Language Thread

Just had a thought: "I wonder what languages people here know/speak," so I decided to create a thread to ask. Maybe people could have conversations here in other languages? Or talk about wanting to learn a language or the process of learning a language? Share tips or resources?

Who knows!!


My native language is English, but I've been learning Russian for four years as of today. It was one of my majors in college and I learned a lot (reached Advanced based on ACTFL guidelines), though I spent all summer and my last semester of college doing very little with Russian, so I'm definitely feeling the pain of neglect, thus I've been doing a lot lately in Russian in order to build back up to my former level.

I'm curious to hear about you all and what languages you know or want to know!

 

My Spanish is passable due to ten years of taking it in school. I know some Italian. I'd like to learn Swahili, Russian and German.

 

I took French in middle school and high school and still retain a conversational amount

I've briefly considered learning Mandarin or Farsi

 

I can speak Spanish if you talk to me very slowly and repeat lots of things

 

I'm raising this thread from the dead because I'm trying to teach myself German and the grammar is quite literally killing me (but I secretly love it). Like I'm literally yelling at a flowchart about adjectival declension as I work through these exercises.

I love languages and linguistics; I have like an advanced beginners/low intermediate understanding of French, I'm fluent in Spanish, and I'm teaching myself German like I just mentioned. One of my bigger hobbies is conlanging and that's a lot of fun too.

 

I studied French for a few years in high school. I'm practicing that and learning Spanish via duolingo.


I know Assyrian, and very little Arabic lol.

 

I would love to learn Arabic or Greek but I'm terrified of learning a whole new alphabet. Especially since, as I understand it, Arabic doesn't really write their vowels which would make it even more daunting

 

I want to learn Spanish but I'm not as persistent as I'd like to be.

 

Been trying to learn Spanish since I was a kid, but on and off so I have to do a lot of relearning and building back up. I am at the stage where I can understand it okay but am trash at writing/speaking it myself. Right now my routine is:


-Duolingo. I like it for learning vocab but also I like that if I get something wrong I can click the thread about the question and people will be discussing why the sentence is the way it is. Helps get things to click

-Spanishdict.com/grammar. It goes more in depth with grammar lessons and then you can take grammar quizzes which is super helpful since lots of free apps only teach words and short phrases.

-Latin music. My jaaaaams.

-Novelas. I watch novelas in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I used to watch them with English subtitles but I was only reading the English and barely focusing on the Spanish so I switched and it has been way better. I understand less of the specifics of the plot, but the acting is ridic and dramatic enough to follow.

-My next step is to start reading books in Spanish. I hope from there to start writing it more and then conversing in it more from there. I learned most of my English grammar and vocab from reading so I'm hoping it'll click well for me that way in another language too.

 

I haaaate learning sign language. It's not my language. I like transpose it all and do it all backwards and can't tell which fingers to use. I've been talking a lesson once a week and I just get mad.

 

Sign language sounds intense. I can't imagine what kind of mental workout that must be. I always really appreciate when I see someone signing on stage at events. It makes me feel hopeful for the world and that there are folks out there taking steps to make things more accessible for others.

I've been so neglectful of my Russian over the last year. It's so hard to get back into it because I'm so aware of the deterioration, which is so demoralizing, which further begets the process of deterioration. It's such a fun, beautiful language. I need to dive in again.

 

I can speak a decent amount of BSL because both my parents are profoundly deaf. Other than that, the language I remember the most of is probably either Italian or French.

 

This is cute duolingo! Idk if it's a new feature or if they do it for losers like me who quit for a few days and then get back at it but I approve!

 

I speak only one language (a like for anyone who can guess which one), but one language-related accomplishment I have to my name - which I'd argue is infinitely more impressive than being multi-lingual - is I had once convinced a friend of mine that pig-Latin was a real language spoken by an entire nation of people.

>>>

 

my family's macedonian and speaks it at home; my grammar sucks and i don't know the formal rules that would've come with real education but i could get around with it. also took 4 years of spanish in grade school and i like to think my retention's been solid.

 

I'm bilingual through like birth I suppose lol but a fairly lazy bilingual. My parents correct my Spanish all the time but man do I just forget things. I assume I probably speak fairly unsophisticated Spanish based on that, like a high school kid presumably.

 

I used to be almost bilingual when I had to speak french every day for work (also did french immersion all through school plus a 5 week intensive course in Quebec) buuuut my french has really gone downhill since I stopped using it daily (shocker)

 

I have to sign a book tomorrow. It's gonna be a disaster. I'm cringing just thinking about how not good it's gonna be lol. I'm sooooo bad.

 

I quit my last job over a year ago and the Spanish Rosetta Stone subscription they gave me hasn't expired yet. I really need to buckle down and get to it.

 

It was a disaster but it was ok lol. Luckily the class was low key and not for a grade cause otherwise it'd be bad haha


I need to get with it on my Spanish. I'm floundering.

 

I know a decent amount of Spanish and I know some Mandarin from when I went to a Chinese Academy for a summer.

 

ASL is practically impossible to master if you aren't Deaf / interact with Deaf people constantly (my professor has been an instructor since the 70s and his ex-wife is Deaf, but he's mentioned that his son isn't as good at signing as his daughter, implying that even as a kid who had it as a first language and needs it to speak to his mom, he still isn't technically considered fluent in it) but learning the basics and being able to understand someone going slow enough is easier than pretty much any language imo. There's a loose grammar to it, to the point that often your facial movements are a bigger deal than the order of the signs themselves, and there's no written language so you don't have to bother with that bullshit. My class itself can be a drag at times but it's 1000x easier than any other language

 

I struggle with sign more than any other language. It just doesn't click with me like it does for others, and I struggle to do it correctly. I think part of it is being a lefty so I get confused sometimes cause my signs don't look right and I have to flip everything cause the instructor is right handed and I get confused more. But I know that's not all of it cause I know a lefty who is pretty good at signing. They're also making me learn SEE sign tho so that can be the difference too since it's more complex. But I'm equally bad at ASL lol


I agree that it's hard to be fluent tho. I know a woman who teaches sign and works with deaf and hard of hearing kids and she isn't totally fluent anymore and has to look signs up. At least around here, it's also hard to even find anyone who signs to keep up with it. And so many ppl make up their own signs that it's confusing. It's all just very confusing lol

 

Oh no I never even considered what being a lefty would do for learning asl. Guess I'm not taking that class next semester whoops

 

I speak Portuguese from living in Portugal a couple years, but I worry that I'm forgetting things. Alguem quer me-ajudar?