my original language is chinese.and i have learned english for many years.
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my original language is chinese.and i have learned english for many years.
My fisrt language is chinese too.Nice to see you youngdone.
my first language is arabic ..
English is not my native laguage. But i quite often use it in my everyday life. And i read a lot in English. But still make awful mistakes...:blush:
i suppose you could say my first langauge is french. i was born in france- my dad used to work at the embassy there and i lived in france until i was 9...i did learn english as well, but my mother is french, so i learned them both. however, my dad speaks french fluently.
After reading through this thread, the fact of the absolute inferiority of the language skills of United States citizens against the rest of the world, esp. Europe, is both embarassing and saddening. Of course, it is not entirely our fault, we're only bordered by one country whose official language is not English (Mexico), and one can navigate through a large part of the world without having to learn a second language, but still, it is unfortunate and sad.
I took 6 years of German in school, but it has gradually faded out of my mind, since there is essentially no opportunity to practice it with others. I envy those people who grew up with the learning of languages, it is so vital to understanding the world and its people.
yes. most americans can get by with out learning another langauge because english is so predominant in our world. however in quebec.... they dont like it if you dont speak french!!!
I'm Italian :)
and you won't wait so much time to see my mistakes here :D
how good you can speak a little in my own language then :)Quote:
Originally Posted by toni
hug!
I speak dhivehi...I started learning english at an early age though...four or five I think:D
Dhivehi is actually one of the languages on the verge of extinction....strange that...You would think that only animals are in danger of extinction....but it seems languages do too:(
Please excuse my ignorance Lamiq, but what country/people does the language of Dhivehi belong to?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamiq
I am currently learning Maori, the indigenous language of my country. It used to be considered a language on the verge of extinction, but it's had a bit of a revival (yay!) and more and more people are fluent thesedays. Me too soon I hope.
I checked on the net (YAY Google :D )and found that it is of Maldives and also spoken in Lakshadweep, India.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aunty-lion
Thanks Madhuri.
My cousin in law is from the Maldives so I should have known that!!
My first languages:
1. TOK PISIN 2. KOWAI 3. BARIM.
English is my fourth, but my primary language of every day communication as it is the official language of our country. (I have studied it for some 14 years.)
We have here 845 languages in my country of 5 million people.
English isn't my first language. Here in the Philippines, almost each region speak a different language that may or may not resemble other languages in the country. My first language would be Waray-Waray. I also speak our national language, Filipino and of course, English. As I'm starting college, and they're teaching French, I expect I can speak that as well by the end of the year. :)
I was raised bilingual with BOSNIAN AND DUTCH. Later on, i learned GERMAN and ENGLISH at school. But English is by far my favourite language, because I grew up watching english movies and cartoons. I sometimes even think in english.:p
English is not my first language. Arabic is my tongue language but English is my favourite so it's the language I write with and study with at college. I learned English by translating books and reading poems and other stuff, so it is in my opinion the best language in the world. ^^
English is truly my first and native language...that is, the Brooklyn, NY version of it (over which there was and still is heated debate in regard to its purpose in this world).;)
hi, everybody!
firstly, i'm not a english speaker. guess?----i'm Chinese:yawnb:
it's amazing for me to see so many various language speakers at just one time, though not face to face, I can still feel the distinces between each of us is not long, as we are all here speaking in the same language---English!
so, what a wonder the language is! by the way, i'm also learning Deutsch for the second foreign language.
anyway, i hope each of us would have a good time everyday!:)
Yes, English first. Wish German was my second. Have absolutely minimum contact with a year of conversational German, mostly forgotten. Now I find myself fascinated with some German and French writers and translations with quality and pinache are all I can hope for at this point. By the way, do you know enough German to attempt translation of Deutche Poetry? again, welcome, quasimodo1
Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
Thank you for your attention! it's sweet to me...
I'm glad to here again, with my new name and new image! zhang is my Chinese family name, and Ivy is my English name, so I just combine the two parts together.
i'm not sure where do you come from, maybe America? so i hope you will tell me and also that you can give me some advice on my English.
i'm sorry that maybe i'm not good enough to attempt translation of Deutsch Poetry, as i have only learned the basic reading and writing! but i'll study harder and learn better before my graduation!
again, wish all of you happy and healthy;)
My Chinese is non-existant. If you can ask about English, in English, I can help. Anytime. quasimodo1
Welcome, Ivy! I think your written English is great, and think it is very admirable for you to be learning even more languages (German). I tried to learn German and did not get very far. For that matter, I tried to learn Icelandic, too, and that was even more difficult. Oh well, it is all in the trying. My French is not too bad, though, which is a good thing when living in Canada. Take care, :)
Wow...Icelandic? I heard on tv that Icelandic is one of the most complicated languages in europe. It's great to try and learn as many languages as possible (or at least some usefull phrases and words). You never know, it can be usefull sometimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiz_paws
My first languages were Russian at home and Ukrainian at school, then when I was about 10 I came to US and started learning English. But Ukrainian is my favorite language.
No it is not.
I still have an accent, I still don't know all the grammar rules, I still misspell words, I still mispronounce words, but in a way, that's how some of us learn.
my first language Arabic
but I learned English language because it is very important in our world now
thank you very much
SPANISH SPEAKER OVER HERE!!! :) :idea:
I'm an English teacher as a second language tough...and I'm amazed to see that the main answer to the poll is NO...that means that actually English is a really strong language around the world...it's actually second language in most countries nowadays
ps: that's neat!!! more work for us :p :thumbs_up :D
Actually, English is not my first language. My first language is Arabic
I am using English in college (studying English lit.) and with some friends on the internet .
have a nice day
Sorry I missed this post, Elly. My Icelandic instructor spoke about six different languages, and she said that learning Russian was the more difficult of the others that she learned. Of course that has piqued my curiosity about learning Russian.... Sounds like fun!Quote:
Originally Posted by Elly_blue
that is not a normal reaction, you may have interacted with rude people, which there are never any lack of anywhere one may travel, lol. It is true that in Quebec, the language is predominantly French, but English is spoken freely and is usually not an issue. I am sorry if you have had a bad experience there, maya3. :)Quote:
maya3: "however in quebec.... they dont like it if you dont speak french!!!"
I've heard that Finnish is the hardest language to pick up. When I lived in California we had neighbors that were from Finland and just the way the accents and...well everything was just so different. It seems like a really neat language though. I use English more than Spanish even though Spanish was my first language...I still use it quite a bit though.
Finnish is a great language :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortis Anarchy
One thing which makes Finnish difficult to learn is that we use affixes instead of pre- and postpositions.
There's something easy, too: Finnish is pronounced the same way it's written :)
Oh don't get me wrong! I would love to learn it...it seems so interesting. Does it make a difference if it would be easier to learn if you knew German or a language like that??Quote:
Originally Posted by Annamariah
No, German hasn't much in common with Finnish. Unlike most of Europian languages, Finnish does not belong into Indo-Europian languages. Finnish belongs to Finno-Ugric languages. Knowing Estonian might help you learn Finnish :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mortis Anarchy
No, my first language is Italian. Out of all the languages I've been studying, I like English the best :) Spanish comes close after that.
Oh really? Do you dream in English or your native language?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sibyl
English here.
My first language is urdu.I have been studying english for as long as i can remember!I would love to learn spanish and french...but even more than that i want to learn Sindhi and Persian!and i know a bit of arabic as well!
I seem to have heard that Icelandic is pretty simple instead...but maybe I'm mistaken.Quote:
Originally Posted by kiz_paws
Russian is difficult indeed but I learnt it (not too well though) :p It is not as bad as people picture it.
Actually, the most difficult language to learn depends on your native language. Finnish is difficult for us because of the way they construct words and sentences etc., but one of my Hungarian friends said that Finnish makes more sense to him than English (Hungarian is distantly related to Finnish and apparently they have a rather similar structure).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mortis Anarchy
Similarly, Russian is not that hard if you're Polish I think...
Nope, I speak Afrikaans (don't ask)...suffice it to say Leonardo DiCaprio tried the accent in Blood Diamond...
I don't speak with an accent though, and when I was overseas people seemed to think I was either British or Australian...go figure.
I speak English as my first language. I've been studying French for about 4 years and I have been trying to teach myself German over the past year. German is a bit easier (for an english speaking person) than French is from what I can tell.
In the future I would like to study Latin and Ancient Greek. Perhaps Russian, if I get the chance.
In a book I've read, The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, theere was a scholar mentioned that knew somewhere around 21 languages. This may be completely fictitious though. But what an accomplishment!