Foreign Languages

[mwgfghost]

I'm bored and I thought this would be an interesting topic. Does anybody here know any foreign languages? If so, which ones. I speak some Spanish and some Arabic. I'd have to say Arabic has been the most fun just because the teacher's from Egypt so he not only knows the language but also the culture. And Spanish was in highschool and I sorta slacked off but I'm gonna retake it in college. I did pass spanish but I wanna speak it fluently along with Arabic. I'm gonna start taking Spanish with Arabic next semester. I'm also interested in learning Pashto, Dari and Urdu but they're not offered where I'm at so I gotta make due with what I got and pick the others up somewhere as I go.

[Forrester]

I speak Dutch, English, German, a bit of French, and understand some Swedish/Danish/Finnish but only written (words match Dutch words in most cases, just those odd letters used...lol)

[WytchDokta]

I speak Dutch, English, German, a bit of French, and understand some Swedish/Danish/Finnish but only written (words match Dutch words in most cases, just those odd letters used...lol)

I agree, hence I speak and can undertsnad most of the same langauges as Forrester. I'm better and understaning it written than how it's spoken though. I watch videos for songs from those countries with subtitles in the respective language so I can match up the written words with the spoken ones. And because of that, people say I'm wierd. I can go one better than Forrester though, I can not only understand/speak these languages, I also have a broad knowledge of slang in those languages.

Aside from that, I know one or two words in Spanish and Italian too, it's similar to French that's how I worked out alot of the words I know in Spanish/Italian.

Finnish is a wierd one though, what's with like six ä's in one word, often two or three in a row, then a few other letters, then two or three more ä's in a row?

[mwgfghost]

Wow, that's very impressive with the slang, Wytch. All I know is if you can speak, write, and read English fluently, you should do well with Spanish cause that's like our second language here in the U.S. Only reason I failed Spanish two is cause I didn't pay attention in highschool. That's why I wanna re-take it. I kow if I can learn Arabic, I can learn just about any language. Main thing with Arabic is getting used to the letters and how they connect to eachother. After that, there's a few bumps along the way but nothing too tough. In Arabic 111 we started off with 14 people. In Arabic 112, we have 7. And next semester, we'll have a max of 6 cause atleast one of em is leaving. We've grown to be a tight-knit group which is pretty cool. We might even start recruiting people from the other Arabic classes just to ensure we have enough for 211. Of all the classes I've taken, this one's probably the most tight knit group. We can get crazy but when it comes time to learn, we're all serious. Anyways, I'm out. Gotta get back in the zone for class today after having the Thanksgiving Break.

[Parabellum]

I've been accused of speaking English. I can also read/write Spanish, and to a lesser extent speak/understand it. I can also read a bit of Greek and German.

[mwgfghost]

I accidentally took a German class in high school. Dropped it after a day. I do want to learn it though since I am part German. People accuse me of bein a smart(you know what) for correcting their spelling all the time. It's just a weird habit of mine. And most people think I'm making a sick joke when I say this but I actually learned more Spanish working as a cook at McDonalds than I did in highschool. But that's the honest truth. It's sad I know. Can't remember how to read and write it because it was in 10th grade which was about 5 years ago. But I also really want to brush up on that since that is an important language to know.

[WytchDokta]

that is an important language to know.

ANY language is important to know, depending on the reason you wish to know that language. I write/speak six languages myself, I learned them I have for some time considered moving to and working in Europe. The six languages give me a wider opportunity of which European county.

All my friends keep saying to me, why bother learning new languages? English is the international language. pffft, give me a break. The whole thing is based on respect - if i go to another country for say vacationary purposes, I'll atleast try to communicate with the locals in their own language (again, it's out of respect), yet all my English friends are saying to the locals 'speak English!!'. I'm like what the? It's THEIR country, not England. Aside from that, it seems no-one speaks/writes proper English anymore. I see it all the time. See, apparently, I myself don't speak proper/understandable English - it's surprises me the amount of people, co-incidently mainly English people (although a few who've asked have been Polish, Poruguese or from another country altogether), have stopped me to ask what country I'm from because 'I do not have the appearance of an English person, and I speak differently compared to other English people.' That's what the tell me. I can't work that out because i was born in England, and as far back as the family tree goes, it's all English people in the family (except if you go back over 1500 years in which I'm a Saxon descendent (my surname originates from the Anglo-Saxon/Old Norse language)

[firefly2442]

I took a little bit of French and Spanish in middle/high school. The funny thing was, I started with French and then moved to Spanish, but the Spanish teacher kept telling me I was speaking Spanish with a French accent. I'm sure today I would probably mix them up if I tried relearning it.

[mwgfghost]

Yeah dokta good point. I haven't met too many people who aren't open to learning a new language. I think it's a fun experience cause to me it's like being a kid all over again. Gotta start over from scratch and gradually you learn to speak it pretty well. I'm pretty bummed though cause it turns out the next installment of Arabic won't be until next fall and most of us probably won't be there for that, transferring to new schools and all. But next semester I'm gonna start takin Spanish. No language is known by all. Like you said, it depends on what the occasion is. I want to travel to Egypt learn Arabic. And it's like a right of passage in my Arabic class to slip up with Spanish atleast once. We'll get caught sayin "Si" or someone will walk in and just say "Hola" It's because a few of my classmates are taking Spanish and they do it all the time so it sort of rubbed off on me and now I slip up but it makes the class more interesting. Main thing is to keep studying it though cause coming back from the first semester into this one, I knew the basics but I didn't know a lot of easy things like door which was the first vocab. word we learned. First semester was so easy cause he hammered it all into our heads. This time's harder cause we don't get to go over things as much and move at a faster pace. Anyways, I'm just rambling on now so I'll go ahead and stop. Keep the posts coming.

[Scubaman3D]

Well I married a Russian so now I'm trying to learn and its damn hard!

[WytchDokta]

Well I married a Russian so now I'm trying to learn and its damn hard!

They told me Danish was a hard language to learn. There are only a few places in this country that teach it and they're all far away from me. So I taught myself. I know a few Danish people and they're already surprised at my ability of being to write/speak the language considering it's a hard one to learn, let alone slef learn. I hear that even if you speak German fluently, Danish is still a hard language to pick up even though it sounds similar when spoken.

Most of my self teaching comes from learning from media sources in those languages - I can pick out phrase and words from Danish songs, Swedish songs etc, just like that and remember them forever. yet when they ask me me to do something later at work, I easily forget to do that task. I found having the subtitles for those songs etc help me match up the spoken words with the written words (so I can grasp the pronunciated), and having the subtitles in English helps me learn the other language.

While we're currently talking about accents, my European friends keep telling me that when i speak their language, it's always with the same accent they speak the laguage with. While talking with French people, I've been passed off as a French person. They are surprised when I tell them I'm English, and tell me that when I speak French you can't tell I'm English. This has happened to me in other languages too. Also, last year I went to France with some relatives. When I spoke to the French people in French, they spoke back to me in French - yet when my relatives spoke to the French people in French, they spoke back to my relatives in English. Why you ask? Well, it's all to do with accents.

[xG5kdo]

I speak Indonesian, if that counts as a foreign language...hahaha. It doesn't for me. Its my mother language.

"Foreign" language I speak is English, a bit of French, a smattering of German.

I also fluently speak Javanese (all eight different 'social classes' and quite a few of the different dialects), Sundanese (a West Java language, not Javanese), South Sumatranese (of the Mandailing people, actually where I'm from) and am conversant in Acehese.

All of the above languages are traditional Indonesian languages.

[dporter]

I spent two years in Guadalajara and on the coast of Mexico right after highschool so I speak fluent spanish. My first several months down there I lived in a house with six other guys from mexico and not a single one spoke any english and I only had about two months of training in the Spanish language. You learn quickly when you're put into situations like that.

Here are some of my tips that I used to learn the language quickly. Surround yourself with the language. It was really easy for me since I lived down there but listen to music, watch t.v., get books etc from that language.

I have found that I am also able to understand Italian most of the time since the two languages are so close to each other.

[mwgfghost]

Yeah Dporter I'm thinking about going over to India or Pakistan too to learn some languages over there. My father used to work with a guy from India and he's impressed with my Arabic so far and said he's like to take me over there with him. He said it's a lot easier to learn a language when you're surrounded by people who speak it as their native language. And I never knew Danish was that hard of a langauge to learn. A lot of people think Arabic's a hard language to learn because their letters are so much different than English ones but once you pick up on how to write the letters and how they connect, it's a pretty easy language to learn. And I heard Pashto uses the same letters so I'd really like to learn that next but I think the next language I learn is going to be Spanish because Pashto isn't offered here.

[WytchDokta]

And I never knew Danish was that hard of a langauge to learn. .

The pronunciation is the hardest part in Danish. In some words, letters aren't pronunced (like in French) then in the word right next to it, the letters that aren't normally pronunced are pronunced.

I couldn't grasp the prunciation of the 'æ' or 'ø' until I kept listening to Danish media (inc. songs) over and over. Although, I kinda knew 'æ' would denote an 'ay' sound - I worked that out from the written word 'jæger' (meaning 'hunter') in which the 'g' is not pronunced. Generally, the letter 'g' is more like a 'y' and a 'y' is like a 'u' pronunciation wise.

Edited December 3, 2007 by WytchDokta

[squad_e]

I worked that out from the written word 'jæger' (meaning 'hunter') in which the 'g' is not pronunced. Generally, the letter 'g' is more like a 'y' and a 'y' is like a 'u' pronunciation wise.

rather coincedential that i came accross a fantastic ArmA addon, that had a few missions and one of them were "jaeger skills", pretty cool mission too, where you have to storm/sanitize a guirella base.

The Norweigen units look kinda awesome too.

Info and screenies

So theres, something i've learnt today

Edited December 3, 2007 by squad_e

[mwgfghost]

Yeah it's hard to pronounce a lot of words in Arabic mainly because you're buildings new throat muscles so I bring a bottle of water to every class. A lot of the letters sound similar too but after a while, you get used to it.

[WytchDokta]

rather coincedential that i came accross a fantastic ArmA addon, that had a few missions and one of them were "jaeger skills", pretty cool mission too, where you have to storm/sanitize a guirella base.

There's also a clothing chain in the UK called Jaeger. It's funny listening to English people pronuncing 'Jaeger' the English way - I'm like "Hva sa du?" LMAO!

Edited December 4, 2007 by WytchDokta

[krise madsen]

I hear that even if you speak German fluently, Danish is still a hard language to pick up even though it sounds similar when spoken.

Comparing Danes to krauts aren't going to win you many friends up north...

The really odd thing about Danish (my native tongue, so I guess it doesn't qualify as a foreign language) is that though there are less than 6 million people in the country, and nobody is more than a few hundred kilometers from each other, the dialect from one end of the country is completely incomprehensible to those at the other end. Though the dialects are dying out now, as happens everywhere these days.

Respectfully

krise madsen

PS: And yes, WD's Danish skills are quite impressive for someone self-taught.

[dporter]

I worked that out from the written word 'jæger' (meaning 'hunter') in which the 'g' is not pronunced. Generally, the letter 'g' is more like a 'y' and a 'y' is like a 'u' pronunciation wise.

I think that is a German word as well which has the same meaning. When I was a kid we named our german short hair dog jaeger and the "J" was pronounced as a "y" and the g still sounded like a g. Just like the hockey player.

Edited December 4, 2007 by dporter

[krise madsen]

I worked that out from the written word 'jæger' (meaning 'hunter') in which the 'g' is not pronunced. Generally, the letter 'g' is more like a 'y' and a 'y' is like a 'u' pronunciation wise.

I think that is a German word as well which has the same meaning. When I was a kid we named our german short hair dog jaeger and the "J" was pronounced as a "y" and the g still sounded like a g. Just like the hockey player.

In both Danish and German it has several meanings. The most "natural" one is indeed hunter (as in hunting game), but in military terms it denotes a particular type of troops, usually (but not always) light infantry (like the German fallschirmjäger). It is also used to describe military hardware light fighter aircraft (Jagdflugzeug) and tank destroyers (Jagdpanzer).

Trivia: In his autobiography, US fighter ace Chuck Yeager tells that his family is of German origin and their name was in fact Jäger (or sumfink like that).

Respectfully

krise madsen

[WytchDokta]

PS: And yes, WD's Danish skills are quite impressive for someone self-taught.

Then shouldn't that classified as 'skillz'?

In both Danish and German it has several meanings. The most "natural" one is indeed hunter (as in hunting game), but in military terms it denotes a particular type of troops, usually (but not always) light infantry (like the German fallschirmjäger). It is also used to describe military hardware light fighter aircraft (Jagdflugzeug) and tank destroyers (Jagdpanzer).

.... and not forgetting the Danish special operations detachment 'Jægerkorpset' (JGK) While we're on that subject, I learned from a Danish news report about JGK that the 'g' in the word is not pronunced, neither is the 't' (but unlike English, the 'p' and 's' are pronunced?)

[krise madsen]

.... and not forgetting the Danish special operations detachment 'Jægerkorpset' (JGK) While we're on that subject, I learned from a Danish news report about JGK that the 'g' in the word is not pronunced, neither is the 't' (but unlike English, the 'p' and 's' are pronunced?)

Actually, the t is pronounced. It's just that most people are too lazy to speak the language properly (not an exclusively Danish phenomenon I gather). I guess the pronunciation in English would be something like "Yay-are-corp-set".

Respectfully

krise madsen

[WytchDokta]

.... and not forgetting the Danish special operations detachment 'Jægerkorpset' (JGK) While we're on that subject, I learned from a Danish news report about JGK that the 'g' in the word is not pronunced, neither is the 't' (but unlike English, the 'p' and 's' are pronunced?)

Actually, the t is pronounced. It's just that most people are too lazy to speak the language properly (not an exclusively Danish phenomenon I gather). I guess the pronunciation in English would be something like "Yay-are-corp-set".

Respectfully

krise madsen

Yeah figures. No1 speex/rytz propur inglund nemore eevur.

[mwgfghost]

Oh fa sho naaa mean? If our English was the international language, the world would still be messed up but it would also be a funny place. There's not much more I have to say about this subject other than I love learning new languages. There are so many I'd love to tackle but not all are offered at my school so I'm gonna start looking for one that offers a few of them. Have my oral exam for Arabic(sure there's gonna be someone with a comment on that) tomorrow. Somewhat nervous but I'm leading the class so when I'm in front of them, I appear calm and cool. I'm the only one that actually volunteers in that class unless there's something that one of the ditzy chix finds amusing then they'll raise their hand.