Guten Abend! Wie geht es Ihnen? Ich kann etwas Deutsch sprechen.
I studied Spanish for 7 1/2 years in school, and lived in Spain for four months. I wouldn’t say that I’m fluent in spoken Spanish, as it’s hard for me to think of words on the fly and I have an American accent thick enough to cut with a knife, but I understand most of what other people say without having to think about it. Reading and writing, no problem – I can handle college-level academic work without much difficulty.
I took German for two years (high school) and French for a semester (grad school), and it’s fair to say I’ve never been even close to proficient in either, although I can get along as a tourist. As I have no ear for accents at all, I don’t think I’ll ever be much of a French speaker, and for some reason I found German grammar much harder to internalize than Spanish or French. So I’ve accepted that I’ll probably always be a two-language speaker, if that; I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that most Americans can’t even manage one other language. Most of the rest of the world (Coldfire being a prime example) puts us native English speakers to shame. Sigh.
As I’m sure the entire world knows, I speak Latvian fluently. Not only is it an obscure and very difficult language, the opportunities to speak it are limited to family members and certain friends.
My parents were both born in Latvia and came to the US in their teens. When we, the kids, were born, our house became totally Latvianized. We weren’t allowed to speak English at home (we still don’t).
Of course, we learned English through television and neighborhood kids.
When we were about three years old, we went to Latvian school on Saturdays from 9 am - 2 pm. It was cool because we learned how to read and write at an early age, but it sucked losing a Saturday to school. I went until I was 11 years old.
From age 11 to age 16 I went to Latvian high school at a six week (classes 5 days a week) long summer camp in Michigan. We learned geography, history, literature, dancing, singing, etc.
There’s a Latvian college in Germany but I decided not to push it.
Some friends/relatives of mine aren’t teaching their kids Latvian and it bugs me. Knowing another language makes others easier to learn (my sister speaks seven languages fluently, my brother three, but me only two) and I’ve passed language requirements for college entry and high school graduation.
I like hanging out with my Latvian friends because we can talk about anything in public. People don’t think you’re an American when traveling (handy in France). It makes getting around Latvia a breeze.
Good luck learning German, tatertot! When I was learning Italian, I would go out for drinks with some people in the class and we would force ourselves to only speak Italian. That might be a trick that works for you.
Another multilingual freak here.
J’ai étudié français quatre ans dans le lycée il y a douze ans, et je suis sûr que j’ai oublié beaucoup. Mais je peux lire les gazettes et de temps à temps un livre où un roman.
French and Russian are the only two languages in which I took courses for more than a year. I took a semester of Basque and a year of Greek my senior year at Georgetown, and even now some of it still sticks with me.
I have, on my own, studied Japanese, Swedish, and Italian, the latter two of which stick better because I actually finished the books. Same for Esperanto. There are several other minor languages I’ve played with but none seriously.
tatertot, you have a great opportunity to enhance your abilities there. I spent nine months in Russia and, by categorically refusing to speak English with any Russians I met, my abilities took off.
Since you seem to be there for a while, my strongest recommendation would be to pick up books that are just beyond your ability to easily read.
If the first page of the book has no more than five to seven words you don’t understand right away, I’d say go with it and start reading. At the least it’ll expand your vocabulary, and with any luck it’ll introduce you to grammatical constructions you can use in conversation later.
I heartily back missbunny’s recommendations as well. Nice to see a fellow polyglot on the board! What do you speak?
A few footnotes…
From SqrlCub:
**
Bore dda! Y mae i yn hoffi coffi.
From ssskugiii:
**
Godan daginn! Hvad segirthu gott?
Sveiks!
Bore dda. Dw i’n dysgu Cymraeg dros dro ond dydw i ddim siarad o’r gorau. Dw i wedi bod darllen ac ysgrifennu ar yr rhystr Cymraeg ar dechreuwyrau.
Afflau!
Sqrl
I speak French with about enough proficiency to get by in France . . . don’t know what kind of accent I have but suspect it’s northern france/normandy b/c my grandmother grew up there.
I can understand people on French tv shows, but not always on the news b/c they speak so damn fast. I can also read pretty well and write okay . . .
My spanish is pretty awful. Can’t write or speak but I can read some based on my french.
Whoa there, cowboy. Ya just blew by me with that one. I didn’t say I spoke Welsh, I just threw that one out there 'cos it’s all I know how to say.
I know where I can get some good books though.
[/hijack]
I think I’m what’s called “conversationally fluent” and a bit more, but not completely yet, in French. Just got back from 6 weeks in France, and both of my host families said I spoke quite well; the only thing that gave me away was my start-stop-start-stop manner of speaking in Paris. (The big rush for me was getting mistaken for a French person a few times.) Basically, I can hold my own in a conversation, understand most of what I read, and watch TV or a movie with few problems. My friends think I’m a freak of nature; I didn’t do anything particularly special to get good at the language, just took 4 years in h.s. and decided to major in it in college. My advice would be, as many others have said, to take an active interest in life and the German culture. It’s a lot easier when you’re thinking about how you can get across an idea about something really neat, rather than thinking about slogging through grammar and vocab.
And Sqrl - aaaah! Could you recommend some good resources for learning Welsh? That’s been a goal for a while, and I’ve got time to kill.
Bonne chance, tater!
my mum and grandmum spoke russian with me at home until dad would come home from work. this stopped when i was 6. then russian school on saturday morning. i really hated to go to russian school so i refused to learn anything. they really didn’t know what to do with me and i stayed in the same class for about 5 years. at the same time i was dealing with spanish in elementary school. when i hit college i ran into a large group of russian imm. the thing that finally taught me some russian was the deal i made with some of the imms. they would only speak to me in english, i would correct as ness.; i would only speak to them in russian, they got to correct back. for a few weeks dictionary pages were flying, then things went swimmingly. i would suggest that you find a german mum in little tot’s class that would like to learn english. make the deal. it really works.
the school spanish only comes in handy if someone asks “how much is the black umbrella?” it did not help when i had to call a company in spain, ask for juan and get some details on a seminar that juan wanted to do here in philly.
I speak English, French, and Esperanto fluently, and Spanish pretty well. I love languages (I’m a linguistics major and a hispanic studies minor, as well as a translator). My next trick will probably be either Italian or ASL. Possibly German, too, in the future.
Make that “Goðan daginn! Hvað segirþú gott?”
For some reason, that still doesn’t look right, but then again, I hear this more often than I see it.
Ég er góður og leiður. [I’m not going to attempt to butcher this language anymore since I have very little knowledge of the grammar rules stored in my memory.]
I can’t find the eth and thorn on my ALT+commands! I tried, though.
try changing the keyboard setup. go to run, type in internat.exe, and the icon will come up for what language format your keyboard is in. right click on it, and you can change what the default languages are.
If you want to learn on the web there are a few good sources.
http://www.dalati.com is pretty good. It is sponsored by Linda Sherman. It is very good and has many lessons that will help you get buy in everyday situations.
Mark Nodine’s website is also pretty good. I don’t know the address offhand but if you search for Welsh-English dictionaries online it is one that always pops up. I think I first found it through http://www.dictionary.com. His dictionary isn’t complete but it gives a decent working knowledge for the basics. The website is designed to give you a very basic working knowledge of Welsh.
I bought pretty much every book/tape set I could find. There is one that is called Welsh in Three Months that is pretty good. I found the lessons were a little shorter and that helped my retention.
I would also suggest buying a good dictionary. The Hippocrene Welsh/English dictionary that I have is pretty good. There is a whole section on prefixes and suffixes that I found wholly useful. Learning those really helped my vocabulary.
There are two Welsh Learning CD Roms out there. One is Dyna Hwyl and the other is one of the Rosetta Stone CDs. I have not tried either of them since I would have to order them from the UK. Well, maybe not the Rosetta Stone one.
Also, if you stay on the web, I would suggest buying a book called Welsh Grammar because the grammar is significantly different from English and the romance languages. It is a good source but don’t expect to really learn to speak from it. I use it as a reference when I am not sure of the word order. I would also suggest subscribing to the Welsh-l or cymraeg-l email lists. I only subscribe to the Welsh-l because it is more for the learners. The Cymraeg-l list is for a more advanced student or native speaker. I may have it backwards. Anyway, you can also find that information at the http://www.dalati.com website.
I found that the mailing lists were the most helpful when I found a friend to exchange private emails with. I learned a whole lot. Some of the people are jerks and will only write to you to tell you how many mistakes you make but will not give you any type of feedback or real communication to help correct them. Other people are genuinely nice and will help correct your mistakes while maintaining a conversation. It is a personal style I guess.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Tater No no no no no. Don’t you know the number one rule of the NYPD and LAPD? *The harder you hit 'em, the more english they speak? **
Just show your true American roots and YELL at the german/french/whatever people in english. It’s not that they don’t understand you, they can’t HEAR you. 
Hubby speaks fluent german. His training process was very rigorous and I do not recommend it. It starts with having german parents.
I, however, understand a rare language: * Toddler-ese.*
It does not help me in foreign countries, nor at check point charlie. But the food consists, from this rare subculture of , yogurt, cheese, hot dogs and bananas. Much more healthier than (watch for oxymoron) *german cuisine *
Shirley’s contribution to this Thread: NULL.
Habe eine guten tag.
Ah, zee language of love…zat is zee true tongue.
::ducking and running::
I consider myself fluent in 2 languages, 'Merican and English. Having visited England most of Europe, I can say with some certainty that English(European) is much different than English('Merican).
Also living in So. California, to survive I must learn Spanglish. Because of the doo-gooding &$&^#%^(@(!@ that won’t teach English (European or 'Merican) to the %^@&^…
::: kicking soapbox back under desk:::
Sorry, that’s a rant for another time and place.
V.
I know English, Hebrew, French and Spanish. Unfortunatly, I don’t seem to be fluent in any one of these languages.
Olentzero, to answer your question: Fluent French & Italian, a goodly amount of Spanish & German, a fair amount of Russian, and a smattering of Arabic & Irish.
Oh, and Pig Latin. Does that count?