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Do you speak another language?

GoodWatch said:
Ik spreek inderdaad een andere taal. Maar ik ben bang dat weinigen dit kunnen lezen.
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Ik kan alles verstaan wat jij zegt, kom jij uit Nederland of België?
Ik uit België. But I think the people here aren't very happy with people writing another language...
 
Wow, a thread more than a year old! Glad I searched for this topic before I posted a new one. Maybe this will get some more responses from newer members...

In addition to English (my native language), I also can speak/understand Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese. I'm not very fluent in Portuguese or Spanish but I can get by, more so with Portuguese.

I bought Rosetta Stone for Italian but haven't had enough time to really get into it. I was inspired by a friend who was born in Malaysia but can speak over 8 different languages fluently.
 
InvalidUserID said:
Wow, a thread more than a year old! Glad I searched for this topic before I posted a new one. Maybe this will get some more responses from newer members...

In addition to English (my native language), I also can speak/understand Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese. I'm not very fluent in Portuguese or Spanish but I can get by, more so with Portuguese.

I bought Rosetta Stone for Italian but haven't had enough time to really get into it. I was inspired by a friend who was born in Malaysia but can speak over 8 different languages fluently.
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Is Rosetta Stone good? I know of the program but I have never heard what real people think of it.
 
Telp said:
Is Rosetta Stone good? I know of the program but I have never heard what real people think of it.
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Yeah, I like it. It is pretty compressive and the exercises help with the understanding. I haven't spent much time with it but it blows away other programs I've used before. The only downside is the price tag.

I'm not sure if you can pick them a used copy with all the DRM stuff but its worth a look.
 
InvalidUserID said:
Yeah, I like it. It is pretty compressive and the exercises help with the understanding. I haven't spent much time with it but it blows away other programs I've used before. The only downside is the price tag.

I'm not sure if you can pick them a used copy with all the DRM stuff but its worth a look.
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Good to know. I might give it a look. I am really starting to enjoy hebrew and would love to be able to teach myself.
 
English and French...maybe a couple of sentences in Germany and Italian. Right now I find myself using really weird phrasing in English as I've been speaking too much French for the past few months. :p
 
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Of course, I fluently speak English.
I know a but of Spanish.
I speak Armenian.
I can speak and read Greek.
 
A few words of Yup'ik Eskimo thanks to my step-mother :)

A very little bit of Deutsch even after 2 years of High School language (9 years ago) and most of my family coming from Deutschland. I have to start listening to my language podcasts again.
 
I'm German, so I speak that fluently. I lived in Spain for 8 years so I'm able to speak it quite well, although not fluently anymore. Now have lived in the US for the last 6 years so I'm fluent in English as well.
 
I speak Dutch, French and English fluently and my German is pretty decent after having lived in Germany for a year, but it's still not as good as the other three.
I can understand Afrikaans but that is pretty much the case for anybody who speaks Dutch.

I would like to further improve my German and maybe start learning Italian if I can find the time for it.
 
I speak (native) English and am in my fourth year of learning French from middle school and high school, so I hope to continue into college and study abroad in France so that I can master the language. I've come to believe that for the most part it is hard to become fluent in a language unless you've been forced into immersion in that language, as my older sister lived in Costa Rica for 3 months and became much better at Spanish as a result.

One of the things that I somewhat dislike about being American is how so many Americans only speak English while members of many other countries know so many more languages. It makes me feel almost ignorant in a way, although that really isn't the best word to describe it. There really is nothing I can do about it except learn other languages, but sometimes that just bothers me.
 
11800506 said:
One of the things that I somewhat dislike about being American is how so many Americans only speak English while members of many other countries know so many more languages. It makes me feel almost ignorant in a way, although that really isn't the best word to describe it. There really is nothing I can do about it except learn other languages, but sometimes that just bothers me.
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Of course the classic explanation here would be that Americans don't need foreign languages as much as other people, and that's true. If I take the train here in Belgium I'm in a Dutch, French, German, English or even Luxembourgish speaking area within 2 hours, so my world would be very small if I only spoke one language.

On the other hand I think it's important that everybody speaks at least one foreign language, even if you don't need it all the time. It makes you think in a different way, since your thoughts and your native language are no longer always connected. It helps you see things in a different light. Sometimes you come across concepts in another language for which there isn't even a word in your native language. Learning a second language is really learning about your native language as well.

Anyway... languages rock and stuff ;-)
 
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