En español!

Started by Klippy April 29th, 2010 10:51 PM
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Klippy

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Age 31
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Seen December 4th, 2022
Posted February 19th, 2022
16,371 posts
17.4 Years
If you know another language, do you enjoy speaking it with people that know it also? How about speaking with native speakers of that language?

I do. I know Spanish pretty well (I think ;;) and my dad and I go to a Mexican restaurant in town and speak in Spanish to our friends that work there and they love to speak Spanish with us, since they probably have to speak English most of the day. I love speaking Spanish, so when we go to Mexico, it's always fun to surprise them that some gringo can speak it pretty well. XD

And along with that, World King and I are talking right now in Spanish and I'm enjoying it, so it brought about this thread idea. :>!

World King

Twilight Silver Beast

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Seen May 2nd, 2020
Posted June 26th, 2017
1,501 posts
15.8 Years
If you know another language, do you enjoy speaking it with people that know it also? How about speaking with native speakers of that language?

I do. I know Spanish pretty well (I think ;;) and my dad and I go to a Mexican restaurant in town and speak in Spanish to our friends that work there and they love to speak Spanish with us, since they probably have to speak English most of the day. I love speaking Spanish, so when we go to Mexico, it's always fun to surprise them that some gringo can speak it pretty well. XD

And along with that, World King and I are talking right now in Spanish and I'm enjoying it, so it brought about this thread idea. :>!
We don't just speak it, my friend; remember how I correct you when you get a few lil' mistakes. Recuerda las reglas esenciales del español, Klip.

And well, now that I'm mentioned, I enjoy speaking English almost everywhere. As you PC people mostly know, this is like my native language, and I manage it very easily. I will forever wonder how I became so good at it...
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Yusshin

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Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
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13.8 Years
I speak English and French fluently, and I know a bit of Spanish and Arabic :| Enough Spanish to understand, and enough Arabic to say fluffy nice things to my fiance xD and to catch certain words in phrases, but not understand at 100% yet << *s'gonna take a while"

I hate being anglophone. I only speak English when I have to. Even though it's my mother tongue, anglophones have the worst attitude when it comes to speaking other languages, and I don't want any part of it. I speak French with my fiance and all of my friends really. It's just here on PC and with my family and customers here in Ontario that I speak English.


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Cherrim

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My native language is English and I more or less speak it exclusively. I took French all the way through school and several classes in university but I've never been able to speak it very well. I can read it fluently (and to a lesser extent, write it fluently if I'm not out of practise) but I'm just not good at the oral aspect. It doesn't help that most of the time when I am speaking French, there's always that one word that I can't for the life of me remember in French but the Japanese word will always be right there in the forefront of my mind. XD;

Since any time I've been to Quebec, it's mostly been to touristy areas where everyone will switch to English if you start mangling attempting French, I've never gotten to really practise with any native speakers. The only people I've ever had a chance to speak to in French are other students who are usually worse than me or else teachers, none of which are native speakers. :C Unless you're in French Immersion (which I was only in for a few months), none of the curriculum ever promotes conversational French. Oh well.

(I'm even worse with Japanese so I won't even bother with it... though I can get the gist of most conversations, at least!)


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Eternal Nightmare

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Posted June 28th, 2011
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16.8 Years
Too me it is always fun to learn and try out different languages. I can speak spanish and japanese fairly well at the moment. I talk to this hispanic girl I know in Spanish sometimes, although she corrects me often lol, and I will randomly speak a few japanese phrases I've learned to people as well just to get the WTF expression. I want to learn French...I wonder if it is difficult :/.
Seigo Takahashi
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Posted May 12th, 2020
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17.9 Years
My mother tongue is Vietnamese; I can speak and listen quite fluently, though writing and reading it is a different matter. I never bothered with learning another language aside from taking Latin at school. Even though technically since I'm in Canada I'm supposed to take French, I get an exemption from having to do so because I only moved here a year ago and lack the prerequisites to take any high school courses. :>
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Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
2,414 posts
13.8 Years
Too me it is always fun to learn and try out different languages. I can speak spanish and japanese fairly well at the moment. I talk to this hispanic girl I know in Spanish sometimes, although she corrects me often lol, and I will randomly speak a few japanese phrases I've learned to people as well just to get the WTF expression. I want to learn French...I wonder if it is difficult :/.
For occidentals, French and Arabic are considered the hardest languages to learn. For orientals like the Chinese and the Japanese, English is the hardest.

So it is difficult, but if you know Spanish pretty well, then it should be quite easier for you in comparison to an anglophone learning French.


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Age 32
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Ottawa
Seen March 16th, 2015
Posted January 13th, 2011
190 posts
14.3 Years
I can speak English, obviously. I'm also fluent in speaking Farsi, but my reading/writing skills are pretty rusty.

I've taken French classes all my life, but I'm still not very good with it. I can usually understead something written, but I have problems with speaking/listening.

I'd love to learn Arabic. I know a few words already, and since most of the alphabet is similar to Farsi, that part of it would be easier for me.

Normally I just speak English, even to my Persian friends and family, unless it's something I don't want other people to find out. xD I speak Farsi to my grandma, though, since she barely knows any English.
Seen September 18th, 2020
Posted February 18th, 2018
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English is the hardest.
English is actually very simple in most respects, it's just the irregularities (like 'inflammable' meaning the same as 'flammable') that get people. It's clearly one of the most confusing to master, but is not outright hard.


... Me? No, I suffer the misfortune of being monolingual; just replying to Yusshin.

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
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13.8 Years
English is actually very simple in most respects, it's just the irregularities (like 'inflammable' meaning the same as 'flammable') that get people. It's clearly one of the most confusing to master, but is not outright hard.


... Me? No, I suffer the misfortune of being monolingual; just replying to Yusshin.
A study showed that English was the hardest for East Asians to master. I guess it's because of sentence structure, verbs, and other irregularities. Not to mention, the script itself is latin and theirs is kanji and whatnaught. I don't find English hard at all, but that's because I was born in an anglophone household. I actually find English to be one of the easiest, since verbs don't have a million different conjugations. For example:

I go [English] = Je vais [French]
I would go [English] = J'irais [French]
He will go [English] = Il ira [French]
We will work [English] = On travaillera / nous travaillerons [French]

Totally different. The verb itsef in other languages changes; in English, the verb doesn't change. You just add a word and it changes the meaning completely XD

Meh. I found French kinda easy, too, but that's because I'm good at learning new languages and memorizing words, forms, conjugations, etc. The idea of feminine, masculine, and neutral isn't too abstract either.

I forgot to mention earlier that I learnt some Japanese from anime o0 but it's like, so tiny I wouldn't even mention it normally xD lol


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Ivysaur

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Eh, I have no problems when I have to write English (durr!), and when I actually speak it, I only need to pass the first moment of embarrassment and then it's all downhill XD It's kinda fun, specially since most people tell me that my accent is nice... something I'll never understand XD

But I speak English better when I'm not surrounded by people talking to me in both Spanish and English alternatively, it's really hard to switch languages so quickly x_x

Eternal Nightmare

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Posted June 28th, 2011
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I forgot to mention earlier that I learnt some Japanese from anime o0 but it's like, so tiny I wouldn't even mention it normally xD lol
XD That's how I learnt most of my japanese. I learnt the smaller stuff such as "Let's go" or " wait for me". Aside from that, I have a japanese dictionary as well as one of those Japanese for Dummies books. I wish I could write in japanese though :<.

Oh, also have a spanish and french dictionary and some books that teach you how to speak them too. I really do not touch the french ones.
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Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
Quebec, Canada
Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
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13.8 Years
XD That's how I learnt most of my japanese. I learnt the smaller stuff such as "Let's go" or " wait for me". Aside from that, I have a japanese dictionary as well as one of those Japanese for Dummies books. I wish I could write in japanese though :<.

Oh, also have a spanish and french dictionary and some books that teach you how to speak them too. I really do not touch the french ones.
MATTA KUDASAI!

xD

And I have Spanish for Dummies :] and Italian for Dummies, German for Dummies, and Arabic for Dummies. I have my own personal Arabic teacher, too xD


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Timbjerr

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Age 36
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Seen May 30th, 2022
Posted January 28th, 2016
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19.7 Years
Since my mom is a native Spanish speaker who learned English growing up, I was raised learning English and Spanish concurrently...although I use English a lot more than Spanish due to my Dad's side of the family being all white and consider it my native tongue. XD

My Spanish...is slipping a bit due to disuse, and my accent is very gringo, but I can communicate with a spanish-speaker if I absolutely have to. :P

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪

Age 30
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Seen May 13th, 2013
Posted May 13th, 2013
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I say "COMO TE LLAMAS?" a lot for some reason XD;
>>

<<

I haven't touched my dummies books in a while ): 'cept my Arabic for Dummies one. I look at that a lot :]


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Age 28
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Seen June 17th, 2012
Posted March 25th, 2012
194 posts
15.8 Years
Lol, My native Language is Spanish, hence I live in Puerto Rico. English is my Second, which I learned after I spent 4 years living in New York when I was little. Thanks to Spanish, I can understand Portuguese & Italian, more or less. ^^
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Seen April 29th, 2014
Posted March 29th, 2014
324 posts
13.3 Years
i'm chinese, but english is my first language. i can speak mandarin chinese fluently but i can only read/write a few words.
i've taken so many writing classes during the summer in china but i always end up forgetting everything once i come back to america ;-;

i'm also taking spanish classes in school, but i'm not very advanced

i sorta wanna learn cantonese for some reason :P i know like 3 words xD

also, i saw this being mentioned:
A study showed that English was the hardest for East Asians to master. I guess it's because of sentence structure, verbs, and other irregularities. Not to mention, the script itself is latin and theirs is kanji and whatnaught. I don't find English hard at all, but that's because I was born in an anglophone household. I actually find English to be one of the easiest, since verbs don't have a million different conjugations. For example:
i think another reason is pronunciations. asian languages have really different flavors from english, if you get what i'm saying..
my aunt's been in america for about 9 years (she's chinese) and she can barely say a sentence or 2 in english. she asks me how to say certain words in english and it takes her like 10 tries to pronounce it sorta-correctly ><; even then, she sounds ridiculously silly
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Posted September 9th, 2010
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18.2 Years
I guess I'll start by saying I was born in the Philippines, but since I moved to California shortly after that (and since my mother has little to no education, so it was impossible for her to teach me Tagalog/Cebuano), I never actually learned my "native" language. The good thing is, I learned English easily, as it was my first language, and grammar and spelling tests were not a problem for me.

However, I strongly believe that after I took Spanish for three years in high school, my English was not in top shape like it used to be. I'm not saying that it takes me a while to say a sentence or anything, but at times, after I say something, I know it sounded weird. Even the sentence before this one sounds like it was worded awkwardly, but I just don't know how else to explain it.

Anyway, more importantly, I never practiced using Spanish enough (besides inside the classroom) to be able to have a normal, basic conversation with any other Spanish speakers. The only thing I truly remember is how to conjugate verbs because my teacher greatly emphasized them. But I suppose it doesn't help that I wasn't really interested in learning Spanish. There were only two languages offered at my high school: Spanish and French, and since Spanish was easier, I took that. To be honest, I also took Spanish because I was aware that some words in Tagalog are the same or similar to words in Spanish, so I figured that if I were to ever become interested in learning my "native" language, that would be a start.

And like practically most of the members on this forum, I took an interest in Japanese after getting into anime, but that's not all. I was always interested in Japan's past history (and ancient Egyptian history), so I'm not just another foreigner trying to learn Japanese so I can brag among other anime fans. Of course, like most people, I tried learning it myself (you know, learning the overused words in anime) and that helped I suppose, but then I really started learning it at Kumon Center for about three years.

Now that I'm in college, I took Japanese both semesters of my first year (which is this year) and I'm doing pretty darn good. Fortunately, even though we learn it at a fast pace (basically three years worth of material in one semester), our teacher promotes a lot of discussion, so we have a lot of practice (which is what I wish my Spanish teachers did). Not to mention, I have a friend who is Japanese (but didn't learn the language until he took it in high school), going to another university, unfortunately, but whenever I talk to him, he demands that I speak in Japanese. At first it's kind of frustrating, but seriously, a lot of practice is what you need to be successful in any language, and I thank him for that.

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Seen April 12th, 2011
Posted April 12th, 2011
1,358 posts
13.3 Years
My native language is English, what with me being in England an' all. However, I've done four years of French and ended up with a B in GCSE and after the same amount of Spanish, I'm due my exam soon (in fact, my speaking exam is next wednesday and of course, I haven't practiced -.- )

And as my theme shows, I'm extremely fond of French. Even though I don't do it any more and don't intend on doing it at A-level, I just love the entire structure and beauty of the language. It has that certain flow that Spanish lacks, which is what I keep telling my Spanish teacher when he asks me why I don't enjoy his lessons.

You see, I didn't choose to do Spanish. My school is a specialist Language College and language is a set subject within the timetable.I was placed on the Fast-Track system, so I started French in my first year and added Spanish in the second year, in order to do my French exam a year early and Spanish this year, resulting in two language qualifications where other students will only get one.

On the subject of speaking the language, I... have issues. In my speaking exam last year, I kinda got flustered and broke down completely because of the pressure and stress, and just because I was tired, meaning I got downmarked and came out with a lower mark than predicted. Even with Spanish now, I can't handle exam conditions. But I speak both languages fine when I'm with my friends. We chat in French or Spanish for the hell of it, and I can cope perfectly then. It's just the exams that get me.

So talking to someone who is a native speaker of that language... I've done it before and struggled, but I managed to warn her beforehand that I was English, and she got the gist of what I was trying to say. I think I did well. Perhaps. ^^;;

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my first language was Spanish as my parents came here from Mexico so i grew up in a spanish household, i later learned English at school, I know a bit of Japanese like Shiro Kami means white god and Chichi means dad in japanese too it will sound funny to those of you how know spanish, well someone also told me mom in vietnamese is Meio or Meia sounds like another spanish word, actually japanese works a lot like Spanish in grammar but not writing, how i wish i could read kanji.

Me gusta Pokémon y Neopets. Me gusta Pokémon porque es muy divertido y tu no frio (frozen?). Me gusta Neopets porque es online :P

I'm learning Spanish in school, and taking it for GCSE, so have to focus more @[email protected]
Tu segunda frase me confundio, frio... que es GCSE (your second sentence confused me... freezing(that's what frio can mean, like esta muy frio, it's very freezing)... what is GCSE.)
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Ryoutarou

Seen April 2nd, 2023
Posted December 29th, 2020
30,927 posts
19.3 Years
I'm fluent in both English and Spanish...well a tad bit rusty when it comes to Spanish since I don't really get the chance to speak it too often, but yeah, those are the two that I'm best at. I know a tad bit of a Mayan language because part of my dad's family come from them and I guess it's one of those things that was passed down, but at most I could really just as for a sandwich or probably offend someone's goat while trying to ask for a ride to the store.

Annnnd I suppose I'm decentish in Japanese, I understand more than I can speak it.

Esper

California
Seen June 30th, 2018
Posted June 30th, 2018
English is my mother tongue, but I don't always enjoy speaking it with native speakers. I learned a bit of French in HS. Never got to use it outside of class. It's mostly degraded to a beginner level.

Japanese is the only language I'd say I have a good hold on and it's intimidating using that with native speakers, at least at first. Japanese people are generally very patient with you and I imagine it's a lot nicer for me than any of them who come to America to try out their English skills. I don't really enjoy speaking it with other learners who already know English though. It often ends in confusion.

By the way, anyone who says the grammar is easy doesn't know what they're talking about. It's unlike almost any other language in the world and that's why it's one of the hardest languages to learn. Well, one of the reasons why.