# What languages do you speak or are learning?



## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

...of course, one of these will perhaps be your mother tongue - then don't check it. Well, being a linguist, I thought I might start a thread like this... Just to see which languages are the most popular and how many people actually speak a foreign language. I've added a nice poll. I've chosen languages I think are the greatest, or most widely spoken. Sorry if someone feels left out. Naturally, I haven't included English since the fact that you are conversing with us here already means you speak it on a more or less advanced level. Many of you are native speakers, too.

Personally, I'm studying English and Romanian at the university. My English, as far as I can judge, is fine, and my Romanian is far less advanced (I've been learning it for some months now), but I'm working on it 'cause it's a cool language that's not hard to grasp if you're acquainted with Latin or any modern Romance language (Italian, French, Spanish...). And there are many Slavic words in it, which is great since my mother tongue is Croatian.

I also speak Italian, not very fluently, but it's reasonably good. I've recently acquired a smattering of Hungarian, too.

I've noticed how, because of my interest in classical music, my language knowledge has improved a lot. For example, due to reading of the texts of Schubert's and Schumann's _Lieder_, following the words in the music (and singing along, unfortunately ), I grasped some German words and even some German grammar. Same goes for French.

Enough of me! Let's hear from other citizens of our little Classical Republic!


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## nefigah (Aug 23, 2008)

I speak Russian as a second language, and can understand Spanish pretty well.

I'd really like to learn German, as my favorite composers spoke it.


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

Ah, I actually was thinking of making this thread myself, but it would appear you beat me to it. 

Well, I can speak japanese decently, but am really rusty. I'm just now starting to learn french and spanish, but might drop spanish until after I've become better at french. I'm using Rosetta stone; which, in my good opinion has an amazing approach to embedding the spoken aspects of a language in a persons head.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Edmond-Dantes said:


> I'm using Rosetta stone; which, in my good opinion has an amazing approach to embedding the spoken aspects of a language in a persons head.


An embarassing question being that I'm a language student - but what is Rosetta stone, except for the old block with the help of which Champollion deciphered the hieroglyphs?


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## JTech82 (Feb 6, 2009)

I would like to learn French, but I heard it's very difficult.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I'm learning french, but still je ne parle pas français good enough to convers. And I guess this will take some time, because I'm learning on my own. I also learned some german in school, but it didn't gave me much. Probably I'll try to polish it up in future.


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

LOL. No problem LisztFreak. ^_^

It's a computer program that, for one, has absolutely no english in it what so ever. It makes you associate foreign words with pictures, as apposed to associating foreign words with your native language. That way you don't think, " 'Le chat en wa' means 'A black cat' ," you just picture a black cat when you hear the phrase "le chat en wa"; which, if you think about it, is much more natural that the traditional method of learning: comparing two texts to each other.

It also has A BUNCH of other good tools and features such as the ability to show you if your pronunciation of a word or phrase is wrong.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

I am learning French in school, know a little German from all this crazy Mahler and Wagner stuff, and I used to know a competent amount of Japanese (must get back to that someday, I love that language).

I'm somewhat of a language nut, so I like learning languages when I can. I'd like to learn some Russian and Finnish as well! Haha.

~WV (I suppose I must now differentiate between WV and D.D. Shostakovich, at least until I'm tossed off that infernal balloon!)


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## Ciel_Rouge (May 16, 2008)

I'm fluent in German to the point of actively reading forums about astronomy and music.

I'm currently trying to learn Spanish - and yes, it is indeed due to listening to some Spanish music with words - e.g. Los impossibles - a great album by L'Arpeggiata 

A similar thing happened to me with Croatian - I listened to some Croatian pop (e.g. Alka Vuica) and also started picking up the language.

I also tried a few other languages and picked up a little:

- Russian - I can even read the alphabet
- Japanese - learned a few phrases from a podcast, watched some anime and recognised some of them
- Italian - while watching "The Red Violin" film and comparing the words with Spanish
- Slovak - met someone from Slovakia
- Ukrainian - I went to Ukraine a few years ago
- Vietnamese - learned a few phrases from a podcast and used them on a native speaker - he was very amused

I wonder if we have here any native speakers of the languages mentioned - apart from the Original Poster being Croatian 

I guess a great way of learning a lanugage is visiting a classical music forum. I am already planning to visit the Spanish one but I need to brush up on my skills a little.


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

Spanish along with English are my native langauges. Studying and performing music certainly helped with my interesed with foreign language. 
Apart from the Italian, French and German terms one runs into while reading music; listening to Opera while following along in the Libretto are a great way to start understanding a language. It definitley expanded my vocabulary in Italian and French.


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

Other : trying to learn Czech, but it's enormously complex.


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## marval (Oct 29, 2007)

Well I did French at school, I always managed when I went to France. Has been a while though, and I also decided to learn german. My parents spoke it fluently and sometimes would speak it at home. I wanted to know what (or who) they were talking about.


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## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

English/Greek bilingual.
I've lived in Greece for 18 years now so it's hardly surprising.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I do rather well with Deutsch and Francais with a good deal of Russian i learned in the mid 90's to now.
Would love to really immerse myself in a language to become fluent but this is difficult in the area I live. The Russians want to speak English and don't want to bother with their native language (which is good as it is America and they are desirous to continue English)and I don't have a lot of time to spend on books,DVD's and CD's. The real immersion is best. And so German and French immersion is impossible here in the Portland area.

Jim


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Ciel_Rouge said:


> A similar thing happened to me with Croatian - I listened to some Croatian pop (e.g. Alka Vuica) and also started picking up the language.


Gee, Alka Vuica... I even forgot about her. When I was a very, very little boy (3 or so), I used to put on a cassette of her songs and dance to the music... Well, in short, I can't imagine doing that now.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

jezbo said:


> Other : trying to learn Czech, but it's enormously complex.


I'd really like to learn Czech, it's such a melodius Slavic language, not too different from Croatian. Whenever there's a Czech movie on TV (very occasionally), I love the change of the music of language: since the media are bombarding us with English, to hear another language comes as a pleasant breather to the ears. I do love English, of course, I wouldn't be studying it otherwise, it's just that there's so much of it all around.

BTW, there's a hilarious language skit here:






A must see!


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

i speak english, bahasa indonesi a, mandarin, two chinese dialect hakka and teocheo and for hakka i speak one more sub-dialect of it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I studied Chinese at uni, for 3 years, but that was ten years ago, so I am very rusty. I would probably find it easy to use the language if I went there, though.

My native language is Hungarian, but I was born there but bought up mainly here in Australia.


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

Lisztfreak said:


> BTW, there's a hilarious language skit here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lizstfreak, I dont know if you like Monty Python, but you might like this skit about Hungarian...






...there are a couple of other Monty Python language skits involving Italian and German on Youtube as well.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

I speak French fluenty and Finnish conversationally.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

JoeGreen said:


> Lizstfreak, I dont know if you like Monty Python, but you might like this skit about Hungarian...


Yeah, I've seen that once. It's good, the only problem is that language in the skit has nothing to do with Hungarian. 

It's interesting how many of you here speak French. Is it because of the Canadians (or Canadiens)? In Europe, French has recently fallen out of fashion totally. Well, at least in Central Europe.


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## mueske (Jan 14, 2009)

Lisztfreak said:


> Yeah, I've seen that once. It's good, the only problem is that language in the skit has nothing to do with Hungarian.
> 
> It's interesting how many of you here speak French. Is it because of the Canadians (or Canadiens)? In Europe, French has recently fallen out of fashion totally. Well, at least in Central Europe.


It's because alot of people are led to believe it's a beautiful language, while that statment couldn't be further from the truth! I hate French, and yes I speak it, or at least enough to survive.


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## handlebar (Mar 19, 2009)

I would love to learn Hungarian. Spending time in Budapest made me want to learn it. But then again spending time in Prague pushed me towards Czech!!

I need another european vacation!!

Jim


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Russian, English, a bit Hebrew. Don't really see the point of learning anything else.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

nickgray said:


> Russian, English, a bit Hebrew. Don't really see the point of learning anything else.


 Sorry, but it's like asking, 'Now I've heard Beethoven's 9th, is there a point hearing anything else?'


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Lisztfreak said:


> Sorry, but it's like asking, 'Now I've heard Beethoven's 9th, is there a point hearing anything else?'


But what use they would be of to me? My prim. language is Russian. English: my verbal and writing skills aren't really good, but I do understand the language quite well (can easily read a book or see a movie without any subtitles). I live in Israel and there's the reason for my knowledge of Hebrew, but I kinda suck at it since I rarely use it. Now, what's the point of me learning... French, for example? I'm not really interested in anything French, I don't have friends who speak French and therefore I see no point in learning it - what good will it be learning a language (a very time-consuming process) that has no practical purpose whatsoever for me? None.


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## Edmond-Dantes (Mar 20, 2009)

Well, you can use the reason why I'm learning french for example. XD I have a particular fondness for french literature and movies.  

I would agree that french isn't the most beautiful language by the way.  I know a lot of people think it sounds beautiful, but it's never measured up to Italian to me. ;P


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

nickgray said:


> French, for example? I'm not really interested in anything French, I don't have friends who speak French and therefore I see no point in learning it - what good will it be learning a language (a very time-consuming process) that has no practical purpose whatsoever for me? None.


Just for the hack of it. And it certainly trains your brain-cells. With each new language learned, your verbal abilities (I'd say your verbal IQ, too) improves greatly.

Of course you don't have to learn languages if you don't have to, it depends on whether you like it or not.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Edmond-Dantes said:


> I would agree that french isn't the most beautiful language by the way.  I know a lot of people think it sounds beautiful, but it's never measured up to Italian to me. ;P


I know a lot of people who think both languages sound utterly horrible.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

French is incredibly sexy.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

Tapkaara said:


> French is incredibly sexy.


 I've got a friend at the university who goes horny whenever some foreign French student passes by talking in his language.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Amazing the aphrodisiac powers a spoken language can have!


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## JTech82 (Feb 6, 2009)

I used to speak Pig Latin, but I'm more fluent in Gibberish. You would be surprised how many drunk people understand you when you're speaking Gibberish!


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## Guest (Apr 14, 2009)

I studied Russian for 4 years, I then found a work mate who was Polish so we conversed a bit but apparently it gave me Russian with a Polish accent, have not used it for 40 years.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

JTech82 said:


> I used to speak Pig Latin, but I'm more fluent in Gibberish. You would be surprised how many drunk people understand you when you're speaking Gibberish!


Haha, please do recommend us a good Gibberish grammar book with excercises - stress on conversational situations.


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