What Languages do you know?

[Minerva]

So, here's a topic that should be fun. I'm curious as to what languages people here know, are learning, or even want to know. I'm just curious as to the languages and interests of Iwaku.

I myself can only speak English, but am learning Latin. I chose Latin because I thought it might be fun to know. I'm having a lot of fun learning Latin, and it does have some use. IT's pretty fun to know the origin of various words by Latin.

I'm dating a Korean Girl, so I want to learn Korean. I probably should learn it, but I'm taking down one language at a time. As I said, I'm currently learning Latin. My language thing will be free in the summer, though, so I may start then.

It probably doesn't count as a "Language" per say, but I also know Javascript, and can write in that.

So, what languages do you know, are learning, or want to know?

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I know English and Shit Post... :3

Seriously though just English.

Despite being Canadian our schools are terrible at teaching french to a good portion of the student base.
To the point they're divided into two main groups of:

1) "French was so easy! How could anyone not get it?"
2) "They made me watch a pineapple and thought it would do something..."

 

[Brovo]

Hello, I speak English.

Bonjour, je parle Français.

EDIT

Could have also said "salut" if I wanted to literally say "hi", but I like bonjour/bonsoir more.

 

[redblood]

Native language: Swedish/Svenska

(Close to) Fluent in:
English

Learning:
Japanese/日本語

Languages I can understand but cannot speak nor write:
Norwegian (Understand written Norwegian well, can understand some of it when spoken if it's slow enough.)
Danish (Understand written Danish somewhat, but not spoken Danish)

 

[Midnight Maiden]

Know some: Latin, Russian, French, German and some others I can't think of at the moment
Mostly fluent in: ASL, Spanish
Fluent in: English

 

[Kestrel]

Dutch and English fluently.

 

[Dervish]

I only know English. Like Gwazi said, it's kind of common for Canadian public schools to do a shit job at teaching French.

Spending over half a semester on goddamn verbs is not going to make me learn French. That's like trying to teach somebody how to drive while focusing on small engine parts instead of actually operating the goddamn vehicle.

I wish I knew French. I think it's great so many people are bilingual, I feel guilty for only being an Anglophone.

 

[die_Sprachkenntnisse]

I'm fluent in both English and Spanish

I'm up to a b1/2 German level, but i can get by given that you talk to me at a moderated speed, I can also write to my will without a dictionary.

currently at A2/2 French, though I can read way more than I can currently speak it; I have very good composition as well.

I know basic Japanese, like greetings, verbs, simple sentences, counting and so on.

I wish to formalize my Japanese language knowledge.

also my goal is to become a full polyglot.

@Dervish as a language and translation major, I find it very important to understand verbs and their uses. Without them you wouldn't be able to write nor speak a language. Verbs can be tedious and confusing sometimes, but they are the main substance to a language. Usually when starting to learn a language a lot of focus will be given to verb tense and mode.
You don't want to end up with broken language knowledge, it gives a bad impression to native speakers.

 

[GhostJoker]

I speak English and Spanish very well. I speak Portuguese as well, but not fluent.

 

[Dervish]

I'm fluent in both English and Spanish

I'm up to a b1/2 German level, but i can get by given that you talk to me at a moderated speed, I can also write to my will without a dictionary.

currently at A2/2 French, though I can read way more than I can currently speak it; I have very good composition as well.

I know basic Japanese, like greetings, verbs, simple sentences, counting and so on.

I wish to formalize my Japanese language knowledge.

also my goal is to become a full polyglot.

@Dervish as a language and translation major, I find it very important to understand verbs and their uses. Without them you wouldn't be able to write nor speak a language. Verbs can be tedious and confusing sometimes, but they are the main substance to a language. Usually when starting to learn a language a lot of focus will be given to verb tense and mode.
You don't want to end up with broken language knowledge, it gives a bad impression to native speakers.

I think I got more out of 2 days in Paris compared to my grade 9 semester for picking up conversational bits of French. I understand how important the technical aspects of language are, but going back to tool analogies, they can keep giving you wrenches but if you have no idea what you're supposed to be working on, you pretty much are left with a very broken understanding and the job doesn't get done.

We learned how to write the stuff down, and in some cases even did essays, those were good. However, we rarely were given framework for using anything past our current lesson in pre-written statements delivered orally in a "you go, I go" format.They could have done a much, much better job.

 

[chillin]

Croatian, Bosnian and most of Serbian are easy to understand and communicate with for me (and most Slavic people). I also know English pretty well (I think), and I used to know German fluently, but now I'm a bit rusty.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

In my experience, Canadian French classes also suffer from a bad case of the snowball effect.

The schools are so varied in what level they teach you at, some are thrown right into a french immersion program at the start of school where you either pick it up really fast or you start failing all your subjects because they're all being taught in french. Or you get cases where they simply make you watch TV for a bit, and that french pineapple thing wasn't a joke either. Which REALLY doesn't help when said TV shows even lack subtitles, so you can't even go "Oh, so that's what they're saying", and instead have to guess with essentially just gestures. And then you get schools everywhere in between these extreme's as well.


That can get especially bad for students who need to switch schools (which in my experience, that's the majority of students case growing up) so you're constantly being thrown into classes where they're expecting you to be at a further pace than your earlier school did. And often times, they don't offer any way to help kids catch-up. Having what's essentially a "Oh well, you better smarten up and catch up" mentality... with children.

And as a Canadian, I rarely run into people who are semi-fluent in french. They are either completely fluent (for their given grade) or completely left in the dust. Which really doesn't help because with most school topics, by having students at a variety of stages you at least create some sort of mutual sympathy and understanding among classmates, where they can try to help and pick one another up. French isn't like that though, the students who would advance quickly in French tended to see the others as some sort of alien figures, which effectively created the bizarre cliché system. Like, it didn't carry much into social circles, but as far as French was concerned it effectively made a 'Master Race' and 'Poor Peasant' diversion, so the only students who would often be willing to help others would be in just as bad a situation as those who needed the help... Or in the cases the person genuinely wanted to help, there'd be such a divide they'd have no idea where or how to start.

Note this is only compounded by the fact that a lot of the time the students who are doing well are coming from french immersion programs, so they've spent several years surrounded by those whose schools and families were working non-stop on teaching them french. So the fact they now have classmates who aren't like that only add's to the foreign aspect.

All this basically ends up in the kids who do well continually progressing to do well, while the rest completely cease to learn anything from the classes eventually because there's just so much requirements to understand the content that they never ended up grasping. It was such an issue that the High School I went to let any student with an IEP of any kind skip french entirely and exchange it for learning resources instead.

I'm tempted to say given that they should just put everyone in french immersion, since it seems to have a higher success rate than otherwise.
The issue there though is that if it doesn't work (which still happens quite a bit) you've not only just failed at something in french, but just caused a set back in the kids entire education.

 

[Finhawk]

I'd say I'm pretty good at Finnish since that's my first language.

I'm also not too bad at English since I've always been that lazy bastard who watches too much TV (it's all about dem subtitles in Finland). I also happen to use the language a lot and some days I actually need English more than I do Finnish (which might be partially caused by the fact that I'm studying English at a university). I suck at talking English though. My pronunciation is so typically Finnish and that combined with my lisp, my English must be painful to listen to. (I'm aware of the fact that my grammar fails. I'm a bad example of an English student.)

And then I know some Swedish. Because Finnish schools force you to learn it even though you don't really need it that much unless you live close to the Swedish border. I think. I've never needed Swedish so far but I guess it'll be something you need once you actually have a job. Which kinda suck since I've never been good at Swedish. Probably because I've almost never used it outside of a classroom. I don't really have trouble understanding written Swedish if there's no fancy weirdo words or stuff but if I have to talk in Swedish, I'm so very fucked.

 

[chillin]

I suck at talking English though. My pronunciation is so typically Finnish and that combined with my lisp, my English must be painful to listen to. (I'm aware of the fact that my grammar fails. I'm a bad example of an English student.)

Same! Sometimes it's really hard speaking AND hearing, and my mouth/throat gets really tired very easily, so I mostly chat...

 

[Mari]

Nihongo and English. I once had an interest in Korean but not for very long. No anticipated interest in learning other languages :D

 

[Yatagarasu]

I can barely speak Chinese properly...

I'M FUCKING CHINESE MYSELF

-slams desk-

 

[Mu]

• English, my first language so my most fluent.
• Mandarin Chinese, know enough to understand what is being said but my writing, speaking and reading levels make me cry
• Cantonese Chinese, know enough to understand what is being said... most of the time. Since Cantonese was my second language, it gives my Mandarin this disgusting thick accent.
• Basic Japanese because I'm learning. Seriously, it's just いくらですか??? Also learning my te and tari form.
• THE ONLY KOREAN I KNOW IS 떡볶이, 어떻게 AND 하지마. ALL FROM WATCHING DRAMA AND FUNNY TO SAY.

 

[Luxii]

• English ;D
• Struggling to learn Korean >.<

 

[SacredWarrior]

Sadly I only know English :( It would be pretty awesome if I knew Japanese but I don't really have the means to learn it :(

 

[Turtle of Doom]

I can read, write and speak English and Spanish (though I'm normally really stubborn about admitting the latter). And I can understand some sign language, but when I try to use it myself my hands get very confused.