Languages

[Belldandy]

Reviving a thread I made a loooOOoonnggg~ time ago.

• Which languages do you speak?
• Which are you learning, or have you learnt (in school, for example)?
• Which would you want to learn?
• Does anyone else in your family speak another language?

• If multilingual, which language was the hardest to learn from experience?
• If multilingual, were there any sociological factors that aided in learning another language?
• If multilingual, what difficulties did you face learning another language?
• How do you think multilingualism will affect employment opportunities for you in your area?

• If monolingual, do you find that only speaking one language limits your employment opportunities?
• If monolingual, what difficulties have you faced in life and online knowing only one language?
• If monolingual, what are your reasons for being so?
• If monolingual, which language do you believe would be the hardest to learn, and why?
• If monolingual, have you ever encountered a language barrier, and how did it make you feel?

I speak French and English. English is my mother tongue; French is my second language. I can read quite a bit of Spanish, too, but don't ask me to have a conversation lol

I'm the only one who speaks French in my family. My father lived in Quebec as a youth, but that was thirty some odd years ago so he's forgotten all of his french other than "père" and "merde" lol

I took French in school, but also lived in Quebec for a while. Although school offered an OK foundation in the language, being in Quebec really fueled the proficiency. I attribute my bilingualism mostly to having spent that time in Quebec.

I'm gifted in languages, so rules and deviations don't phase me. I find it easier to learn a language than to learn maffs.

As for work, where I was born (and lived for most of my life) there was little French influence, so it didn't really mean anything to employers to know French. In Quebec, it was obviously a bigger deal since where I was living was primarily francophone. Now I'm in Ottawa and I'm one of two people (of fifty or so) who speak French at my work. I've had a few French conversations, too, in the four shifts that I've done. I expected more bilingualism honestly, but the supervisors are happy to know that I speak French because sometimes they do get French customers and no one can really communicate with them. Typically, they know French and another language i.e. Arab, so English would make them trilingual and doesn't happen too often, especially so close to the Quebec boarder.

When voting in the poll, keep in mind that if you can't hold a long conversation with decent vocabulary, then it's not high proficiency. If you can't write an essay in that other language, it's not high proficiency. Knowing a few words and being able to ask directions or ordering in a restaurant =\= proficiency equating to bi/tri/multilingualism. It's just a basic understanding / foundation.

 

[Aether★]

I'm bilingual. I speak Polish as it's my native language and I am learning to speak English since I was five, so it's like for 18 years. The funniest thing is that I learned it via watching cartoons, because back then cartoons in Poland were aired in English (Cartoon Network for sure).

I have uncle (who is 7 years older than me) who speaks English normally, because he lives in Great Britain for like 8 years.

As for myself, I'd learn Japanese if there would be good opportunity. I like that language.

First finally!

 

[Nathan]

I speak Creole(popular language in the Caribbean archipelago), French and English. Creole is my native language, I grew up with French as a secondary language and I learned English through books and games.

All my family speaks French and Creole. I'm the one who speaks English fluently.

I'd also like to learn Japanese, Chinese, Italian and Portuguese.

 

[Sether]

I speak English and Arabic, fluently. I learned Arabic when I spent three Summers ago in Egypt for vacation and picked it up at my university when I returned. I've visited Morocco, Dubai and Algeria in the last 2 years and I pretty much mastered speaking the language. It's still a difficult language in terms of syntax.

I'm currently learning French and Portuguese.

 

[Nah]

I can only speak English ;_;
Would be nice if I could speak another language.

I did take 3 years of German in high school and 2 semesters of it in college....but I don't really remember most of it, so its not like I could even make small talk with someone. Know a few Japanese words, but that's it.

I wouldn't say that it really limits my employment opportunities (or at least not yet) since English is the preferred language here in America. Never really had any issues yet in life being monolingual because everyone I've ever had to interact with at all speaks English well enough. So that's also part of the reason why I'm still monolingual; never really needed to speak any other language than English. As far which language I think would be the hardest to learn.....any of them? But I hear that Chinese can be a ♥♥♥♥♥ to learn.

I have to admit, I'ma slightly jealous of you people who can speak other languages.

 

[Oryx]

I wish America had more of a stake in learning other languages because it's easiest to learn when you're very young but we don't care that much because English is so widespread so we don't teach it until older and then it's harder to learn. >_o

Anyway I have a passing understanding of French - I'm working my way through a French visual novel and my main issue is vocabulary. I don't think I could have a conversation in it though. I want to go to France someday to live in the language but I hear that unless you're in a more rural area people can see an American tourist coming a mile away and switch to English, partially to make you happy and partially to practice their English. :(

 

[Firox]

I'm Bilingual! I was born and raised in the USA is main reason I speak English, most of my family came from Mexico so I also speak Spanish. When speaking English my Spanish accent is always present.

• Which languages do you speak? - English and Spanish

• Which are you learning, or have you learnt (in school, for example)? - I remember in school I took French, didn't learn much. Want to learn Latvian, have no one to teach me or practice.

• Which would you want to learn? Like I mentioned above Latvian.

• Does anyone else in your family speak another language? Both my mom and my grandma know a Mexican Indian language (don't know what it's called), but they rarely spoke in it.

 

[Lotus the Cat]

I'm monolingual :(. I, like others posting before me, wish I had the proper opportunity to learn a second language when younger. Australia is like the U.S.A. in that respect.

We have a lot of different immigrants here, so it's not clear what would be the most useful second language. I think the top three would be Greek, Italian and Chinese for practicality. In primary school and high school I had Italian language classes, but they weren't particularly good and all I can really remember is:
Il cavalo (the horse)
Cosi cosi (so-so)
Buongiorno (good morning)

 

[Altairis]

I wish America had more of a stake in learning other languages because it's easiest to learn when you're very young but we don't care that much because English is so widespread so we don't teach it until older and then it's harder to learn. >_o

Or if the classes we took were actually trying to get us to learn instead of just having the class for the sake of it. I was required to take French from kindergarten to fourth grade and by the end I could only say 3 sentences and understand nothing. I mean, all our teachers talked to us super slowly as if we were stupid, so even if I had learned anything I wouldn't have been able to understand anyone else speak.

I am pretty good with Spanish. I'm not fluent and I still struggle with some particles / conjugations. I'm also not very good at choosing which tense to use sometimes because my school wouldn't tell us if we were saying anything wrong. I just learned the future tense this year, and had been saying "Voy a..." for years and nobody ever told us we were wrong and just hadn't learned the proper way to say things lol. But I could probably read anything and understand a good majority of it. I want to get better!

I can understand a lot of Japanese, but I can't speak that well or read at all (dumb Kanji D:). Working on it!

 

[Sopheria]

I'm fluent in English, which is my native tongue, and Japanese, which was my minor in college and I was an exchange student there. I know a lot of Spanish and can understand it about 70% of the time. I mostly learned my Spanish from my family growing up, and don't have that much formal education in it, so I can't really call myself proficient or anything.

At some point I'd be interested to learn French, but I know pretty much 0 at this point :(

 

[Candy]

Which languages do you speak?
Fluent in English and Indonesian. English since that's my first language, Indonesian because that's supposed to be my mother tongue, but it ended up being my second language.

Which are you learning, or have you learnt (in school, for example)?
I once learned French when I was young. Note that it was when I was only 4, and I never spoke French ever since, so don't ask a single thing about that.

Then there's Chinese, Arabic and Japanese. Chinese was back at elementary, while Arabic only lasted for a year. I learned Japanese in High School, but since I just recently graduated I have to start self-studying Japanese, since it's a language I really want to master.

Which would you want to learn?
Latin? idk though, but it's a beautiful language imo.

Does anyone else in your family speak another language?
Maybe my father has a language he normally speaks with his side of the family? Other than that, I don't think anyone speaks another language. My sister's quite good in Chinese though, but since none of us understand Chinese that well (at least, I've been out of practice for 5 years), I have yet to hear anything Chinese from her.

 

[curiousnathan]

Which languages do you speak?
English is my mother tongue, but I can also speak a little bit of Arabic and Turkish.

Which are you learning, or have you learnt (in school, for example)?
I did not learn a language at school, because my school is stupid.

Which would you want to learn?
I want to learn my mother tongue, Arabic.

Does anyone else in your family speak another language?
My father and the rest of his family speak Arabic.

 

[Shining Raichu]

I ticked monolingual but I'm more like monolingual and a half. I did five years of French in high school and was the top of my grade each year, so while I wouldn't go so far as to say "I'm bilingual" I am pretty skilled at it.

 

[Alexxturnerr]

I can speak English and Sign language but I want to learn another language when I go to university eventually.

 

[Ivysaur]

Which languages do you speak?: Spanish, English, and I have enough understanding of Catalan to seamlessly follow a conversation, though don't ask me to reply back.

Which would you want to learn?: There is no language that particularly attracts me right now, sadly.

Does anyone else in your family speak another language?: Nope. My aunt tried to learn English but she has serious issues to construct simple sentences and my dad tried to learn Catalan but... he got as far as I did.

If multilingual, were there any sociological factors that aided in learning another language?: My main motivation were: a) being able to play games in English (back when consoles didn't have region locks and games were released in Europe a few years after they were out in the US, good times), b) being able to read the Harry Potter series without having to wait a year for the translation (good times), and (in Catalan), c) being able to watch the local TV stations (back when Valencia had a local TV station, good times).

If multilingual, what difficulties did you face learning another language?: That Spain is an insultingly monolingual country, where everything is dubbed and translated and you have to actively look for anything to practice English with. Luckily my school gave me classes since I was 5 and, well, thank you internet.

How do you think multilingualism will affect employment opportunities for you in your area? "Hey, the US Ambassador is giving a press conference and none of us speak a word of English- could you go to the Palace hotel for the event?" (real line from my former boss at work last year).

 

[Apollo]

Which languages do you speak?
English is my first language - my mother tongue, and the language I'm most comfortable in speaking. Tagalog is the primary language in our country, and it's also my mother tongue. Lastly, I can also speak Dutch; a language I've learnt since 2012, and I've significantly improved since then. :D

Which are you learning, or have you learnt (in school, for example)?
During fifth grade, our school introduced Spanish classes. The thing is that they didn't really take it seriously and you don't get graded as well. Eventually, the classes died out but I could tell the school never really cared of it. I've attempted to teach myself German, Italian and French.

I find French quite easy so far, the pronunciation for me was easy to get the hang of, but I'm not fluent in the grammar rules and I'm not that good in the vocabulary part yet. German is easier, since I know Dutch and those two languages are closely related. Italian is meh atm, but it's a beautiful language.

Which would you want to learn?
Icelandic! :D It sounds really magical, kinda like the language of fairy tales. It's hard to learn though. I also want to learn Croatian, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.

Does anyone else in your family speak another language?
They all speak Tagalog and English.

 

[caller_100]

I'm only fluent in English, but I can handle German pretty well. I'm going to be living in Germany next year, so I'm hoping that when I get back I'll be able to speak it really well! So far I've studied it for three years in college, but classes only get you so far.

 

[Juno]

I'm fluent in English and Chinese. I was born in Canada so I've been educated in English since pre-K, but we primarily speak Cantonese at home. When I was about 5, my parents enrolled me in a Chinese school so I could learn to read and write in Chinese, too, and I continued with those classes until I was about 14 or 15, so I can read a fair bit of Chinese.

I'm also trying to learn a bit of Mandarin too, since it's a more widely spoken dialect than Cantonese. I took French in high school, but didn't take it too seriously so I didn't retain much from those classes, unfortunately.

 

[Megan]

Well there's German as my native language and English. While I had English lessions in school for, like, eight years, or so, I'd probably say my main knowledge mostly came from English video games, English LPs on Youtube and a lot of Linux stuff. xD

I've also had Latin for about six years in school, but I've already forgotten most of it...

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

American English is my mother tongue (a mixture of dialects from as far south as Carolina and as far north as Ohio, and everywhere in between those states), but I also can fluently understand and write British English, Australian English, English English, Scottish English, Irish English, and Canadian English; if I listen for a bit I can also understand Indian English and Jamaican English. Oh, and I'm also very fluent in reading, writing, speaking, and listening to Ebonics.

I'm the English Dialect Connoisseur.