Speaky de Foreign Speak?

[Nony]

Here's a little question for you fine peeps: Any of you bilingual? Or rather, are you studying or have you studied any foreign languages? Is/Was there a particular reason why (ex: 'cause you needed the class credits, it seemed interesting, etc.)? Is there any language you'd like to study?

For me personally, I've studied Latin and Japanese, although I've sorta completely forgotten the former. Been too long. >_>
But yeah, I'm kinda like the typical anime/manga nerd who's all, "I want to study Japanese and be a translator/interpreter, hurrdurr!" Except I think I'm a little more modest about proclamations of that sort, or at least I'd like to think I am. I just have a strange interest in Japanese culture and I love learning the language, so my hope is that someday I'll be a translator. Still got a long way to go though. Currently in Japanese 223, so I'm nearing the end of my second year of study.

皆様、こたえを書いてくれてありがとう。:catgirl:

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]It is compulsory for all primary school (elementary school) students in Australia to study Japanese, so I've done that. But I didn't continue it in high school.

In high school I did 3.5 years of Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia :P).

Because I haven't really used it in the last few years though, I've forgotten much of it.

Apa yang kamu kerjakan pada hari minggu?
[i]What did you do on the weekend?[/i]

There you go. :catgirl:[/font]

[Skye]

[size=1]The only language I know fluently is English, but I am learning ASL, Spanish, and Japanese - mostly because my younger sister is learning them.

Some things in Spanish I will know forever because my mother used certain phrases with me and my brother when we were little, so I'm just as familiar with [pardon my spelling] "Dame" as "give me that".

We started learning ASL with my sister because, at 1 year, it is a lot easier to make your hands do the signs for words than it is to make your vocal chords sound them out. She's learning to speak, but half the time I don't know if she's saying it in her own skewed version of English or if it's in Japanese that she picked up from a music video.[/size]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1][COLOR=Black][FONT=Verdana]Aside from English I studied Irish and French in school, my Irish was and remains pretty terrible (despite learning it since I was about 4) but my French was supposedly quite good however a lack of practice over the last two years since I finished high school has caused it to fade somewhat.

My current university degree is a Bachelors of Business with Japanese and I'm nearing the end of my second year of study though to be honest my written Japanese is probably significantly weaker than my spoken Japanese.

I speak a little Italian, Spanish and Turkish too, mostly taken from travel books before I go on holiday as I like to be able to communicate even just slightly in the native tongue, in case the shop owners English isn't very good.[/FONT]

[/COLOR][/SIZE][quote name='Miss Anonymous']皆様、こたえを書いてくれてありがとう。:catgirl:[/quote]
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Black][FONT=Verdana]
どういたしまして.[/FONT]
[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]No sprechen de english.

Actually it's Ich habe keine English.

So that's two languages, plus ASL, which is technically a language, only it isn't spoken, although you can speak as you sign for the rare ASL user who also lip reads.

[/FONT][/COLOR]

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Calibri]I think you might want to call it Sign Language because on the internet ASL translates to age/sex/location.

._.[/FONT]

[Anakoni Stark]

[FONT="Times New Roman"]While I was in high school, during my freshman and sophmore years I was learning Spanish but during my junior and senior years I ended up learning American Sign Language.

Both of which I'm now learning in College, although to be honest; I feel more interested in speaking my native tongue of Spanish rather than learning Sign Language all over again (which is the sole reason I dropped the Am. Sign course in college cos they didnt teach me anything new and I couldnt test out of ASL I)

Since I lived in Japan I picked up rudementary Japanese, but while I was in high school all those rabid fangirls associated themselves with me because I'm half asian (no suprise) and thus I ended up learning a little more Japanese, even though it's just simple stuff.

"[B][I]Watashi wa no mae wa Anakoni desu.[/B][/I]"

I'm also learning Italian (due to my girlfriend who's very fluent) and Russian (for the hell of it)[/FONT]

[Justin]

I speak Farsi, Dari, Tajiki and reasonable French. I can understand the gist of a lot of simple Arabic, but I can't formulate a phrase outside of 'la aref alarabiah' just because when I say "I can [i]understand[/i] a [i]little[/i] Arabic",I sometimes get unlucky and someone happens to know it fluently, thus rattling off something I either can't understand, or don't know how to respond to.

However, Farsi I can carry on about as well as anyone who didn't grow up with it, I guess. And Dari is basically the same thing with a more Arabic-ish accent. As is Tajiki, albeit with a bit more of a rooski-sounding accent. That, and I can't read Tajik at all.

-Justin

[Raiha]

[quote name='Boo'][font=GERMAN CORRECTOR FONT]Actually it's "Ich spreche kein Englisch."[/font][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]*snerk*

Not if you're making fun of people who generally say 'I have no English' when you ask them. It's about as good as ich bin ein Berliner.

And while I'm Chinese I'd rather shoot myself in the mouth than learn it. A few billion characters, each with their own special meaning. Same goes for Japanese or Korean. I don't need to know those languages to read English subtitles and have my room mate frantically correct me in a low mutter in the background. Knowing even rudimentary Japanese wouldn't make me any more hip or cooler or more animey. I'd just sound like a tool while I tried to impress people with it at conventions.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[chibi-master]

I am currently in my first year of Latin after disowning Spanish.

I would like to learn a bit more Japanese than the few key phrases I know. Mostly because I think it sounds beautiful. I would love to be able to read and/or write in Japanese, but I'm not sure I can...

I would be very pleased to learn some sort of Native American language, but I don't know where I'd go to learn...

[Gavin]

[quote name='Allamorph'][FONT=Calibri]I think you might want to call it Sign Language because on the internet ASL translates to age/sex/location.

._.[/FONT][/quote]

[SIZE=1]I eventually just gave up and wiki'd it.[/SIZE]

[Allamorph]

[quote name='Gavin][SIZE=1']I eventually just gave up and wiki'd it.[/SIZE][/quote]
[FONT=Calibri]. . .

[quote name='Stephanie][SIZE=1]We started learning ASL with my sister because, at 1 year, it is a lot easier to [B]make your hands do the signs for words[/B']....[/SIZE][/quote]
^ ^[/FONT]

[jupiter23]

I took French in High School, partially because I wanted to learn it and partially because I had to take a foreign language to graduate (and to get into college), but I don't remember a lot of it now. I'm also trying to teach myself Japanese, not so much because anime turned me on to it as it seems like a good language to know, as well as the fact that knowing a more complicated language looks good on a resume.

[OMNOMNOMALY]

[FONT="Garamond"]I had to take French starting in grade 6, and ended up taking it all the way through grade 9 which a little dabbling in Spanish (thanks, Canada!) I decided it wasn't for me (partly due to, I'm sure, the horrendous instructor I had for 3 years...), and opted to take other courses throughout high school that would negate the need for me to get language credits.

5 years later and I'm moderately regretting that choice. Now I don't like French, I'm not interested in starting it up again and I just plain don't like how it sounds. That being said, not having a second language through high school has now come full circle to bite me in the *** in University. I want to pursue a degree in International Relations. Said degree requires 12 additional higher level language credits, outside of those that you need for your average Arts Degree (Which, had I taken French or what have you, I would have already). Essentially, the number of credits I need is doubled at 24. By the end of second year.

For those of you keeping track, that's two languages, full time, for two years. Aiyaaa.

Nearing the completion of my first year, I have discovered two things:
1. that's hard
2. never take 2 Asian languages at once, especially with no prior knowledge of stuff like, oh, idk, the alphabet.

I am currently finishing off Japanese 100 and Korean 102. Japanese I am entirely disenchanted with at this point, I failed it the first semester so I'd say it's more of a vendetta against the course, and Korean I am entirely enraptured with. Neither are my strong suit so it's been a struggle to stay afloat this semester.

I don't know if I can do a whole other year of this, and I don't think I'm up to the challenge of Japanese anymore, at least for now.

Everyone else, take Korean! ;D[/FONT]

[nekotenshiemi]

あのう、日本語を勉強している学生、私とメサージをしませんか？ここでか、ＴｈｅＯｔａｋｕでか、どちらでもいい。練習したいのため。
ありがとうございます～！

[phonet]

I speak Italian, English, and Nepali. :)

[Humaru]

I took French in high school and in college. I still have to take one more French class and Im done but I have to tell you...its sooo hard. Im starting to hate it.

[Claire]

[SIZE="1"]I took Spanish for two years in high school and never really got the hang of speaking it. Of course now that it's been a few years since my last class I can't remember what little I learned.

I'm taking Italian next semester. For some reason I've been in love with Italy for a while even though I don't know any more about it than I learned in my European history class.

It was kind of a struggle for me to pick between that and French, though. At the moment I kind of wish I'd signed up for French instead. I have a friend who can speak French fairly fluently and it would be awesome to have a conversation with her in that language instead of me getting all hot and bothered at it.[/SIZE]

[DeathKnight]

[color=crimson]你们好吗? 我学习汉语. 汉语不容易. 我要学习阿拉伯语还是日文.[/color]

[Japan]

English is my main language. (Of course) I've studied Japanese here and there over the years however it has been a while since I have actively studied the language. I suppose I should fix that if I am going to get an exchange student from Japan, hmm?

Anyways, I know a little bit here and there of Spanish, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Korean from my travels. The only words I remember of Korean are some numbers due to martial arts ten years ago. Lol.

Right now I am attempting at Russian to see if I can do it. I got those Russian keyboard stickers and it is going pretty decent so far.

[Axel]

While I'm not 100% fluent, I have learned quite a few languages over the years. Being home tutored as a child opened up a lot more language possibilities, so I guess that's one of the reason I'm still enthusiastic about them today.

Firstly, [b]English.[/b] That's a 'well duh' moment right there. Being my main language and essential to my former profession, it'd be very worrying not to.

[b]Welsh.[/b] I'm still learning this. I'm part Welsh, so I thought it only natural to try and learn the lingo. I started learning this only a couple of years ago, so it's still raw for me.

[b]Icelandic.[/b] Having Icelandic friends means that this is one language I couldn't pass up. It's a fun language, but I'm not 100% there yet.

[b]Greek.[/b] One of my all time favourite languages.

[b]Japanese.[/b] I gave up on this about 3 years into studying it and replaced it with Icelandic. (It was more useful for me.) But, I still learned quite a bit.

[b]Ancient Egyptian.[/b] One language that is all down to modern interpretation, as they are still unsure as to how things were properly pronounced, but it's fun all the same.

[b]Nahuatl.[/b] This one simply interested me, so I replaced German with it.
[b]
German.[/b] I know less German than Nahuatl. Haha.

[b]Hebrew.[/b] I know a few folks who write in it, so I naturally had to learn it. Then there was the fact that I used to study the Bible at one time in my life.


I think that's it. Lol.

[Lilt]

[quote name='Miss Anonymous' date='07 April 2010 - 05:01 AM' timestamp='1270609266' post='692611']
But yeah, I'm kinda like the typical anime/manga nerd who's all, "I want to study Japanese and be a translator/interpreter, hurrdurr!"
[/quote]

[b]Well, I was actually raised partly on Japanese fairy tales and stuff like that, but I think I'll probably be grouped into that category too. I still want to learn Japanese though.

As for me, I want to learn a lot of languages. Even if it takes me years to become fluent in all of them. Here's my list so far.

German - Since it seems so easy to learn
Finnish, Danish, Swedish - One of these or all three. I just like the sound of each of them.
Tagalog - I run into a lot of Filipino friends
Vietnamese - Same thing, I run into a lot of Vietnamese friends
Korean - Same as the last two.

Besides this, the list keeps growing and growing. I can't wait until I can actually start studying. [/b] Edited June 4, 2010 by Piano Parade

[Katana]

[size=1][color=royalblue]I rock the English language, I know that for sure. Or rather, I creatively bend it to my will and much to the chagrin of my foreign language teachers who were annoyed at the student who was trying to translate flowery prose from English to said other language.

In seventh grade, the middle school I went to forces one to take two foreign languages - a quarter of Spanish and a quarter of German and yes, those are the only two offered in my district (we have four grade schools that feed into two middle schools that feed into one high school). I was good at both but don't really remember a whole lot from Spanish. Come high school, I took German my freshman and sophomore years and totally rocked it, and what's more impressive is that I still retain a basic understanding of the language now, three years later. In other words, you could drop me in Germany and I can ask where the toilet is.[/color][/size]

[demon39536]

It was a requirement to take spanish in my old school, from kindergarten or 1st grade to 8th grade. We learned the same thing each year, so I quickly lost interest and didn't study at all (so when we actually started to lean new things I had no interest and barely passed all my tests and quizzes). I am now taking Japanese as of the 2009-2010 school year, partly so I can watch anime without subs or dubs, but mostly because it was the only offered language I wanted to take.
I know a few words in Tagalog, though I only know some the phrases that my mom knows which is: a curse word, a noun that can apply to anything, and 'happy birthday'.

[RedJ]

[color="#FF0000"]I know enough Spanish to know when I'm being cussed out/insulted(kind of a must when you live in an area that is mostly populated by Hispanics). I also had to take Chinese when I was taking CP classes, so I know basic, and I mean VERY basic, Chinese.

I'd really like to learn Japanese, though :x But NOOOOO, none of the schools here offer it because "there's no interest" (lolbull). [/color]