Do any of you speak or have an interest in foreign languages?

I speak French fairly well, and I just started picking up Russian. I'd like to learn others farther down the road. Namely Portuguese, Czech, Serbo-Croation, and Norwegian, although I may have an interest in different ones down the road.

Ive taken 2 1/2 years of Spanish and I still cant talk fluently in it, I cant write that well either, but I can read real good.

Ive taken 2 1/2 years of Spanish and I still cant talk fluently in it, I cant write that well either, but I can read real good.

I find that I can speak, write, and read French much more easily than I can understand it. Even the people speaking on the tapes specifically made for French students are tough for me to understand sometimes.

I've taken four years of spanish, but I have to speak very slowly to be grammatically correct.

I've been trying to learn Spanish, since my grandparentts don't speak English.
I'm failing miserably.

Do any of you speak or have an interest in foreign languages?

I speak French fairly well, and I just started picking up Russian. I'd like to learn others farther down the road. Namely Portuguese, Czech, Serbo-Croation, and Norwegian, although I may have an interest in different ones down the road.

those are the two languages i want to learn most in the world... is russian hard to adapt to? i imagine it would be harder than french cause it isnt based in latin..

Do any of you speak or have an interest in foreign languages?

I speak French fairly well, and I just started picking up Russian. I'd like to learn others farther down the road. Namely Portuguese, Czech, Serbo-Croation, and Norwegian, although I may have an interest in different ones down the road.
French and Chinese. Shouldn't have stopped French, but I couldn't stand the teacher. Will be finishing Chinese for my VCE this year, I'll most likely take it up again in uni but.

Nice profile picture, by the by.

those are the two languages i want to learn most in the world... is russian hard to adapt to? i imagine it would be harder than french cause it isnt based in latin..

It's not hard so far. I already have the alphabet down pretty well, most of the characters have English counterparts except for a rolled "R" (Pp), and most of the vowels sound like the speaker puts a "Y" sound in front of it. I would recommend doing Russian on your own or at least just with a private teacher. I don't think it's something you could learn well in a large group. I chose it because my neighbor is native Russian and he told me to speak it with him for practice.

French is pretty easy. Harder than Spanish and Italian but nothing unmanageable. It'll take a while to achieve fluency (I've been learning for 4 years and I'm nowhere near it). There are plenty of resources available though.


French and Chinese. Shouldn't have stopped French, but I couldn't stand the teacher. Will be finishing Chinese for my VCE this year, I'll most likely take it up again in uni but.

Nice profile picture, by the by.


That's cool. I've always heard that Chinese is popular in Australia. Are there a lot of native speakers in your country? Learning characters never really interested me but to be honest I know nothing about the language. And it'll be useful when China owns everything in 2050.

And thank you. It was my favorite album of 2008 (Weird Era Cont., that is, Microcastle was great too).

I've had a hard enough time trying to master English...

I'm having a hard time in my French 1 class. QQ

I took four years of Spanish in high school. All I remember is, "For how you feel and where you are, always, always use estar."

I guess languages that interest me are Hebrew, Japanese, German, Korean, and Mandarin. I doubt I'll learn half of that list, but at least one of them would be nice.

Si hablo espanol

I can talk it good, read it perfectley, but I can't write it that good.

that well
that WELL

if you didn't learn the language as a young child growing up then there's little chance you'll ever actually master it, regardless of how much effort you put into learning it

I can talk it good.



http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/2797/homersimpsonqd3.jpg

that well
that WELL

if you didn't learn the language as a young child growing up then there's little chance you'll ever actually master it, regardless of how much effort you put into learning it

I don't think that's necessarily true, depending on how you define master. Many native English speakers haven't even mastered their own language ("talk it good").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3w8yHrqFiQ&feature=channel_page
This guy has learned 8 languages throughout his life (counting his native Italian). He speaks American English without almost any hint of an accent (he pronounces the "uh" sound a bit like "ah"). I'm assuming he has at least advanced proficiency in the others based on his confidence and the comments.

He's a rare exception. Learning languages while the brain is still developing in the early stages of childhood is very important. You can learn languages later on in life but your brain handles them completely differently from your native language and, in most cases, is simply not capable of ever becoming as skilled in it as your first one.

Experts say that if you studied a foreign language in an immersive setting, you could come quite close to having the same fluency as you do with your first language.

Of course, this could prove to be just a myth.

I wonder what happens when you teach a baby to use multiple languages from birth.

I took a year of Latin, but it didn't really get me anywhere.

I can't make myself put forth enough effort to learn a foreign language.

I wonder what happens when you teach a baby to use multiple languages from birth.

They'll know them. A lot of kids grow up learning their parents language and the language of their country.

That's cool. I've always heard that Chinese is popular in Australia. Are there a lot of native speakers in your country? Learning characters never really interested me but to be honest I know nothing about the language. And it'll be useful when China owns everything in 2050.
There's quite a few in my state, but there are more Vietnamese.
Thing is though, that most people who speak Chinese in Australia speak a dialect that isn't Mandarin. Mandarin's pretty uncommon, now that I think of it. There's not that many families that speak it as a first language.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3w8yHrqFiQ&feature=channel_page
This guy has learned 8 languages throughout his life (counting his native Italian). He speaks American English without almost any hint of an accent (he pronounces the "uh" sound a bit like "ah"). I'm assuming he has at least advanced proficiency in the others based on his confidence and the comments.
Even though I'm capped, that's pretty cool. My dad comes pretty close, he can speak seven languages proficiently.

Even though I'm capped, that's pretty cool. My dad comes pretty close, he can speak seven languages proficiently.

Your dad is the shit.