[nebe]

Date: 11/24/2007 4:19:26 PM
Author: anchor31

Date: 11/24/2007 1:20:57 PM
Author: nebe

Date: 11/22/2007 3:19:44 PM
Author: anchor31

Nebe, is your BF French Canadian from Qc?

He's from the town we live in but his family is from Qc.

They visit for two weeks bi-yearly and none of his aunts or uncles from there speak fluent English (which leaves me out of the loop unless FMIL translates for me as FH forgets

). His grandparents on his mother's side live here but they have such heavy accents that I have a hard time following them. His parents speak CF to eachother and I'm beginning to be able to pick up the gist of conversations, but FH and his brothers don't speak french unless it's to his nephew (who is 1.5yrs and bilingual, lol) so I rarely pick up anything in our house.

I'm trying!

Neat! There aren't many Qcers around here. I'm currently in Montreal for college; I grew up in a smaller town about an hour north from there. I can imagine how difficult it can be for you... There are many areas where most of the people don't speak English at all, like my father's family (although my father speaks it fluently) and my FI's mother's family. My mother's from the Ottawa region, so my siblings and I learned from her when we were young.

I've never really paid much attention to where people are from on the boards, maybe I should

. I was supposed to go to Qc for x-mas with FH but I never got around to getting my passport, so now it's too late for me to go this year. I'll probably go for the summer trip though.

I've met several of his cousins when they came here, but I couldn't talk to most of them so I didn't really get to know any of them. What was translated for me I was astonished at though! His cousin Melissa had just had a baby when I met her, and they were talking about how mothers in Qc get a year off of work when they have a child! The whole breastfeeding thing is awesome too. People here are so up in arms about public feeding, which I think is stupid. I really want to go up to see everything, since I've never been to Canada at all. The only thing about their vacations up there is the fact they don't really go into the cities very much. It's all late night family parties and things of that sort so we'd have to stay a few extra days particularly for sight seeing.

 

[anchor31]

Date: 11/24/2007 5:21:36 PM
Author: nebe

I''ve never really paid much attention to where people are from on the boards, maybe I should

. I was supposed to go to Qc for x-mas with FH but I never got around to getting my passport, so now it''s too late for me to go this year. I''ll probably go for the summer trip though.

I''ve met several of his cousins when they came here, but I couldn''t talk to most of them so I didn''t really get to know any of them. What was translated for me I was astonished at though! His cousin Melissa had just had a baby when I met her, and they were talking about how mothers in Qc get a year off of work when they have a child! The whole breastfeeding thing is awesome too. People here are so up in arms about public feeding, which I think is stupid. I really want to go up to see everything, since I''ve never been to Canada at all. The only thing about their vacations up there is the fact they don''t really go into the cities very much. It''s all late night family parties and things of that sort so we''d have to stay a few extra days particularly for sight seeing.

Maternity leaves are about 40 to 50 weeks now for women (at about 50% salary), and we''ve been having a bit of a baby-boom since the reform in 2006! Women have babies younger, sooner than they had first planned. We do indeed have feeding spaces in a lot of places, and most people don''t even blink when they see a woman breastfeeding somewhere. I mean, why would they? I know what you mean about the parties not allowing a lot of sightseeing... I''m not a party girl and I''d much rather go out and explore!

Anyway, enough threadjacking... *blush*

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

I speak proper english fluently for which I am extremely glad.
I speak Spanish fairly well but would love to be fluent.
My Italian and Mandrin aren''t bad but I would LOVE to be more fluent in both.

 

[somethingshiny]

Date: 11/22/2007 6:18:19 PM
Author: Lill_The_Thrill
My mother tongue is Armenian, and we speak it in our home.


But i was born (and still live) in Sweden, so I speak Swedish fluently


I speak/write fluent Persian


I speak fluent English, (lived in the US when I was younger), I need to work on it though, I''m pretty rusty


I speak french on tourist-level, and understand some arabic.



I would absolutely LOVE to be able to speak french fluently, It''s such a beautiful language.

Lill~ What part of the country do you live in? I was talking to my Grandpa the other day, trying to get the correct pronunciations of some words. He said that with some words, the dialect is really off-putting. Since you live with it everyday, do you "hear" a big difference from one part of the country to another? For example: he said that tack sa mycket was sometimes pronounced with a long E sound (in much), and others with a long A sound.

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

In response to the shakespeare thing, French and English had a strange anomoly called the great vowel shift. It involved pronounciation changes but not spelling changes which is why neither language is very phonetic compared to the languages they are related to.
For those who fluently speak english and another language like german or italian, they will tell you that reading 'old' versions of the language are much harder in english for this reason. This change also removed a lot of standardized spelling so the word fairy for example had 13 different spellings in shakespeare's time.
Some things we say in the US are closer to shakespearean english and others are not. The adding the R after a word that ends in a vowel when the next word starts with a vowel, ex "louisar and..." is more recent than shapespeare and not done in most of the us. The american pronounciation of the word bird is nowhere close to how it was said in shakspearean times on the other hand.
Can you tell linguistics was part of my major?

 

[sera]

I really love learning to speak to people in their language. When I was 15, I worked at a deli owned by Koreans who started to teach me their language (they loved having this whiter than white girl come up to their friends and shock them with Korean). Then they sold the deli to an Arabic family who started to teach me, but then I quit. Later on I started to learn Tagalog from some Filipino friends but that didn''t pan out either. I do remember from Tagalog the all important, "Ibile mo ako diamante." (sp?)

I can usually understand the gist of my aunt''s Italian (she''s been learning it the last few years). I can also understand one of our students who has a language (loosely based on English) that is all his own, so my co-workers are always giving me the okay-transliterate-that-for-me-please look! lol

I speak Spanish (mas o menos) and know American Sign Language (and English of course).

I would

to learn Vietnamese, South Vietnamese Sign Language, French and whatever else seems fun/useful. I would like to try Rosetta Stone... the Vietnamese tapes I bought are a nightmare!

 

[curlygirl]

Date: 11/22/2007 6:18:19 PM
Author: Lill_The_Thrill
My mother tongue is Armenian, and we speak it in our home.

But i was born (and still live) in Sweden, so I speak Swedish fluently

I speak/write fluent Persian

I speak fluent English, (lived in the US when I was younger), I need to work on it though, I''m pretty rusty

I speak french on tourist-level, and understand some arabic.


I would absolutely LOVE to be able to speak french fluently, It''s such a beautiful language.

Lill, parev!!!! I thought I was the only Armo on here but glad to know there is another one!!!!

Although I was born in the US, Armenian was my first language. I grew up in Beirut so I spoke Armenian, French, Arabic and English as a young girl but after we came back to the states, only the Armenian and English stuck! I studied Spanish, French and Italian in high school and college and can have conversations in all 3 languages although I wouldn''t say I''m fluent in any of them!

 

[Delster]

Date: 11/25/2007 10:23:29 PM
Author: brazen_irish_hussy
In response to the shakespeare thing, French and English had a strange anomoly called the great vowel shift. It involved pronounciation changes but not spelling changes which is why neither language is very phonetic compared to the languages they are related to.

For those who fluently speak english and another language like german or italian, they will tell you that reading ''old'' versions of the language are much harder in english for this reason. This change also removed a lot of standardized spelling so the word fairy for example had 13 different spellings in shakespeare''s time.

Some things we say in the US are closer to shakespearean english and others are not. The adding the R after a word that ends in a vowel when the next word starts with a vowel, ex ''louisar and...'' is more recent than shapespeare and not done in most of the us. The american pronounciation of the word bird is nowhere close to how it was said in shakspearean times on the other hand.

Can you tell linguistics was part of my major?

Thanks for sharing this, it''s really interesting!

 

[Lill_The_Thrill]

somethingshiny,

Oh! so your Grandpa speaks Swedish?

is he originally from Sweden?

Well, I live in Stockholm, and YES! there's a pretty big difference in how we speak in Stockholm compared to other parts of the country. The Swedish spoken in Stockholm is the standard language while there are many types of dialects, the further away you get from Stockholm the more obvious does the dialect become. For example in Stockholm (which is located in middle part of Sweden) we pronounce the letter "r" -- "arrr" in the south parts they pronounce it "ghh", like "what aghh you doing". Some dialects are really hard to understand. I worked as a *cough* telemarketer in my teens, and our costumers were from different parts of the country, and i'd repeatedly say "excuse me, could you repeat that?!" 'cause I was having a difficult time understanding what the person on the other end was saying.

 

[onedrop]

As I read through the posts, I see there is a recurring theme of once being fairly conversive in a language and then losing it after not being able to practice it much. My husband is going through this same problem with French. French is not his native language but learned it in school and became fluent as he was born and raised in a former French colony. Now that he lives here in the US, when he calls his family in France he finds himself sometimes reaching for the right words while he''s talking.

As for me, I would love to learn my husband''s native language which is Wolof. I know the basic greetings and answers to the greetings, as well as certain key phrases if I need to get to a particular place. And of course I know the key words like "money" or "I need money."

Would also like to be more fluent in French and Spanish. And I''d like to learn to read Arabic and Hebrew if had the time.

 

[Lill_The_Thrill]

Date: 11/26/2007 4:43:09 PM
Author: curlygirl

Date: 11/22/2007 6:18:19 PM
Author: Lill_The_Thrill
My mother tongue is Armenian, and we speak it in our home.

But i was born (and still live) in Sweden, so I speak Swedish fluently

I speak/write fluent Persian

I speak fluent English, (lived in the US when I was younger), I need to work on it though, I''m pretty rusty

I speak french on tourist-level, and understand some arabic.


I would absolutely LOVE to be able to speak french fluently, It''s such a beautiful language.

Lill, parev!!!! I thought I was the only Armo on here but glad to know there is another one!!!!

Although I was born in the US, Armenian was my first language. I grew up in Beirut so I spoke Armenian, French, Arabic and English as a young girl but after we came back to the states, only the Armenian and English stuck! I studied Spanish, French and Italian in high school and college and can have conversations in all 3 languages although I wouldn''t say I''m fluent in any of them!

Curlygurl,

Barev! How fun! I never thought I''d bump into a fellow Armenian here!

 

[somethingshiny]

Date: 11/26/2007 5:38:37 PM
Author: Lill_The_Thrill
somethingshiny,


Oh! so your Grandpa speaks Swedish?

is he originally from Sweden?

Lill~ My grandpa was born in America. First generation. His mom and dad spoke Swedish in their home, so my grandpa grew up speaking both Swedish and English. My great-grandpa taught my dad, and my grandpa taught us (what little we know). We were little children saying please and thank you in Swedish! He taught us Swedish prayers, too. In fact our family pew was just passed on in Sweden. Our last relative there passed away. My husband is Swedish, too. (we''re both half Swedish). His grandpa was born here, too. Now our (almost) 2 year old is learning. We live in an area where several Swedes settled. So, if you say Thank you in Swedish, you''ll most likely hear a You''re Welcome in Swedish.

My great-grandpa moved to the US when he was 18 years old (1920''s). He chose the name Lofgren when he moved. (sorry, I can''t do correct punctuation!) Throughout the next decades, most of his and my great-grandma''s families moved to Illinois. I still had an aunt in the southern part of Sweden until recently.

I would love to visit some day. I think it would be so interesting to find out where the farm was and check it our. As I understand, it''s still farmland.

I don''t know much, but I always get a kick out of my grandpa telling me I''m saying it wrong. Apparently I said "I Love You" in such a way that he blushed. I don''t know what I could have said because he wouldn''t tell me!

 

[Phoenix]

WOW!!!! I knew PS''ers were an intelligent bunch with many having double/ triple degrees but what I didn''t know for sure (but suspected!

) was that many of you would be multi- lingual too!!

I''ve also enjoyed reading the how some of you have come to speak/ learn these different languages!! It makes me even more determined to learn and master French and Italian (sorry a bit boring there, but it''d do for the time being!!

).

WTG, PS''ers!!!

 

[HollyS]

Fluent only in (American) English, and I wish I was fluent in the Spanish I took for so many years in our public school systems, but alas, I am only so-so. Our priest and his wife were missionary''s kids; he grew up in Ecuador, and because he is fluent in Spanish, he''s brought a lot of it into our church in the last five years. I''m getting better, but nowhere close to fluent.