Are you into foreign languages?

It's funny... I know a lot of basic Latin vocabulary, but that's just because I know English so well! So that's kind of why I want to learn it--I feel like it would help me know English even better.

I've actually got a story-less character (meant for online roleplaying, but I've never found one for her) who knows Latin almost better than English, to the point where she'll lapse into it if she's talking to herself or under stress. Unfortunately, I have to rely on an online translator if I want to write with her!! She's one of my favorite characters I've made, though. Latin is so elegant!

@mir, SummerSoltice: I adore it too. It's a great language and was one of my favourite subjects back at school. I know I loved it so much, I once tried to write an essay in it. Well, accidently actually. But I really thought we were required to and I wouldn't object. ;)

i'm highly interested in foreign languages, but i'm afraid my ability to acquire new languages is deteriorating with time. my english grammar used to be good (english is my second language), but lately i screw it up all the time. i wonder if i'd better improve my english before i start trying to learn other languages.

also, i'll never know how to roll my tongue for the french r.

i can't roll my tongue either. :D

actually, Summer, our Latin teacher makes us learn the way the grammar works in english before she'll teach us anything new in Latin!!

Hm! That's funny. My Spanish was pretty much the opposite. We talked in present tense the entire way through Spanish 1! :lol:

I took a little spanish in high school and french in college, I start a german class tomorrow. I love listening to other languages but I'm not very good at speaking them.

My mother tongue is Portuguese, and I can read, write and speak English. As many brazilians, I can understand Spanish, although I don´t know the grammar and most of the vocabulary; we call it "Portunhol", when someone speaks what he thinks ís Spanish, but it´s neither portuguese nor spanish; many known people do this in public (shame!...); anyway, I prefer to listen Spanish than speaking it...
As portuguese is derived from Latin, it´s easy to understand some French either... (and some latin words).

To those who said it´s difficult to learn English as a second language: it´s not; english grammar is too much easier than portuguese. But to those who want to learn portuguese: don´t give up; it´s a beautiful language...

Mother tongue: Norwegian. I understand Danish, Swedish and a fair chunk of written Dutch, and speak and write English. I also learned French and German in school, and have acquired snippets of Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Russian, Latin and Esperanto. And exactly one Slovakian word.

I'll brush up my French come spring. It's currently very, very rudimentary.

Literature and linguistics walk hand in hand, I think. A genuine interest in literature entails an interest in language.

If I had the time, I'd learn Old Norse (properly, I know a bit) and Japanese. As so many people I'm terribly fascinated by everything Japanese, and I'd love to read the sagas in the original language.

PS - I always thought English was grammatically wonderfully easy to learn. No genders, for instance, determining prepositions and verbs and whatnot...

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Originally Posted by Jtolj

English. Stuff that has lot's of vowel sounds. Spanish has five vowel sounds. If you were to consider certain clusters, English has upwards of 15. A variety of vowel sounds, preferably what would be consider English short vowel sounds, sounds a lot better. That's why almost all the other Romance Languages sound better, in my opinion, for they've shorter vowel sounds and variety.

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British or American English? For British English it should be something like 20, including diphtongs but not counting triphthongs.
As for short vowels, British English has the ones in cat, bed, bit, but, foot, pot plus the schwa-sound. That should be roughly the same number of short vowels as in Romance languages. Seeing as Spanish does not distinguish between short and long vowels, how can Spanish have more variety than English? Errrr, sorry, I 'm just not sure I get what you mean.

Heehee, the longer I study English, the more I can see why so many Brits refuse to learn foreign languages... I mean, why would I want to learn a difficult foreign language like Russian or German if people all over the world have to learn my native language anyway?
I don't think English is easier than other foreign languages in all respects (plus it really depends on what your native language is), but I think you can communicate in English after a relatively short time, whereas with Russian or German you need to study for ever to be able to say simple everyday things. This is because as soon as you open your mouth to speak, you need to know three different cases, even to express stupid things like "I like books".

hey guys , I adore languages but I don't know a lot of them :bawling:
I'm Arabic and I know so much English , and I have a desire to learn French but the problem is that I still learning English :D
I hope I can learn French one day :)

Hi people! I've rediscovered this site today:) I love languages, so much so that I studied translation at college, and here I am today a Spanish<>English translator! I'm Argentine, so my mother tongue is Spanish (which I love because it is so rich and expressive),but when I was 10 I started learning English, and I just fell in love with it! I read English literature all the time, and I never get tired of hearing native speakers talking, I love the way English sounds, I can´t explain why, but I do! Besides, I've studied some French too, another beautiful language. It's incredible how much in common it has with Spanish and English, being from different language families (Eng and Fr). Another language I would like to learn is Greek, but modern Greek so that I can be understood if I go visiting the Greek islands!
Well, nice thread this one! (I'm going through an awful moment in my life, but this was a good distraction to stop my mind from thinking!)

hope it gets better, Circe . . .

Cris, Portugese is actually one of the languages i was most thinking about learning!! i visited Portugal a while back, and thought it was one of the most beautiful, friendly, and wonderful places i'd ever been (though also one of the easiest to get lost in! :D).

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Originally Posted by Bookworm Cris

But to those who want to learn portuguese: don&#180;t give up; it&#180;s a beautiful language...

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Yes it is. I love Portugal and portuguese. I've been there about ten times so far and am absolutely in love with both the country and its people. Especially the North.

We also know a bit of Pascal.
Would like to learn C++ or Java. ANd HTML.