What language can you speak?

[Tom]

Honestly!!

My apologies for doubting! I'm very confused. You write English like a native and 'bum' is not a Turkish colloquialism that I know of. Did you learn Turkish as a second language or are you Turkish and raised in England?

 

[Bumbalina]

I learnt Turkish as a second language. My family live there and I lived and taught in Istanbul for many years.

 

[SameStars]

The Germans, French and Russians are a handful.

Oh, this is really not the thread for that language mix up. Speak a bit of those languages.

 

[AspiePie]

English only!

 

[hiraeth]

Hey it's a language thread!

I'm native bilingual in English and Mandarin, learned Japanese in high school for a few years, now learning Norwegian, and turtling along with German because I just can't decide on what my priority should be. =D

 

[metalminx24]

Learning languages is really enjoyable for me. I did German and Spanish A-levels, BSL to level 2 at college, and I've been learning Italian and Swedish. Next, should I start Portuguese or Russian?

 

[zurb]

As an aspie who struggles with languages, I find this thread fascinating. I think there are three reasons for this: 1) my very short short term memory, 2) words are abstract with no intrinsic meaning, 3) I don't always get the subtleties. OK, maybe a fourth – even in English I'm reluctant to speak.

For those who say they are fluent: As we tend to miss subtle social cues, do you believe you are speaking like a native speaker - understanding the subtleties, idioms, broken rules, or with an academic technically correct language. And are you able to think and construct sentences in that language, or do you use a construct/translate method?

 

[metalminx24]

Zurb, although I am unable to answer your question, you did draw my attention back to the title of the thread and having paid closer attention I must retract my previous comment. I can't SPEAK any other languages. I rarely speak at all unless it's absolutely necessary. The reason I got A's rather than A*'s in my language GCSE's (including english) and B's rather than A's in my A-levels was my inability to speak and consequent zero scores in the speaking sections of my exams (I was undiagnosed at the time which meant I got no help at school). I like learning languages, as far as the anomalies and irregularities go I learn by rote and repetition until it hopefully sinks into my long - term memory, but I don't speak any.

 

[Jonathan Lees]

Currently learning
Urdu

i know only English(mother tongue), it is a shame but I've always struggled with languages, i tried French, German, Spanish and mandarin in school but i couldn't really do any of them. its ok though im good at other things, what is probably worst is my lack of speaking Urdu despite living in Pakistan for 7 years (when i was really young 0-7 years old, yes i was born there). my parents know it though so Beverly if you ever need any help/advice on learning Urdu i might be able to get some from my parents.

 

[Beverly]

i know only English(mother tongue), it is a shame but I've always struggled with languages, i tried French, German, Spanish and mandarin in school but i couldn't really do any of them. its ok though im good at other things, what is probably worst is my lack of speaking Urdu despite living in Pakistan for 7 years (when i was really young 0-7 years old, yes i was born there). my parents know it though so Beverly if you ever need any help/advice on learning Urdu i might be able to get some from my parents.

I've got a good teacher but, thank you. his father is Pakistani as are many of his relatives and, you know how close even extended Muslim families are most of the time, his is one of those families where even 3 or four times removed counts as family. He lives in Pakistan now but, was actually born in the UK because his mum is Welsh. (can't call her a Brit, I get yelled at for that LOL.)

 

[Jonathan Lees]

I've got a good teacher but, thank you. his father is Pakistani as are many of his relatives and, you know how close even extended Muslim families are most of the time, his is one of those families where even 3 or four times removed counts as family. He lives in Pakistan now but, was actually born in the UK because his mum is Welsh. (can't call her a Brit, I get yelled at for that LOL.)

very interesting. thought i would offer is all.

 

[Madotsuki]

Mother tongue : Thai (but never learned to write, also we dropped the use when I was 10, and now my parents are more integrated to the country culture than most of counterparts)
second language : french (almost native, used to be the best performer in spelling test at school)
Third : english
Other languages : russian, ukrainian , japanese, spanish (can read text almost like native), italian (basic)
I have no interest to learn new languages until I'm getting very interested to a specific event, plus I can tell what language a text is written in, even if I can't speak it (about 30 of them).

 

[unsurewhattoname]

I'm only fluent in English (British and American). However I am learning German again (haven't since GCSE), then plan to learn other Germanic languages. I like the Germanic languages for some reason.

 

[hoeffelt]

I'm only fluent in English (British and American). However I am learning German again (haven't since GCSE), then plan to learn other Germanic languages. I like the Germanic languages for some reason.

I like them too, but sadly their aren't many of them spoken outside of europe. Most of the people who speak northern germanic languages and dutch wont even speak to you in their native language. They will always use english, so you can't reslly practice much. Honestly, English Spanish chinese and russian rule the world. I want to learn a language that i can pass down and teach to my children and that they could really use.

 

[auslan434]

English
Esperanto (basic)
Australian sign language

 

[Astroganga]

I can understand languages better than I can speak them. I also memorise words and their meanings easily but find grammar rules far harder to learn and remember. English is my first language.

I tried learning German and French in school, but failed badly. I somehow retained all the French I didn't think I was learning though and can understand written French quite fluently, I can't speak it at all though and unless someone has a really mild accent I struggle to understand the spoken language.

I started learning Welsh when I was younger as a hobby from books and watching a lot of Welsh drama series and still understand it pretty well, I tried doing it on Duolingo but got bored about halfway through the course as it was too easy and tedious. I will probably go back to it.

Arabic I learned the script in a few hours when I was younger and know a lot of words and their roots and meanings, can speak some basic Arabic but grammar I have no idea.

Danish I started learning while waiting for Welsh to come on Duolingo, and I found it is my favourite language. The similarities to old and middle English, as well as English dialects and Scots, made it all the more interesting. I also love the Danish pronunciation and prosody, contrary to some popular opinion. I started learning at the end of December, I can now understand 50-80% of the dialogue on Danish TV programmes (if they are speaking a lot of slang it is harder), 80-90% of the written language and I have made my phone in Danish. As with other languages I struggle with actually arranging the words in my brain to speak it but I am having less trouble with that than other languages and think I could become fluent in speech as well if I stick with it. Because of the similarities between the languages I can also understand Swedish and Norwegian fairly well too.

 

[Astroganga]

I can also recognise most languages, including those with different alphabets, on sight. The only ones I have trouble with are some of the African languages as I have not had the same exposure to those on food packaging or signs as I have had to European and Asian languages.

 

[aggie]

English, Swedish, some Danish, some Spanish, some German

 

[Libecht]

Danish I started learning while waiting for Welsh to come on Duolingo, and I found it is my favourite language. The similarities to old and middle English, as well as English dialects and Scots, made it all the more interesting. I also love the Danish pronunciation and prosody, contrary to some popular opinion. I started learning at the end of December, I can now understand 50-80% of the dialogue on Danish TV programmes (if they are speaking a lot of slang it is harder), 80-90% of the written language and I have made my phone in Danish. As with other languages I struggle with actually arranging the words in my brain to speak it but I am having less trouble with that than other languages and think I could become fluent in speech as well if I stick with it. Because of the similarities between the languages I can also understand Swedish and Norwegian fairly well too.

You can almost understand Danish fully after learning for 2 months? Well that's fairly impressive.

 

[Astroganga]

You can almost understand Danish fully after learning for 2 months? Well that's fairly impressive.

Yes. I was surprised myself. I was written off by my language teachers at school as being incapable of learning a foreign language, so I am thrilled that they were wrong. [emoji4]