Ah, languages! Once my biggest hobby, until that Skyrim game came along and I got lazy :p
English and Afrikaans are the only ones that I've been completely fluent in (More so for the former), but I can also understand a bit of Xhosa and speak/understand German and Latin fairly well. To call me fluent in those might be a bit of a stretch, though. Otherwise, I have also attempted to learn quite a few others, such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish. Unfortunately I could never get a lot of practice since hardly anyone I know speaks them, and by now I don't remember very much of them.
I still hope to learn a couple more someday, though (Chinese and Arabic have always interested me), but for now I'm happy with the two and three halves that I know.
Ah yes. And I'm also not ashamed to say that I've been brushing up on my Dunmeris lately as well. It has to count, right?
Bahris shogaha ku'elm eln muhri am markad...
DeltaFox said:I was always interested in Latin. I tried learning Italian (picked it as a subject in school) but I didn't get very far. It took me about 4 years to master english, altough I still make mistakes sometimes. I am also interested in Japanese (I like the culture) and also Chinese.
Why were you interested in Latin for? Again everybody makes mistakes and hell even native English speakers don't even speak it right. Again with the Japanese and Chinese.
Caesar said:Ah, languages! Once my biggest hobby, until that Skyrim game came along and I got lazy :p
English and Afrikaans are the only ones that I've been completely fluent in (More so for the former), but I can also understand a bit of Xhosa and speak/understand German and Latin fairly well. To call me fluent in those might be a bit of a stretch, though. Otherwise, I have also attempted to learn quite a few others, such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish. Unfortunately I could never get a lot of practice since hardly anyone I know speaks them, and by now I don't remember very much of them.
I still hope to learn a couple more someday, though (Chinese and Arabic have always interested me), but for now I'm happy with the two and three halves that I know.
Ah yes. And I'm also not ashamed to say that I've been brushing up on my Dunmeris lately as well. It has to count, right?
Bahris shogaha ku'elm eln muhri am markad...
Languages are still my hobby even when Skyrim came out XD
Polish that is a new one for the list and one I hardly see people wanting to know. You could always take online classes to help learn new languages since you don't have the time nor people.
I mean Dunmeris is basically a fantasy language so yeah it counts. It is no different from people learning Wookie or Klingon.
QUE ES BIBLIOTECA?
That's basically all I know of any language but english. Did a GCSE in Spanish because I thought it sounded cool (and also because I had to choose a langauge and you could finish Spanish a year earlier than French), turns out I'm terrible at basically everything you need to do to communicate in Spanish, so that didn't end well.
But if I had to choose a language that I'd just know, probably Urdu, which I'm surprised no one else has mentioned actually. There's a massive, massive Pakistani demographic in my city and it'd be nice for someone other than themselves to talk to them in their native tongue, plus it sounds awesome and fancy. And there's also the fact that if the lads down at the local curry house like me they might give me a discount, and as curry is amazing this is the highest priority.
David said:DeltaFox said:I was always interested in Latin. I tried learning Italian (picked it as a subject in school) but I didn't get very far. It took me about 4 years to master english, altough I still make mistakes sometimes. I am also interested in Japanese (I like the culture) and also Chinese.
Why were you interested in Latin for? Again everybody makes mistakes and hell even native English speakers don't even speak it right. Again with the Japanese and Chinese.
There's a surprising amount of interest in Japanese and Chinese... (0_0)
Maybe I should take a leaf out of David-jo's book and start giving lessons~
起立! 我們上課了
I amazed on how many people really want to learn Japanese and Chinese.
There really isn't a lot of languages I would want to learn I already know Japanese, French, Spanish, and English (If you didn't know I am original from France so English isn't my native tongue) If I had to pick I would probably want to learn Latin, Greek, and Arabic just because their empires have had huge impacts throughout history.
Uhahahahahahah, our brainwashing scheme is coming to fruition...
And holy hell everyone knows so many languages. I feel horribly uneducated in comparison. Forget giving lessons, I'll be starting a French course myself next year. I hope I don't butcher your language too badly.
A Shadow Under the Moons said:Uhahahahahahah, our brainwashing scheme is coming to fruition...
And holy hell everyone knows so many languages. I feel horribly uneducated in comparison. Forget giving lessons, I'll be starting a French course myself next year. I hope I don't butcher your language too badly.
I don't know why, but that made me laugh more than it really should have.
There is no need to feel uneducated for not knowing a bunch of languages. I hope you do well and don't worry when David began to learn French he butchered it by mixing it and Latin together. XD
Chinese (Mandarin). One of my sons currently lives in China teaching English as a second lanuage and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese (as well as knowing IPA). He's lived there for two and a half years and plans to stay for at least another year. My husband and I visited him in China last summer for two weeks and will hopefully visit again while he's living there. While there we got separated from him twice and it was challenging to communicate with the native Chinese speakers we enountered since neither my husband or I spoke any Chinese. In one case, they didn't speak any English and we ended up waiting until my son finally showed up (thank goodness!). In the other case, I was able to locate someone who spoke very little English and that, along with a note written by my son in Chinese, a picture of my son on my phone, and me being able to say my son's Chinese name, allowed us to be reunited (thank goodness again!).
Before traveling to China, I had downloaded an app on my phone in an attempt to learn Chinese (pinyin). While it did familiarize me with the tonal aspects of the language, the sentence structure, and a few words, it lacked "survival Chinsese" so while I might be able to say "The woman is drinking tea" I couldn't communicate "We have a reservation at this hotel and are waiting for my son who is in another taxi to show up." Needless to say, I picked up a survival Chinese phrase book when we returned to the US! Also, when my son visited us in the states this summer, we went to the local college bookstore where I purchased the textbook that he used when beginning to learn Chinese. I haven't begun studying yet but now that the summer is over and I'm back on a regular work schedule, I plan to set aside time each day to study Chinese.
A Shadow Under the Moons said:The thing to keep in mind if you visit any Asian countries and want to experience actual, local culture is to visit the lesser-known areas. Hong Kong had already been extremely Westernised by the time I was born (I'm not complaining, though, I'd much rather wear a T-shirt than Hanfu robes!), and growing up I saw a lot of European/American tourists go to the larger city areas (Central and Kowloon Tong, for example, are popular tourist traps) and go back home disappointed (Central is so much like New York that we even built a Times Square after it >u<). The hotels, restaurants and shopping districts are all modelled after Western civilisation, and that's true for most East Asian countries nowadays. If you want the actual feel of Chinese/Japanese culture, I advise you to make a close native friend (if possible) and have him show you around the town and residential areas. People show their roots at home, and the food is tailored to our local taste and not that of Westerners. You'll be able to eat traditional noodles, dumplings and meat skewers you'd be hard-pressed to find in business areas. You also get - for my hometown at least, not sure about other cities - far more street performers, with people playing zithers and flutes on the side of the roads, that sort of thing (which is usually restricted in the city areas).
While we did visit typical tourist sites such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, as a result of my son living in China he's befriended many native Chinese people so we got to eat at some of their favorite local restaurants and see the non-touristy residential areas in the city.
The reason I want to learn Latin is that about two years ago that I went on that genetic test and found out that I'm of Roman descent (Ironic considering I don't like Imperials that much). Chinese and Japanese are so much... different to me. My country is a popular tourist destination and I hear a lot of other European languages, but very little Chinese and Japanese.
I don't get the fantasy appeal to Japan. The way I've heard how life is there in reality is pretty horrible. They take the bystander effect to the next level, they have the highest suicide rate of any country, and they are extremely insecure (they feel ashamed if someone else hears them pee). Not to mention the fact that companies create robots to fullfil emotional and social needs FOR ADULTS.
Besides, they are not goblin friendly.
John Goblikon said:I don't get the fantasy appeal to Japan. The way I've heard how life is there in reality is pretty horrible. They take the bystander effect to the next level, they have the highest suicide rate of any country, and they are extremely insecure (they feel ashamed if someone else hears them pee). Not to mention the fact that companies create robots to fullfil emotional and social needs FOR ADULTS.
Besides, they are not goblin friendly.
Oh, believe me, I've raised my eyebrows many times at the misconceptions some Westerners have of Japan - and by extension many East Asian countries. Living in such a country, and especially growing up, is not always fun or fair. There's constant expectations levied on you both as a child and an adult, and the sad fact is in Asian culture we are raised to be submissive. We will bend until we break. Hence the suicides. One of the eight major universities back home actually had to place a net around the campus building to catch students trying to jump off and commit suicide.
Oh, and the bystander effect?
Eighteen people just strolled past the dying child. EIGHTEEN. As a Chinese person, this never fails to reduce me to a shamefaced stammering wreck.
All right, moving on to a lighter note, having someone hear me pee also does that. That's not insecurity, that's just not being gross! What, do you not get ashamed if someone hears you fart?
And although the reality that you brought up is real, that's not the only reality we know. A storied history, rich culture, even richer food and respectful manner (superficial and cold perhaps, but still manners) are all things I take pride in, and are doubtlessly what inspired the Asian 'fantasy appeal' in the first place.
Finally, so long as you don't settle down, that ugly side of life won't even concern you if you're a tourist. It's a mantra that's repeated over and over in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, etc. etc. etc. - 'Horrible place to live, excellent place to visit'. So definitely visit! I'm not spewing propaganda so us yellow folk can steal even more of your money ahahahahaha
Waaaaaiiiiiit.
Are you a goblin??
Disregard everything I just said.
*reaches for meat cleaver*
RAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Zonnonn said:But if I had to choose a language that I'd just know, probably Urdu, which I'm surprised no one else has mentioned actually. There's a massive, massive Pakistani demographic in my city and it'd be nice for someone other than themselves to talk to them in their native tongue, plus it sounds awesome and fancy. And there's also the fact that if the lads down at the local curry house like me they might give me a discount, and as curry is amazing this is the highest priority.
That's gotta be the first time in my life I've ever heard anyone call Urdu 'fancy'. I might just be biased because I'm a Pakistani and know the culture a bit too well, but good grief do I find Urdu ugly and crass. It and most of the other wacky languages we have over here. I don't know much Urdu, but I know no other Pakistani langauge so I try to hear it in all of them. Big mistake. Pashto is one great big mind bomb.
A few full-fledged Pakistani kids at my school say English was easier for them to learn than Urdu, and that Urdu literature is literally the worst thing in the world. Unbelievably complicated somehow (I wouldn't know, I can barely even read the script).
But now I can safely brag about knowing someone who likes the language, even if it's just for curry. :)
I speak fluent Swedish (native language) and English (yeah right) and I would like to learn:
Finnish! It's such a cool and different language from Swedish even though we're neighbours and so alike otherwise in culture and what not. I will never because it's useless to know and difficult to learn, or so I'm told. But IF I could magically choose a language to suddenly speak and undertand complete, that would be it. :)
I would like to be comepletely fluent in Korean, because I'm able to understand most of it and speak some of it, but I'm still not fluent in it. A language that I would really like to learn at some point in my life though is Japenese, because, anime, and stuff...also I lived there for four years and it was pretty nice there.
I'd like to learn Spanish. My current job is as an Insurance Adjuster for people in Texas, and I always feel as if I'm letting my customers down when I have to try and hunt down a translator in order to help them with their problems. It's also a beautiful language in general, and I'd like to learn to enjoy Spanish literature and TV.
After Spanish, I'd like to work on learning German, then French. Most of my ancestors tend to be of German stock (my great grandmother's family, the Kreises, founded the town of Wartburg, TN), and German culture is something I find interesting. After that? Well French is a language spoken very near the US, either in Canada or some of the island countries near the virgin islands. I'd like to be able to communicate. I like people in general, for all that I'm a total introvert.
Mercurias said:Most of my ancestors tend to be of German stock (my great grandmother's family, the Kreises, founded the town of Wartburg, TN), and German culture is something I find interesting.
Dude, that is pretty awesome to know that only because I am a native of Tennessee, and that is just a weird coincidence.
As for the question, I would have to say all the Slavic/East European languages mainly because I am Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Serbian.
DeltaFox said:I can teach you Croatian. We're a strong people with a proud military and cultural history.
I knew the Slavs are strong people and proud of their military and cultural history. My grandfather on my dad's side would tell stories about how strong Poland was or how the Slavs are some of the most hardcore people you will ever meet.
The Postman said:DeltaFox said:I can teach you Croatian. We're a strong people with a proud military and cultural history.
I knew the Slavs are strong people and proud of their military and cultural history. My grandfather on my dad's side would tell stories about how strong Poland was or how the Slavs are some of the most hardcore people you will ever meet.
Your grandpa was right. Croatian Kingdom almost single handedly stopped the Ottoman invasion of Europe. If that ain't hardcore, I don't know what is.
DeltaFox said:The Postman said:DeltaFox said:I can teach you Croatian. We're a strong people with a proud military and cultural history.
I knew the Slavs are strong people and proud of their military and cultural history. My grandfather on my dad's side would tell stories about how strong Poland was or how the Slavs are some of the most hardcore people you will ever meet.
Your grandpa was right. Croatian Kingdom almost single handedly stopped the Ottoman invasion of Europe. If that ain't hardcore, I don't know what is.
Yeah, I knew about that because he told me about that as well, the guy pretty much knew every bit of Eastern European history there was, and even taught it at my local college.