# Languages



## Yoshi

I'm sorry if there's already a thread about it 

So, as a languages lover I was wondering. Which languages can you speak or would love to? This thread could also be used for questions related to certain languages.
I saw a thread on another forum which structure was like this:

*Mother tongue:* Portuguese
*Good at:* English
*OK / can do the tourist thing in: *Italian, Spanish
*Beginner at:* French (I had 3 years of classes but I don't remember almost anything)
*Would like to learn:* Anything!  Alright maybe a non-European language next. But right now I just want to get my Italian better.

So you can just copy and paste yours if you want


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## jurianbai

Mother tongue: hakka (chinese dialect)
Good at: Bahasa Indonesia, English, mandarin, teochiu (another chinese dialect)
OK / can do the tourist thing in: -
Beginner at: hokkien (yet another dialect of chinese)
Would like to learn: Anything! I try to learn Japanese due to anime/manga thing.

Btw, in internet I almost able to read all, thanks to Google translate.


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## Weston

Mother tongue: American English (which is not necessarily English)
Good at: English
OK / can do the tourist thing in: Spanish
Beginner at: --
Would like to learn: German

I studied Spanish for while. It would make me more employable in the US with Spanish becoming almost a second prominent language in some areas. Unfortunately I found it fine to hear but very uncomfortable on the tongue for me. 

German on the other hand is very comfortable and I can just about read it and pronounce it. English is more closely related to it than to the Romance languages. The sentence structure however is all backward for me! I would love to be able to read Goethe.

We Americans are often not very cosmopolitan in our language skills.


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## Taneyev

Mother tongue: castellano (that's the right name for the lenguage, not "spanish")
OK/can do the tourist thing in:english
Would like to learn: Russian


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## Aramis

Mother tongue: Polish
Good enough to talk at: English 
Beginner at: French, German 
Would like to learn: Lick some scandinavian languages, Russian, Italian, Language of birds


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## Enkhbat

jurianbai said:


> Btw, in internet I almost able to read all, thanks to Google translate.


 me too! I almost able to read most languages. lol

Mother Tongue: Mongolian
Good at: English
OK/can do the tourist thing in: Japanese
Beginner: Russian
Would like to learn: Spainish, Francaise, Italiano, German


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## Krummhorn

Mother tongue: American English
Good at: English
OK/can do the tourist thing in: Italy - as long as it pertains to buying water and coffee 
Can read some German ... 
Would like to learn: Danish


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## david johnson

i speak american english, my favorite.
i greatly enjoy what french i know. given enough time , i can compose competent emails to a few quebec ministries, and can read thier responses.
i would flunk all timed french reading/speaking tests 
like to learn? a non-european language...perhaps the cherokee of my great-grandmother.

dj


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## periodinstrumentfan

Mother tongue: Tagalog
Good enough to talk: English, French, Sugbuanon, Kapampangan, Bicol
Beginner at: Japanese (conversational level), Mandarin Chinese, Spanish (conversational level)-_-
Would like to learn: German


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## Zeniyama

Mother Tongue: American English
Good at: English
OK/can do the tourist thing in: Nothing, really
Beginner: French - I'm okay at it, but I doubt I could keep up with an actual French person.
Would like to learn: Russian and Swedish

I've always wanted to learn Swedish, because the dominant part of my blood is Swedish and I have nothing to show; not even a cool accent. Hélas, I only got to _ursäkta_ before I gave up.


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## PostMinimalist

Bilingual English Greek.


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## andruini

Mother Tongue: Spanish
Good at: English
OK/can do the tourist thing in: French
Beginner: nothing, really..
Would like to learn: French properly and perhaps Italian or German..


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## nickgray

Mother tongue: Russian
Good at: English
Ok at: Hebrew
Would like to learn: oh, it's highly doubtful I will learn another language, but if I would they'll be: German, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin.


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## Mirror Image

*Mother tongue:* English
*Good at:* N/A
*OK / can do the tourist thing in:* Spanish
*Beginner at:* French, German, Russian, Italian, any language really
*Would like to learn:* French, Italian


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## Bach

Mother tongue: English 
Good at: Portuguese 
OK / can do the tourist thing in: Spanish/Italian
Beginner at: Japanese
Would like to learn: Russian

Don't write 'American English' when you mean English. It's irritating - the differences are incredibly slight. Most parlance is identical too.


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## Yoshi

Bach said:


> Don't write 'American English' when you mean English. It's irritating - the differences are incredibly slight. Most parlance is identical too.


I was thinking about it too. Isn't american english still english? I think it would be the same as mentioning that my portuguese is from Portugal, not the brazilian portuguese.


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## Mirror Image

Bach said:


> Don't write 'American English' when you mean English. It's irritating - the differences are incredibly slight. Most parlance is identical too.


You don't think there are many differences between Americans and Brits? Anyway, I changed mine to English just for you Bach.  As much as I would love to be a Brit, I'm still an American through and through.


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## Taneyev

In Latin-America except Brasil, everybody is supposed to speek castellano. But there are huge differences between countries lenguages. I'm from Argentina and if a go to Cuba, for example, I wouldn't understand at least half of every word they say. And you,americans, go to London and try to understand what a cockney say, and later tell me how you manage.


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## Mirror Image

Taneyev said:


> In Latin-America except Brasil, everybody is supposed to speek castellano. But there are huge differences between countries lenguages. I'm from Argentina and if a go to Cuba, for example, I wouldn't understand at least half of every word they say. And you,americans, go to London and try to understand what a cockney say, and later tell me how you manage.


That's true. Bach doesn't realize there are many differences between American and British English, especially in terms of slang. Up north around New York, Maryland, etc. they use a lot of different phrases I've never heard. Like for example, they call Coca-Cola "pop" and we call it "coke." I mean little things like this are common I'm sure within all countries.


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## rojo

Bilingual English and French.
Can read/speak/understand one and two word musical instruction terms in Italian, German.
Can count to twelve in German, ten in Italian and in Spanish.
Know a few random words in various languages, would like to be able to converse in any other language than French and English.

Don't get me started on the differences between Québécois French and France French!


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## Yoshi

rojo said:


> Don't get me started on the differences between Québécois French and France French!


Exactly, I could just start saying all the differences between Brazil portuguese and Portugal portuguese. They even use some verbs in different order. But we can still understand eachother because it's still portuguese.


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## Bach

Mirror Image said:


> That's true. Bach doesn't realize there are many differences between American and British English, especially in terms of slang. Up north around New York, Maryland, etc. they use a lot of different phrases I've never heard. Like for example, they call Coca-Cola "pop" and we call it "coke." I mean little things like this are common I'm sure within all countries.


Apart from tiny differences (they say 'pop' in NY and 'coke' further south - well, they also say 'coke' in Britain, so your difference has turned into a similarity..) the English language and its usage has remained more or less identical. Yes, there are _cultural_ differences, but not many linguistic ones. (but there are cultural differences between a New York Jew, a simple New Mexico rancher, a Californian valley girl and a Floridian fundamentalist christian too. A Londoner would have more in common with a New Yorker than with a Welsh farmer despite their common Britishness..)


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## jcsd

Bach said:


> Apart from tiny differences (they say 'pop' in NY and 'coke' further south - well, they also say 'coke' in Britain, so your difference has turned into a similarity..) the English language and its usage has remained more or less identical. Yes, there are _cultural_ differences, but not many linguistic ones. (but there are cultural differences between a New York Jew, a simple New Mexico rancher, a Californian valley girl and a Floridian fundamentalist christian too. A Londoner would have more in common with a New Yorker than with a Welsh farmer despite their common Britishness..)


We alsosay 'pop'in England too, though generally only in Northern England.

You're right though as someone born in a middle class district of London, a middle class new yorker sounds like they only have a very slight accent to me..

Whilst there are differences the division British English/American English is very arbitary as there's far more varaiton in Britain itself as some of the dialects divereged from 'mainstream' English centuries before the first English settlers arrived in America. E.g. some conisder Scots to be a distinct language from English (note that those who regrad it as a seperate langugae generally distinguisg between Scots and Scottish English).


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## Mirror Image

Bach said:


> Apart from tiny differences (they say 'pop' in NY and 'coke' further south - well, they also say 'coke' in Britain, so your difference has turned into a similarity..) the English language and its usage has remained more or less identical. Yes, there are _cultural_ differences, but not many linguistic ones. (but there are cultural differences between a New York Jew, a simple New Mexico rancher, a Californian valley girl and a Floridian fundamentalist christian too. A Londoner would have more in common with a New Yorker than with a Welsh farmer despite their common Britishness..)


Have you ever talked to a Southern American in person Bach? They have a thick country accent and it's hard to even understand them sometimes. I'm Southern, but I don't talk like I just off tractor. I'm a city slicker.

By the way, I heard some Welsh people talk on television one time and I didn't understand a word they said. I had to turn the closed caption on.


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## Taneyev

Yes, remember that Englishmen and Americans are two people separated by a common lenguage.


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## PartisanRanger

"American English" as a separate language, lol. You guys are too much.

Mother tongue: English
Good at: -
OK / can do the tourist thing in: French
Beginner at: -
Would like to learn: Russian, Chinese


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## nickgray

Wow, so many people would like to learn Russian. Never thought it's that popular


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## Mirror Image

nickgray said:


> Wow, so many people would like to learn Russian. Never thought it's that popular


Not me.


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## confuoco

Mother tongue: Slovak
Good at: Czech
English? :-D
OK / can do the tourist thing in: German
Beginner at: Latin, Russian
Would like to learn: French or Spanish


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## Chi_townPhilly

(off-topic): welcome back, *confuoco*!

(now, for my status on this thread-item...)

Mother tongue: *English*.
Know feeble vestigial rudiments of: *Spanish*.
Have done the touristy phrase-book hash in: *Swedish*, *French* & *Dutch*.
Know a few dozen (spoken, NOT written) words in: *Korean*.
Wish I knew a lot more about... *German*.


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## bassClef

Mother Tongue: English
Would like to speak: Czech, because I live in Prague, but it's devilishly difficult.


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## thezonebook

Mother tongue: New Zealand English
Good at: British English, American English, Irish English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish
OK / can do the tourist thing in: German, French (normally rough at the start, but gets better after a couple of days there! 
Beginner at: Icelandic, Spanish
Used to speak: Malay (but have forgotten most of it!)
Would like to learn: As many languages as possible, if there was time. Perhaps a 'babelfish' isn't such a bad idea though?


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## danae

Mother tongue: Greek

Good at: English

Average but not fluent in: German

Speak a little of: French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Dutch

Would like to learn: Russian, Swedish, Suomi, Icelandic, Arabic, Mandarin


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## myaskovsky2002

*Martin Pitchon*

Father = British (Leeds)
Mother = French (Paris)
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina

I speak the three languages, I can manage Portuguese and Italian, I'm learning Russian and I can speak quite well...

Another language I'd like to learn: German (but I'm not very convinced).

Mother tongue = None!

I suck!

Martin

:tiphat:


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## karenpat

Mother tongue - Norwegian
Good at: English...Plus I can fake speaking Swedish pretty well It's not really a huge accomplishment though since it has a lot of similarities with Norwegian, it's a little like Italian vs Spanish I suppose.
Speak a little of (or "can understand a little of" would be more accurate): German
Can pick up a few words from French and Italian...would love to learn Italian properly.
Would love to learn (if I had a lot of time and ambition) - Believe it or not, Welsh. It sounds so complicated but I like the melody and sound of it. It would also be cool to speak Swiss German even though it's more like a dialect than a language, but it sounds so fascinating!


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## Delicious Manager

Mother Tongue: English (BRITISH English!)
Good at: French, German
OK/can do the tourist thing in: Russian, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Latvian
Beginner: All of the above
Would like to learn: Hungarian, Lithuanian


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## LindenLea

English, French (reasonably fluent), and I'm learning German, as we have German friends who live near Bonn, and I have a German Godson, and I'd love to one day be able to speak to him in his native tongue. 

I also speak fluent Lancastrian, which - as any viewer of Coronation Street will know - even on a good day bears little actual resemblance to the Queen's English!


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## emiellucifuge

Mother tongue: Dutch and English (the latter slightly better)
Good at: french
Touristy: german


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## ShyBelgian

*Mother tongu*e: Dutch
*Good at*: English, French, German 
*OK / can do the tourist thing in*: Italian, Spanish, Arabic
*Would like to learn*: Would love to grasp the 'tourist' basics of all European languages....


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## Air

*Mother Tongue:* English
*Good at:* Mandarin, Castilian (i.e. Spanish)
*OK / Can do the tourist thing in:* Latin (not for tourism though ), Italian, Taiwanese, Cantonese
*Would like to learn:* Russian, French, German, Portuguese, Hindi, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Bengali, Punjabi, Vietnamese, Wu, Zulu, Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish...


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## mamascarlatti

Mother tongue: English/French (British parents, grew up in France/Switzerland)
Good at: Italian
OK / can do the tourist thing in: Spanish, German
Have forgotten more than I can remember: Greek
Would like to learn: Maori, Russian, Japanese
Still learning: New Zealand English. Sample words: _jandals, rattle your dags, I'm throwing a sickie even though I'm not that crook._

Sample accent:


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## dmg

*Mother tongue:* Texas English p)
*Good at:* --
*OK / can do the tourist thing in: *Spanish
*Beginner at:* --
*Would like to learn:* Czech, Scottish Gaelic, Shoshone. None of which have programs with Rosetta Stone. :lol:


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## Aksel

Mother tongue: Norwegian
Good at: English, Swedish, Danish, Spanish
OK / can do the tourist thing in: German
Beginner at: French (as long as I only have to buy a baguette)
Used to speak: --
Would like to learn: Welsh, Latin, German properly, French, Greek, Italian, Icelandic, Parselmouth


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## Saturnus

mother tounge: icelandic
good at: english
OK at: german, written danish
beginner: dutch
would like to learn: spoken danish (probably too late for me though), norwegian, hungarian, japanese


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## JSK

Native Tongue: English
Can Read/Kind of Write: Latin
Can hold my own in: German
Also have one year of high-school Spanish.
Would Like to Learn: Russian, Italian, French, more German, Czech, Swedish


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Well, I like *English*, *French*, *Russian*, and *German*.


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## Geronimo

Mother tongue: Dutch
Good at: French, English
OK / can do the tourist thing in: German, Spanish
Would like to learn: Esperanto


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## gobaith

My mother tongues are Welsh and English
Adopted language : Breton 
Speak to my husband in : French
Understand : Cornish
Beginner at : Scots Gaelic
Would like to learn : Icelandic


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## Rangstrom

I've lived in the USA all my life, so I'm basically a native English speaker. I've studied Latin, German in the past to limited success. The past year or so I've been trying to learn French. I'm making some progress but it is a long process. Ironically, various mathematical languages were always easy for me.


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## Huilunsoittaja

English speaker. I know some Spanish. I wish I knew French and Russian though, they're highly more useful in the field of music.


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## star9005

Hi there!

I love languages very much!

Mother tongue: Hungarian
Advanced skills: English, Romanian
Basic skills: Norwegian (bokmål), German

Who is interested in Hungarian or something else, I can always help with tips or any kind of advice.


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## star9005

Sorry, I've forgotten something very important!!

I'm a celtic language fan! SO starting with Irish, Scottish Gaelic 'til Welsh, Breton I just love to listen to these!!!

No skills though


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## Almaviva

Wow. I'm impressed with the plurilingual abilities of classical music fans. I wonder if the love for classical music has something to do with this, or vice versa. I believe that if we were members of a Sports forum for instance we wouldn't find as many language skills.
Me, I speak fluent English (the American kind), French, Portuguese, and Spanish. I understand almost 100% of written Italian and 95% of spoken Italian and I can make myself understood by an Italian, but I can't really say that I speak it. I'd love to study it seriously and become fully fluent in Italian. Because of opera, I'd love to know German as well which I studied for two years in high school but completely forgot.


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## smtm

Mother tongue: Chinese
Good at: English 
OK / can do the tourist thing in: -
Beginner at: -
Would like to learn: Castellano


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## Chopin

Mother tongue: Polish
Good at: English?
Beginner at: German,Czech
Would like to learn: Taiwanese,Japanese (I dream of those languages)


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## ricardo_jvc6

my mother language is portuguese and proud to be one. I'm good at english... I could be good at French but I don't like to speak or either other choices i have.
I'm ok with Swedish Spanish and Italian... I'm far learning more languages
Beginner at French for 2 Years.
I would like to learn Finnish, German, Russian and much more.


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## Organpiper61

Mother Tongue: English
Good at: German
Beginner: Dutch
Would like to learn: Spanish one day


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## elgar's ghost

Mother Tongue: English
To learn because of my liking of ancient history/mythology: Latin and/or Greek.
To learn because of the twists and turns of Rus/Russian/Soviet history and because Cyrillic looks so bloody marvellous: Russian.
To learn because most of Northern Europe learn it as a matter of course: German.

Our islands are still pretty shy as regards learning other languages (apart from Celtic fringe languages within the UK/Eire) - even now very little apart from English is generally spoken or understood.


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## Norse

Mother tongue: *Norwegian* (which means I understand Swedish, and usually, Danish)
Good at: *English*
Studied for a while and know the basics ++: *French*
Beginner, but easier to learn and understand than French since it's closer to my own language: *German*
Know just enough words to order food without an English menu etc: *Italian*
Would like to learn: Well, mostly I would like to get better at French and German


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## eduffreitas

Mother tonge: Portuguese (Brazilian)
Good at: English?
Basics: German

I have to study Spanish now but I would like to study German again. Someday I learn study Japanese, Russian and Greek...


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## Saul_Dzorelashvili

Mother tongue: Hebrew
Good at: English, Georgian
Would like to learn: French


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## Art Rock

Mother tongue: Dutch
Fluent in: English, German
Good at: French (although it is decreasing since me moved from France 2004)
OK / can do the tourist thing in: 
Beginner at: Italian
Would like to learn: Mandarin and Shanghainese. Tried and failed.


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## crazychopin

Mother tongue:Chinese
Not very good at:English
Beginner at:Japanese
Would like to learn:German
PS:it seems I could make friends with Mr.upstair


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## Wicked_one

Mother tongue: Romanian
Good at: English
Would like to learn: Dutch


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## Herkku

Mother tongue: Finnish
Good at: English, but I may stop to think about the grammar, when I should say something... The same goes for Swedish, which is our second official language; I can read a novel på svenska, but I freeze if have to speak (which I occasionally do at work)
Acceptable: German (also a very passive skill, although I studied it for three years at school)
OK / can do the tourist or *operatic* thing in: Italian, French
Only the tourist thing: Turkish
Beginner at: Latin
Would like to learn: Russian, Estonian (which is not that far from Finnish), some Somali, almost anything!


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## Guest

Mother tongue: English
Used to be fluent in German, but haven't had opportunity to speak it in 13 years, so probably still proficient.
Nothing else.


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## Huilunsoittaja

Herkku said:


> Mother tongue: Finnish
> Good at: English, but I may stop to think about the grammar, when I should say something... The same goes for Swedish, which is our second official language; I can read a novel på svenska, but I freeze if have to speak (which I occasionally do at work)


 Finnish speaker! I don't speak Finnish, I only know a few words. I don't ever plan the learn it though. Same goes for Swedish.


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## Herkku

Oh, your picture of the Finnish flag is so huge that it widens the whole page out of the normal proportions. Would you mind changing it for something to fit the page?


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## Huilunsoittaja

haha ok, I put another one.


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## seafra

English and Gaelige (Irish).

and the Google translate for irish sucks.


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## sospiro

Herkku said:


> Would like to learn: ... some Somali, almost anything!


I'm curious - are you planning on visiting Somalia?

I grew up in Uganda & became fluent in Swahili. I'd struggle with it now but it's a beautiful and very easy (for a native English speaker anyway) language to learn & speak.


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## Camilla

*Mother tongue:* English
*Good at:* German, French and Italian.
*OK / can do the tourist thing in:* Norwegian.
*Beginner at:* Hebrew
*Would like to learn:* I would love to learn Latin and maybe Mandarin.


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## Herkku

Huilunsoittaja said:


> haha ok, I put another one.


Thanks! Much better.


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## zoziejemaar

*Mother tongue*: Dutch
*Good at*: French, Greek, English
*OK / can do the tourist thing in*: Italian
*Beginner at*: German
*Would like to learn*: More Italian, Russian, Turkish...


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## Herkku

sospiro said:


> I'm curious - are you planning on visiting Somalia?


No. Every now and then I have Somali refugees as patients. The older generation of them often doesn't speak a word of Finnish or English. Quite often even younger women don't. They are accompanied by an interpreter or a young relative at the preoperative visit and on the day of operation, but they are taken to the OR without them and all the equipment and strange people bustling about them, doing things they don't have a clue of, must be scary. It would be nice to be able to explain at least something to them, ask if everything is ok and so on. The interpreter or relative can come to the recovery room after the operation, but it would make a difference just to be able to say something comforting to them in the operating room, because we all feel more or less vulnerable in that situation, even if we have a common language.

The same goes for Albanians from Kosovo, refugees from Afganistan (Pashto or Dari), Iraq, Iran...


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## sospiro

Herkku said:


> No. Every now and then I have Somali refugees as patients. The older generation of them often doesn't speak a word of Finnish or English. Quite often even younger women don't. They are accompanied by an interpreter or a young relative at the preoperative visit and on the day of operation, but they are taken to the OR without them and all the equipment and strange people bustling about them, doing things they don't have a clue of, must be scary. It would be nice to be able to explain at least something to them, ask if everything is ok and so on. The interpreter or relative can come to the recovery room after the operation, but it would make a difference just to be able to say something comforting to them in the operating room, because we all feel more or less vulnerable in that situation, even if we have a common language.
> 
> The same goes for Albanians from Kosovo, refugees from Afganistan (Pashto or Dari), Iraq, Iran...


What a lovely attitude towards refugees. I'm afraid so many people regard refugees as scroungers who just come for the free benefits.

I took a great interest in the plight of the 'Uganda Asians' who were required to leave Uganda by Idi Amin in the 1970's. They left in the clothes they stood up in and were so hard-working within a few years many of them were on the annual 'Rich List'. Scroungers??


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## Herkku

But the thing that really eats me is that Somali women in their twenties and thirties are kept so apart from the society that they are practically analphabetic whereas their husbands have learnt Finnish!


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## opus55

Mother tongue: Korean
Good at: English
OK / can do the tourist thing in: none
Beginner at: none
Would like to learn: no more languages, please. It's enough to juggle between two radically different languages already!


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## sospiro

Herkku said:


> But the thing that really eats me is that Somali women in their twenties and thirties are kept so apart from the society that they are practically analphabetic whereas their husbands have learnt Finnish!


Some of these customs are recent interpretations of religion and culture. I remember Iran in the times of the Shah and women were emancipated.


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## Argus

Mother tongue: Lanky
Good at: Manc, Tyke, Scouse, Cockney and Brummie
OK / can do the tourist thing in: Scotch, Irish and Shona
Beginner at: Geordie
Would like to learn: I already speak the lingua franca. My ancestors didn't win all those wars for me to be speaking French.


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## Herkku

sospiro said:


> Some of these customs are recent interpretations of religion and culture. I remember Iran in the times of the Shah and women were emancipated.


The times were also quite different in Afganistan when the Russians were there. Although people wanted to get rid of them, the women in Kabul went to university and wore short skirts...


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## mamascarlatti

Herkku said:


> But the thing that really eats me is that Somali women in their twenties and thirties are kept so apart from the society that they are practically analphabetic whereas their husbands have learnt Finnish!


I work for an organisation (in NZ) which trains volunteer tutors to go into refugees' homes and teach them some English (and help them orient themselves, and provide some company). We also have bilingual women-only literacy classes and so on. I'm very proud that NZ funds this and that we take a quota of refugees, often those rejected by other countries because they are single women (at risk of rape or attack in camps) with young children and therefore less likely to contribute economically to the host country.


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## Herkku

There are similar kind of women-only literacy classes and so on in Finland, too. For some reason - the husbands? - only a fraction of women are attending them.


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## myaskovsky2002

*Nobody is going to read me anyhow...*

I don't know if I have spoken about myself...But I will (again?)

Mother tongue: Spanish
Mother French, then second mother tongue French.
I think my English is quite good, some people here think it is not, thank you. My father was British indeed...LOL

Can manage: Portuguese, Italian, Russian. The last one pretty well...

That's it.

Martin


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## Air

myaskovsky2002 said:


> I think my English is quite good, some people here think it is not, thank you.


Martin, I think it's just that sometimes us native English speakers take for granted the fact that those who speak other tongues have to speak in _our_ native language instead of _us_ in _theirs_. It's the rule of the modern world, and it's unfair, I agree, but the truth is that it has to be one way or the other, and since Britain and the US happened to emerge the strongest in the days of globalization, it's more plausible for English to be the _lingua franca_ than let's say, French.

For my part, I think your English is quite acceptable, at least better than my second languages, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese (at least for writing).


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## myaskovsky2002

*I can't believe somebody read me!*



PHP:


Martin, I think it's just that sometimes us native English speakers take for granted the fact that those who speak other tongues have to speak in our native language instead of us in theirs. It's the rule of the modern world, and it's unfair, I agree, but the truth is that it has to be one way or the other, and since Britain and the US happened to emerge the strongest in the days of globalization, it's more plausible for English to be the lingua franca than let's say, French.

For my part, I think your English is quite acceptable, at least better than my second languages, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese (at least for writing).

I think that my Englsih is very acceptable, I have been reading just in English for three years. Reading in English is cheaper....LOL and I like very much British and American writers. I love Philippa Gregory and I read about 7 books she wrote....Shakespeare is too difficult for now, but I'm good in Grammar. My Russian grammar is very good.

I speak Spanish and there are more people speaking Spanish than English in the world nowadays.

Martin


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## Air

myaskovsky2002 said:


> I speak Spanish and there are more people speaking Spanish than English in the world nowadays.


Well, the number of speakers is not the only factor. There are, for instance, more native Punjabi, Telugu, and Marathi speakers than there are French speakers, yet French as we know continues to remain the more dominant language in global communication. The problem with Spanish is that Spain, Latin America, and the Philippines have not generally taken a dominant role in politics in the modern era, at least not compared to English-speaking UK and USA. The decline of Spain over the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries has never really recovered, and most Latin American countries have been weak since their independence (unlike Portuguese Brazil) and only some, such as Argentina, have been able to modernize like other "developed" countries have. Yet this is bound to change. I wouldn't be surprised if Mandarin Chinese or Hindi/Bengali become the _lingua franca_ within the next couple centuries, as America is in slow decline and Britain's power today is mainly rooted in its position as a historical superpower.

By the way, there are more _native_ Spanish speakers than native English speakers, not total speakers.

And only barely.


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## gurthbruins

Home language=English
Second language (compulsory when I was at school): Afrikaans (it appears to me as a dialect of Dutch).
I have studied Spanish (not necessary in English to say castellano when you mean castellano): well enough to be employed by a technical college to teach Spanish. Lived only 7 months in Spain, but studied and read for many years.

I have studied Greek, Homeric and Modern; have read all Kazantzakis in original and can recite Homer from memory. (not quite all of Homer). Can practise Greek with many local shopkeepers.

Can get along in Portuguese (as I suppose any Spanish-speaker could), it's even easier to read than to hear; and in German (born in Luderitz, told I could speak German before I could English, but I think I forgot it.) I can read and talk, the latter not correctly, but understandably. Afrikaans is easily understood by the Dutch and Flemish, and I can understand when they speak in their own languages, so that counts for something.

Would like to know Russian, because of Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Griboyedev etc.


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## emiellucifuge

Speaking as a dutch person who has spent a month or two in South Africa (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Limpopo and Mpumalanga) - its probably easier for the Afrikaners to understand dutch then it is for us to understand you, I had quite a few difficulties and could only pick up a few words here and there.


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## Aramis

gurthbruins said:


> Would like to know Russian, because of Chekhov, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Griboyedev etc.


It's waste of time to learn language because of prose writers. Prose can be translated without loosing any of it's values. Drama, less but still much more than poetry. That's why personally I decided to learn German instead of Russian, you can't appreciate Schiller in translation but you can Dostoyevsky and Chekhov - Russia is strong in prose, but in poetry gives no greater reason to learn their language.


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## Delicious Manager

emiellucifuge said:


> Speaking as a dutch person who has spent a month or two in South Africa (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Limpopo and Mpumalanga) - its probably easier for the Afrikaners to understand dutch then it is for us to understand you, I had quite a few difficulties and could only pick up a few words here and there.


This is often the case when languages diverge - the 'mother' language remains reasonably intelligible to those who speak the divergent languages. In Scandinavia, Norwegian and Danes can usually understand the jist of what each is saying. They can also understand Swedish a little. However, Swedes cannot understand Norwegians very well and give-up trying to interpret the Danes at all. I understand that Icelanders (Icelandic still being close to the original Old Norse) can understand a few words that all the other Scandinavians (Danes, Faroese, Norwegians, Swedes) say, although Icelandic is completely foreign to the 'modern' Scandinavians.

Interestingly, Fresian is so close to English that we can understand quite a bit of what a Fresian Islander is saying, even though written Fresian is lost on us.

Speakers of Catalan and Provençal can converse. Similarly, many Slavic languages have a degree of mutual intelligibility - as long as they come from the same 'Western', 'Eastern' or 'Southern' group.

Poles can understand some Sorbian (as can some Czechs) and a little Ukranian, while Russian and Belarussian are very close (and slightly less to close to Ukrainian). Czech and Slovaks can converse without too much difficulty at all, as can Croats, Bosnians and Serbians (whose languages are little more than mild dialects of each other). Bulgarian and Macedonian are very close also, with Slovenian (which is, interestingly, NOT intelligible to Croats, Bosnians and Serbs) a little further away but still partly intelligible.

Although looking very different on the page, Welsh and Breton are close in their spoken forms. Then there is that odd case that Urdu and Hindi are almost the same phonetically, although using very different writing systems and being divided by religion.

Fascinating!


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## emiellucifuge

Within The Netherlands we have a very diverse range of dialects and other languages. The northernmost province, Friesland, has its own language entirely. Very extraordinary for such a tiny country I think.


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## Rasa

On the same note, scandinavian languages, swedish in particular often have words that are exactly the same in dutch local dialect, even though these words are no longer considered to be modern dutch.


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## emiellucifuge

Rasa said:


> On the same note, scandinavian languages, swedish in particular often have words that are exactly the same in dutch local dialect, even though these words are no longer considered to be modern dutch.


Can you give some examples?


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## Delicious Manager

emiellucifuge said:


> The northernmost province, Friesland, has its own language entirely. Very extraordinary for such a tiny country I think.


It was Friesland I was referring to in my post. The language is partly intelligible by English speakers due to its close similarity to our language (and Dutch is the closest major language to English anyway).


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## emiellucifuge

Delicious Manager said:


> It was Friesland I was referring to in my post. The language is partly intelligible by English speakers due to its close similarity to our language (and Dutch is the closest major language to English anyway).


Really? I had no idea they were so closely related, perhaps thats why I find it so easy to speak English.(or could that be due to having been raised in England and the US?)


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## Delicious Manager

emiellucifuge said:


> I had no idea they were so closely related, perhaps thats why I find it so easy to speak English.(or could that be due to having been raised in England and the US?)


One rhyme that is sometimes used to demonstrate the palpable similarity between (West) Frisian and English is:
"Rye bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Frisian," which sounds very similar to "Brea, bûter en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk."


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## emiellucifuge

Brood, boter en groene kaas is goed engels en goed Fries


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## zoziejemaar

emiellucifuge said:


> Can you give some examples?


for example:

Swedish 'ledig' (means free, available) is the same as Dutch 'ledig' (an archaic word for 'empty'). For the freaks: the proto-Germanic is *liþiga.

Swedish 'hem' (means 'home') sounds the same as 'heem', which is medieval Dutch for 'birth place' of 'home village' (see still modern Dutch 'heimwee' which means 'homesickness') Of course English 'home' is also related. Proto-Germanic is *haima.

(Oh, I love this  )


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## Delicious Manager

zoziejemaar said:


> (Oh, I love this  )


I'm a sucker for this sort of thing too. The way languages retain similarities (or don't) is a source of constant fascination to me. Of course, with absolutley KEY words of vocabulary (mother, father, house, home, work, etc etc) one can see the links immediately (you forgot the German 'Heim' for home  )

One interesting diversion for me is how words like 'window' somehow diverged in the Germanic languages:

German: Fenster
Dutch: venster
Swedish: fönster

English: Window
Danish: vindue
Norwegian: vinduet


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## zoziejemaar

Delicious Manager said:


> One interesting diversion for me is how words like 'window' somehow diverged in the Germanic languages:
> 
> German: Fenster
> Dutch: venster
> Swedish: fönster
> 
> English: Window
> Danish: vindue
> Norwegian: vinduet


Here the Vikings come in. English is, historically, in its basics more closely related to Dutch and German than to Danish. But when the Vikings (speaking predominantly the language that later resulted in Danish) invaded Britain, they left a whole bunch of Old-Norse words that now still exist in Danish. Window is one of them. 'Knife', 'anger', and 'dirt' are some others.

So, English is in fact doubly influenced by Danish: first because they both derive from a common Germanic root, and second because of the Viking invasions. Whereas with Dutch there is no such a strong second influx of words (although there are of course a few Dutch loanwords in English).

As for 'window' it's quite a funny word: it comes from old Norse 'vindauga' which means 'wind-eye'. It's also a very interesting example because Swedish apparently did retain the alternative that survived in other Germanic languages.

(as for my previous post, I was searching for modern Swedish words matching exactly an archaic Dutch word, which makes Swedish for Dutch and Flemish sometimes such a funny language when they hear it)


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## emiellucifuge

But Venster is hardly used anymore, the current word mostly used for window is 'Raam'. Where might that have come from?


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## zoziejemaar

I don't have any idea...  Actually, isn't the 'raam' the window frame, and the 'venster' the window glass proper?

Sorry for my Viking answer, by the way, it must have been a bit obvious for English speakers, and it still does not account for the question: Why do people start preferring one word over another for the same thing? Why did a group of the Germanic people find it better to call a window a 'window-eye' instead of a fenster? Because in Denmark there is more wind anyway so that has more sense? Puzzling...


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## mamascarlatti

Delicious Manager said:


> One interesting diversion for me is how words like 'window' somehow diverged in the Germanic languages:
> 
> German: Fenster
> Dutch: venster
> Swedish: fönster
> 
> English: Window
> Danish: vindue
> Norwegian: vinduet


The German, Dutch and Swedish versions are clearly related to the Romance version:

French: fenêtre (the circumflex accent replacing an s)
Italian: finestra


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## zoziejemaar

mamascarlatti said:


> The German, Dutch and Swedish versions are clearly related to the Romance version:
> 
> French: fenêtre (the circumflex accent replacing an s)
> Italian: finestra


Of course! So, I did some research:

There were in Germanic in fact two words for "window", one meaning "eye-door" (Old English ēagdūru) and one meaning "wind-eye" (Old Norse vindauga). In West-Germanic areas (that is, roughly, Germany and the Netherlands), the eye-door had to recede to the Latin "fenestra". In England, the eye-door receded to the Vikings (that still stands) with their Old Norse "wind-eye". So, nowhere any eye-door anymore (quite a pity, in fact, I like the meaning).

So far so good. Remains the question: why do the Swedish have "fönster" while they were no West-Germanic people and neither ever conquered by the Romans? I looked it up in the Svenska Akademiens ordbok: the Swedish "fönster" is a loanword from ... Dutch (medieval Dutch, that is)!


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## mamascarlatti

Interestingly the Spanish also have a wind opening: ventana, but this time from the latin ventum.

I like the "wind-eye" - those glassless windows in mid winter, brrrrrr.


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## Ivan_cro

Mother tongue: Croatian / Hrvatski
Good at: English, German

Would like to learn: French, Spanish and maybe a few more Slavic languages (I can speak Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian, but they're very similar, so I want to learn Slovenian, Russian or Polish)


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## Lipatti

I've known Norwegian and Romanian since I was a little kid. I also speak English pretty well, and can understand enough Italian and Spanish to read literature in these languages. Right now, I'm working on my French and Russian. In the future, I would like to learn Arabic.

That should keep me occupied for some decades


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## jurianbai

the Indonesian say JENDELA (windows) and RAM (louvre). a Dutch colony for 350 years.


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## Pieck

Mother tongue: Hebrew
Can read, speak and write in English (most of the time cant tell between American and English)
Want to know Arabic, Russian and German


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## Xaltotun

Mother tongue: Finnish
Good at: English
Pretty good at: Swedish
Some ability at: German, French

I think I'll leave my linguistic abilities at that, so much other stuff to do and learn... but you never know, I always surprise myself.


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## science

mother tongue: English
good at: 
ok / can do the tourist thing in: Korean, French, Spanish
beginner at:
would like to learn: German, Russian, Arabic, Turkish
forgot: a little Thai, a little Romanian, a little Burmese


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## myaskovsky2002

*Mother tongue*

Mother tongue: I don't know, I don't remember...Noone? nessuna? aucune? ninguna? nichto?

Other languages: who knows...I am so mixed...This is a too difficult question for me...Let's speak about music, it's easier...

Martin


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