What languages can you speak?
 

Despite choosing the 'maths' route and studying software engineering, language has always been a big passion of mine. In fact, I didn't take any computing subjects at high school. Instead I took French and Latin and competed in French speaking contests.

Sadly I haven't had much time to pursue lingual interests since high school, though I did start learning Russian last year. In order to refresh my French, I've been reading some novels and trying to understand the French version of the Office. I regret not taking any Chinese papers at uni and I envy those born into an environment where multilingualism is a requirement. For me, reading/writing/speaking come fairly easily but I struggle with listening.

So this thread is for the discussion of language (both native and foreign) whether you are bilingual/trilingual by upbringing/compulsion, have studied a foreign language at school and liked/disliked it, are learning a new language for travel/business/pleasure, are studying linguistics or are simply fascinated by language in general.

mostly fluent in french, used to know basic spanish but i forgot it

the idea of being completely fluent/billingual, and learning more languages appeals very much to me... gonna keep taking french in college. i'd like to learn to understand/speak mandarin but the idea of learning the alphabet turns me off completely

i took about eight years of German but i'm not entirely confident in my ability to speak it. i can listen, read and understand it though, that's a plus.

My first language was Vietnamese. Second: English. Sadly, my English is better than my Vietnamese. Also, I've been studying Spanish for about four years. I love learning new languages. It is especially interesting to compare and contrast different languages and dialects. I really believe if multilingualism became more popular, we could begin on a completely new level of understanding each other.

lucifer s.: are you in an environment that permits you to practice German?

English and an embarrassingly small amount of Spanish for a person with a Spanish-speaking parent. That's it. :(

^ It's never too late. I heard after your third or so language, it's really not that bad. Right now, I feel like the more I learn of one language, the more I lose from the others. It could be a mental thing.

i go to a school that offers German classes if that's what you're asking.

my engineering advisor suggested i take it more seriously, take classes and whatnot but i don't think i have time in my schedule to pursue it more actively. there's still a few years for me to decide whether i want to take a semester abroad, it would certainly be neat to explore a country whose primary language wasn't English.

Hm, I guess what I'm really asking is do you practice orally outside the classroom? I found that when I did this a lot, I really got a feel for the foreign ways you move your tongue while learning a new language.

yes, I agree. getting to a country that is not dominantly english-speaking is pretty amazing. it forces you to connect with the natives differently. i love it. when I was ten or so, my parents sent me to Vietnam for two or three weeks. even though I was quite fluent in vietnamese already, I still struggled to communicate for the first week. i am a strong believer in familiarizing yourself with the culture along with the language, so those few weeks are crucial in how i speak now.

I agree that's it's never too late. At the end of last year I was really making an effort to learn more, listening to language CDs and going to meet-ups but I kind of fell off. I'm hoping to get back on the ball with it once I get back to the east coast.

i hear there's way more Spanish speaking people in Massachusetts than southern California.