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How many languages do you know?

A

aquadot

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 14, 2011
5
0
UK & Thailand
These can be spoken/written/computer (c++).

I am native English and have been acquiring Thai for some years. The Thai people I speal with say I'm fluent but I always see myself as a beginner, that way I never have an excuse to stop learning more.

Currently thinking about a third language but not tonal, maybe Portuguese.

Don't forget if you only know one language then you are in a minority.

In my experience learning a second language in one of the best journey's a person can take in life.
 
Learning a second language has been one of the best things I've done too. Opens up so many opportunities and helps you to see the world for a different perspective too.

- Native British English.
- Spanish (2 years teaching it to myself, certainly not "fluent" (as in perfect) but I can manage the language, converse and read books). Sueño con mudarme a un país hispanohablante.
- Swahili (my wife is Kenyan. I'm not good at Swahili though :S Sijui kufanya nini nikitaka kuisoma na kuijua.
- And "Medicine" - I've heard that during studying medicine at university you learn 20000-40000 new words, okay no grammar as such, but that number of words is like learning a language.

- Oh, and I used to be able to write semi-decent MS Access apps with Visual Basic, and way before that QBASIC.
 
aquadot said:
The Thai people I speal with say I'm fluent ...

Don't forget if you only know one language then you are in a minority.
Click to expand...

English ... it was one of my goals to become a minority in the Country my Ancestors came to in 1765 from England. :cool:
 
I'm ashamed to say only English. I grew up within 30 miles of Mexico and had no excuse for not learning Spanish, but I simply did not want to at the time. Now I am 58 with a Korean fiance, but I am finding learning Korean to be impossible at my age. She says that a coworker who has worked around Koreans for 10 years but never tried to learn now at least gets the gist of conversations, so she is not totally lost. Maybe in 10 years...
 
Finnish, English and Swedish. Finnish is quite obvious as it's my mother tongue and English is something you have to study. Over 50% of my studies have been in English since I was 13 so I guess it's kinda like mother tongue for me nowadays. Sometimes it's pretty awkward when you remember a word in English but not in Finnish, this happens nearly everyday :p Swedish is the second official language here (i.e. has same status as Finnish) so it's mandatory to study it. It's definitely my weakest language, mainly because I get to use it so seldom compared to Finnish and English which I speak and write daily.

I might start studying Russia as my fourth language since it's very important in here and would help when seeking for a job. Depends on my future studies though, if I end up studying something where it's totally unneeded, then I probably won't.
 
I'm afraid I'm nearly monolingual. I had about 5 years of Spanish instruction in school, and became conversational but not fluent. Since then I haven't spoken it so I've lost much of my ability.

A long-term goal is to learn French so I can read original editions of Dumas.
 
Hindi was the language I learned first. (Grew up in India).

Then, I learned English.

I'm learning Spanish in school, am only in level 3, but still...
 
Hellhammer said:
Finnish, English and Swedish. Finnish is quite obvious as it's my mother tongue and English is something you have to study. Over 50% of my studies have been in English since I was 13 so I guess it's kinda like mother tongue for me nowadays. Sometimes it's pretty awkward when you remember a word in English but not in Finnish, this happens nearly everyday :p Swedish is the second official language here (i.e. has same status as Finnish) so it's mandatory to study it. It's definitely my weakest language, mainly because I get to use it so seldom compared to Finnish and English which I speak and write daily.

I might start studying Russia as my fourth language since it's very important in here and would help when seeking for a job. Depends on my future studies though, if I end up studying something where it's totally unneeded, then I probably won't.
Click to expand...


That's interesting, I did'nt Russian was important in Finland. is it essential to learn Russian through school?
 
aquadot said:
That's interesting, I did'nt Russian was important in Finland. is it essential to learn Russian through school?
Click to expand...

Russia is our neighbor and a lot business is done with them. Russians often have poor English and their culture is fairly different so having the ability to speak Russia is always a big plus.

I wouldn't say it's essential to learn it in school, in fact, only very few secondary (lower and upper) offer it. It's up to your choice of career. In business field, I would say it's very, very big plus because like I said, a lot business is done with Russians. However, I would say it's not that useful if you end up in technical career for example where you may never get to use it.
 
English, C#, VB.Net, HTML, CSS, and a little Japanese (enough to know to pick たたかう in JRPGs in order to attack things :p).
 
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