Sunday's Question of the Day - Aug 10, 2014

Good morning TCSers! TCS is an international forum and there are quite a few members who come by and apologize for their poor English - the fact is their English is often pretty good! I find people who pursue second languages (or more) put more work into ensuring what they do know how to say - even if it's very little - can be understood, especially compared to some lazier native speakers.

Contrarily, I deal with a lot of non-native speakers at work where in-person communication in another language is more challenging than being able to doublecheck with the internets. In this neck of the woods a lot of people can't get by in English and try to talk to me in Somalian, Hindi, and I'll be lucky to get some Italian or Spanish.

What languages do you speak/read/write? What languages would you be interested in learning and why?

I speak English.  However, I have some recollection of both the Spanish and French I took in high school.  Spanish has stuck with me more so, I can usually make out the gist of conversations.  When I went to Spain (Barcelona) this little bit carried me far enough to get around and, at times when the person I was speaking to didn't understand English very well.  But I wouldn't want to be quizzed on either of those 

I speak English but I know some French. Not enough to have a conversation, but usually enough to know what I am reading if something is in French.

I barely speak English   but I would love to learn Spanish since there is so much of it around now days. I have always admired people who speak more then one language, my grandson knows a LOT from watching Dora on TV, we heard him speaking Spanish to the set last night!

Haha, those kids shows are actually pretty effective! My friend's god daughter learned so much with Dora and Diego, and my nephew watches Ni Hao Kai Lan endlessly so I think I might learn Mandarin from him soon!

I speak, read, and write English fluently.

I speak Cantonese conversationally (like talking to a 5 year old maybe; I think I read at a much lower level and what I can write looks atrocious... ).

I can get by speaking some business-casual conversations in Japanese as well as read hiragana, albeit very slowly.

I understand a little bit of (Quebecois) French but all I know how to do reliably is ask to go to the bathroom/where it is, tell people I don't understand them/can't speak French, and count orally and in writing.

I learned a bit of Iroquoian Mohawk in university but I only remember how to say "hello" now.

I would like to brush up on my Cantonese for sure, learn Mandarin, learn more French and Japanese, and learn Korean - Korean looks pretty easy in terms of reading and writing because it's largely syllabic and their characters are much more simplified than Chinese! One day I would like to be able to travel and spend a month or two hopping around East Asia, but I certainly don't want to be taken advantage of as a foreigner.  And it looks better on resumes and such to be able to say you're bi/multilingual.  French is Canada's second language, so it goes without saying that it would be advantageous to know!

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I sadly only speak the English. I know a spattering of Portuguese but I could never speak it fluently enough. If I was to wish I could learn a language that would definitely be one of them. My grandmother only speaks Portuguese and this has definitely left a communication block after all these years because we’ve never really been able to talk I suppose. She’ll say one tiny sentence at me in English and then shake her head at me. “You bad boy” *shakes head*. I thusly respond with a big smile and she laughs at me and swats me over the head. It’s worked for 29 years.

If I could learn any other language I’d have to say one of the many Asian languages, possibly Japanese or Korean. Why? I grew up watching a lot of anime and still watch a lot of shows both Japanese and Korean. Would be nice to watch without subs. Also, I plan on one day visiting those counties and it would be nice to be there and be fluent enough to get by.

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Only English and a bit of sign language for me.  I can usually understand more than I can say back in sign language though.  I took 4 years of Latin in high school; but I have never felt like learning a foreign language was "my thing."  I've wondered before if I'd do better with it learning in a non-traditional way.  I have always wanted to speak Italian; but that wasn't offered at my schools.  I refused to take Spanish; most of my step-family is fluent.  My friends would try to practice saying things to my Step-dad and they'd end up sitting there with him practicing their pronunciation....   So no Spanish for me.  When I got older I figured that was my way of rebelling as a teen!  

I don't let me kids watch Dora/Diego (or Barney) at home.  I cannot stand Dora's voice!!  I figure if they want to learn Spanish now they can talk to their Papa!  We do get High5; a younger version of the Highlights magazine. It has some stories that have Spanish words and a pronunciation guide.  Thats a good enough start for me!  

I speak and write Spanish as a second language and volunteer as a translator on a couple of non-profit websites.  I understand enough French to get by in a restaurant or deal with a hotel bill but certainly couldn't carry on a conversation.  Hubby and I are planning a trip to Denmark next year for our 30th anniversary and I've been thinking of trying to learn some Danish before we go, especially since it's in my DNA.     My mom's side of the family is Danish.  I know lots of people speak English there but I haven't tried to learn a new language in a long time and it would be good for the old brain cells to learn something new.

English, but know a very little amount of Italian. I am half Italian on my Dad's side, so I have always wanted to learn it.  A few yrs ago I bought some CDs, & started learning a little, but w/ CDs, it was hard to decipher sometimes. I would listen & say, "was that a "B" or a "P" that word started with. I made it almost half way through the CDs, but it just got to hard, & hard to figure out if I was interrupting the right pronunciation.

SO, I finally just stopped, & now remember very little.  (molto umpaugh= very little!)  

Maybe one day I will pick it back up.

My native language is English, while my second language is German. I've been married to a German and living in Germany for over three decades.

I'm English and can speak just a wee bit of French and a little more German. Certainly not enough to carry on a detailed conversation with either though.

I've been debating whether I want to learn Spanish.....heaven knows we hear it enough around here anymore.

(As an aside, one weekend our son was visiting his GF in Manhattan and they went to a play. There was a German couple sitting behind them, drunk as skunks and being exceedingly rude. Complaining about everything and anything in German. And DS knows German quite well. Finally, after listening to them for about 15 minutes or so, he stood up, turned around, and told them very politely that if they didn't like the play and if they had issues with the people and if they really didn't want to be there, they could leave. Because he was getting quite tired of having to sit there and listen to them. And he spoke it all in German. About five minutes later, they left.)

Good on your son! I bet they totally weren't expecting someone to understand or speak up.

I read that even if you don't learn a second language later in life, just knowing and utilizing more than one language throughout your life helps keep your brain healthy! It's a bit hard if you don't have anyone to practice with (like how @Angels mommy used pre-recordings), but supplementing with real world practice where you can get it and watching TV shows and movies in that language can help put learning into context when you can't immerse yourself in the entire culture or country.

Finding languages of the same root makes it easier too - my boyfriend is Dutch and even though they speak English well in Holland, his mother still writes/emails to family there once in a while so she has some limited knowledge of Dutch. When they say the few things they know how to say in Dutch, it sounds very close to their English equivalents (as does German sometimes). There are some Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words that are very similar too, so having a general idea of one can help the vocabulary of another... or it can be a huge hindrance to get mixed up in. I almost always got the numbers 5 and 9 mixed up in Japanese because "go" is 9 in Cantonese, whereas "go" is 5 in Japanese.

English

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Only English at the moment. Next semester I plan on taking Japanese because I watch a lot of anime and reading subtitles is good, but listening to the words and understanding them would be even better!

I have spoken English and French all my life, was born in Britain and now live in France. I studied Mandarin at university and lived in Bosnia for 10 years, so I learned to speak their version of Serbo-Croat. I also have smatterings of Spanish and Italian so I get by as a tourist. There is no doubt that once you speak two languages it is much easier to learn a third or a fourth. You just get a sort of automatic feeling for the structure and grammar, and of course most major languages have their roots in only two or three ancient tongues, so vocabulary gets easier to remember.

Malay (no reason to use it anymore), Hokkien (it's like Taiwanese with Malay thrown in), bits of Japanese.

Want to learn: Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, ASL.