Languages

[Nero Egernia]

Hey everyone.

I know a lot of people on here speak and write English, but does anyone know or are currently learning another language? I've begun learning Greek. There's no particular reason why I decided to learn another language. My sister thought it would be a good thing to do and I thought it could be fun. I thought the Greek language sounded nice and I've always want to go there. I can't wait to one day go on a holiday overseas.

So, is anyone learning or already knows a different language besides English?

Cool fact: You know how my user name is Nero Egernia? I chose it because "nero" means black in Italian and "Egernia" is the genus of one of my favourite lizards. However, in Greek, "nero" or "νερό" means water!

 

[Sdaji]

Hey everyone.

I know a lot of people on here speak and write English-

I had a good laugh at this statement.


I speak a bit of Lao and can speak enough Thai to get by in Thailand. I can have basic conversations but can't discuss religion/politics or whatever. They tried to teach me Chinese for four years at high school, I thought I'd forgotten it all but recently some Chinese people asked me for directions and I was amazed to find that I was able to drag enough words out of my memory to communicate how to get to where they were going. I drove a Vietnamese girl home in Melbourne the other day and for amusement value she directed me the whole way in Vietnamese (left, right, forward and backward were about the only words we needed and are four of only about 20-30 words I've picked up after a total over around 5 months in Vietnam). I hope to be able to become fluent in Thai and Lao/Issan within the next few years. I'd also like to learn Spanish, but realistically I'll probably never get around to it, although compared to Thai it would be extremely easy, so who knows?

Yesterday I was at a Thai restaurant and a Chinese woman came in trying to ask (in English) how the prawns had been cooked. The Thai woman didn't speak English and asked me to translate. The Chinese woman was amazed that I was able to speak Thai and asked where I was from. I said Australia and she said 'Wow, that's amazing, you're Australian and you can speak English and Thai, what other languages can you speak?' I said I spoke a bit of Lao, and she asked what other languages other than French. I said I couldn't speak any French and she was extremely confused that an Australian couldn't speak French, especially since I could speak English and Thai. Go figure!

 

[LilithLeChat]

Native Crostian speaker here, can understand the gist of other Slavic languages, picked up smatterings of Italian from my grandparents too.

 

[Nero Egernia]

I had a good laugh at this statement.

What is it that you find amusing about this statement?

Native Crostian speaker here, can understand the gist of other Slavic languages, picked up smatterings of Italian from my grandparents too.

That's incredible. You seem to have a good grasp of English. How was your experience learning another language?

I learnt a little Italian in high school, but honestly, at the time I wasn't really interested. I hardly remember any Italian now. I used to learn Indonesian and Japanese in primary school but as before I wasn't interested. I've learnt more Greek in the past few months than I ever did at school.

 

[Sdaji]

What is it that you find amusing about this statement?

One would expect that every single member on this forum is able to read and write/type English. It's a required ability for using the forum. Add to that the irony that many people aren't actually very good at it. It's very amusing.

...and I probably need to say it, partly for the winging snowflakes and also partly as a legitimate show of respect to non native speakers, no, it's not at all ironic for our non native English speaker friends on the forum, full admiration and respect to all of them with enough English to be able to take part, whatever level they're at.

 

[Flaviemys purvisi]

Can speak and understand Afrikaans (a blend of both German and dutch) very well thanks to 12 years with my south African wife.

 

[danyjv]

Just strailian for me .
Mum and dad are both Maltese and I wish I did know how to speak and understand it but never tried or took any interest now I’m to old to learn ..


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[LilithLeChat]

I would hope my English is good, I’ve been here 33 years
I do have problems with definite and indefinite articles - sprinkle them around liberally where they don’t belong, and leave them out when I should be using them. Also if I’m tired or upset, my syntax sucks.
I started learning English in primary school, but I didn’t actually learn it properly until I moved here and got total immersion experience. Although for the first year, the Aussie accent had me baffled.
The breakthrough came when I started thinking in English instead of translating sentences in my head.
I still have a thick accent after all these years, and mix up my v’s and w’s all the time.

 

[Sdaji]

Just strailian for me .
Mum and dad are both Maltese and I wish I did know how to speak and understand it but never tried or took any interest now I’m to old to learn ..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How old is too old to learn?

 

[danyjv]

For me 38 is to old.


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[LittleButterfly]

Im a fluent english speaker but am learning french and have previously learnt but don't fluently speak afrikaans and xhosa

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

Conversational Russian, German, Moldavian, Romanian. Enough that I can fully function in any of those countries but would never consider myself fluent.
As for age, well I was in my mid 30's when I went to work in Russia and couldn't speak a word so I guess its down to the individual and their motivations for learning a new language.

 

[jahan]

I can speak Maltese after living there for 3yrs when I was younger and taught myself how to read it as well. Couldn`t speak it before I went there.My parents where Maltese but I never spoke to them in Maltese before going over there.

 

[Sdaji]

Conversational Russian, German, Moldavian, Romanian. Enough that I can fully function in any of those countries but would never consider myself fluent.
As for age, well I was in my mid 30's when I went to work in Russia and couldn't speak a word so I guess its down to the individual and their motivations for learning a new language.

Sounds like you were already multilingual before learning Russian in your mid 30s, which would definitely give you a big advantage. How long did it take you to be 'fully functional' in Russian? How much effort and what methods did you apply to learning?

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

Sounds like you were already multilingual before learning Russian in your mid 30s, which would definitely give you a big advantage. How long did it take you to be 'fully functional' in Russian? How much effort and what methods did you apply to learning?

The business I was working with employed a teacher for a while but I got little to nothing from that tbh.
I learned from neccesity, asking girls in the office how to order order my breakfast or beers in the evening then practised those individual scentances. (Very few people spoke English at even basic level)

I guess it would have taken me 4 or 5 years before I was confident enough with my language skills to hold telephone conversations with people I didnt know.

German was easy to learn. I only lived there for 6 months and was conversational in that time. Problem with Russian/Ukranian is the difficulty in reading makes it more difficult to learn to speak (well I believe so). Once I could read a little my language skills improved dramatically.

 

[Sdaji]

The business I was working with employed a teacher for a while but I got little to nothing from that tbh.
I learned from neccesity, asking girls in the office how to order order my breakfast or beers in the evening then practised those individual scentances. (Very few people spoke English at even basic level)

I guess it would have taken me 4 or 5 years before I was confident enough with my language skills to hold telephone conversations with people I didnt know.

German was easy to learn. I only lived there for 6 months and was conversational in that time. Problem with Russian/Ukranian is the difficulty in reading makes it more difficult to learn to speak (well I believe so). Once I could read a little my language skills improved dramatically.

That all makes a lot of sense and fits in with my experience. I observe that people don't learn languages effectively in a classroom, they learn it in read world situations, especially where it's a necessity. It's just not natural or effective to learn a language through formal study. I've spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have tried to learn English in classes without any success, and then just by chatting to foreigners they've picked it up. I spent four years at high school in Mandarin Chinese classes and didn't learn what you can pick up in a month or two of just chatting to people. One of the difficulties in learning Thai has been the reading. Not only is it a completely unrelated alphabet, but it's an incredibly bad one. Over the last few years in Asia I've really come to appreciate how much better some languages are than others. I've also learned how much different languages affect the way people think and how big an affect they have on the culture of the people who speak them.

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

Knew I was developing my language skills when I started dreaming in Russian.
That was really freaky the first time it happened.

 

[Sdaji]

Knew I was developing my language skills when I started dreaming in Russian.
That was really freaky the first time it happened.

That must have been a great feeling! I don't think I've had dreams in other languages yet! The thought is in my head now though; maybe I'll dream in Thai or Lao tonight.

 

[nuttylizardguy]

Learnt some German and French in high school (was compulsory in yr 7 & yr 8), even duxed my school in German, more interested in maths and science .

Picked up Welsh and Scottish Gaelic from next door neighbours as a kid.

Had a go at teaching myself Russian but I soon lost interest.

Not an everyday speaker or reader in these though, just enough to get the gist really.

Do Pascal, Fortran, C++, Java, HMTL, Assembler, Visual Basic, and MATLAB count ?

 

[Herpetology]

I can speak teenager grunts