I love languages. Linguistics is one of my greatest loves; right now I’m studying Mohawk for a course on Native American languages. It’s one of the most fascinating languages I’ve ever looked at- polysynthetic, interesting agent/patient relationship, damn cool in general. I’ve studied French and Spanish as well as a bit of ASL over the course of my life; I hope to eventually become fluent in all of them.
I also tend to pick up swear words in other languages. Funny, that.
Dopers, what languages do you speak? Why do you speak them? Are you fluent?
Fluent in Dutch (mother tongue), German and English. Working knowledge of French. These three languages are (were?) part of the schooling in Holland and I have been able to extend my knowledge of them by working for a multinational.
Currently trying to learn mandarin (the toughest thing I have ever done), mainly because my wife is Chinese and most of my in-laws do not speak English.
I studied German for four years in high school, Russian the first two years in college, and have taken for the last two years (which are actually the middle two years) -
Kiswahili!
It is so much fun. The professor is kick-ass awesome, which is probably why I like it so much, but there are so many neat ways to say things in Kiswahili - it is a very poetic language, I think.
The only thing I am actually fluent in, though, is English. (But I’m working on it.)
Zev, is it common for Orthodox Jews to understand Aramaic?
Another question for everyone- do the older and younger generations in your family speak the same languages? Why or why not?
Much of my heritage is German. A great number of my family came to America just before World War I to escape from the Kaiser. They spoke German and kept many of the customs. This continued until WWII, where the German language (and the pride) were forsaken by my family in light of the atrocities.
Raised in English. During 4th grade, I spent a year in France. Learned some French, but not nearly as much as my Dad thought I should. Started taking German in 7th grade and continued for four years. While learning German, I forgot my French. Whenever a new word entered my German vocab, it exited my Frnech, or at least that’s what it seems like. I can at least order food in a restaraunt in Germany now.
Conozco un poco espanol, pero olvide mucho de la lingua, porque tengo no necesitidad por la usa de el.
In other words, after four years in high school and a couple refresher courses of Spanish in college, I speak it sorta half-assed. Missing accent marks and such above, and I’m pretty sure I made up one word entirely.
Raised in English. Took French lessons from grade 4 to grade 12. Learned close to nothing. Went to university in Montreal, learned decent but accented French from living in a French environment.
My major was languages, so by the time I graduated I had fairly advanced German, decent Spanish, and basic Russian.
Now, after living in Moscow for 7 years :eek:, I have fluent Russian, decent German, rusty French, and nearly non-existent Spanish.
Have also dabbled in Mandarin, Czech, and Armenian, to no great effect.
My son, who’s nearly two, will probably be fluently bilingual (Russian/English). Lucky bastard.
The only language I am totally fluent in is English. Neither of my parents speak anything else. I took Spanish for four years in high school, and was pretty good at it (I was even asked to skip a year, and took Spanish 5 in twelfth grade). I intended to continue studying it in college, but I could never fit it into my schedule, so you can imagine what happened. I went to Mexico in February, and constantly felt like the words I needed were on the tip of my tongue, just barely eluding me.
I also speak decent Hebrew, but I fear it is slipping away as well, from disuse. I try to talk to myself in Hebrew, and find myself having to really think about verb conjugations that used to be automatic. Although I had a chat in Hebrew on aforementioned trip to Mexico, and it seemed to come back easily after a couple minutes. My reading and writing is not as good as it ought to be (especially my reading), unfortunately.
First, why would your ancestors have been fleeing the Kaiser prior to WWI? Were they being persecuted? Why? Or did they leave to find better opportunities elsewhere?
Second, it is my impression many who emigrated from European or other countries to the US (or Australia or Brazil or any number of other nations) usually adopted the language of the country to which they had moved because it was what they needed on a daily basis to survive. Moreover, people didn’t forsake German because of atrocities. In addition to the point I have just made, I think they did so because Germany was the enemy in the Ist and IInd World Wars. Few, it seems to me, knew of the atrocities of the Third Reich during the war and it was then that the study of German experienced its greatest decline in the US.
To answer the question, though, when recently in Italy, I discovered that my Italian that I had not really spoken at all for 13 years proved quite serviceable. On 3 occassions, I was asked if I was Swiss. I also have German and French. Spanish and Portuguese are understandable to me and I can order a meal or a drink in either. Turkish is the one I’m having difficulties with at the moment. I have never tried an agglutenative language before, and it is proving quite the conundrum.
Took a year of Japanese in 9th grade (which I’ve basically forgotten)
Took three years of German through high school (which is extremely rusty)
Learning Spanish bit by bit now, as not only do I work with mostly Spanish-speakers, but my SO’s family is from Latin America, and half of them don’t speak English.
That’s me with Spanish as well. I took it for 3 years in high school, did well and was able to carry on a conversation. Then I didn’t think about it for, oh 11 years.
I work with 2 native speakers, and I’m amazed at the amount I understand when they’re speaking. We had a trip to Honduras in January, and I was able to follow conversations-I missed details, but I knew what was going on. Actually speaking was another matter though. I think that’s mostly fear, because if I can understand, I know the words.
I also speak German well, but I barely understand it at all. I just haven’t been exposed to it much since college, but I think I could survive, though conversations would be slow at first.
My favorite, though, is when I attempt to speak one or the other and a horrid mixture of the two languages comes out.
German flourished in the US from the time of the earliest colonies until the First World War. Many German speakers were bilingual, but some spoke little or no English. There was an active German-language press, many private German schools, and even bilingual public education in some states. However, WWI changed all that. German speakers abandoned their language for fear of being seen as disloyal; those who didn’t were openly harrassed. A few cities even passed ordinances against speaking German on the streets! It’s a rather astounding story, but most people have never heard of it…
As for me, I speak English and Norwegian (no big surprises there). I used to speak German and could probably pick it up again. I studied some Russian and can read the Cyrillic alphabet, which sometimes allows me to convince particularly credulous people that I can read Russian. It’s easier if they’re drunk.
Learn smatterings of words and phrases in Polish, Russian and Italian from the neighbors when I was a tyke (mostly swear words, as I found out later).
Took French in middle and high school.
Took German in college.
Teaching myself Latin.
Fairly fluent in heraldese (Norman French).
I also speak Russian and French, although those could use some brushing up. I began my study of French early; Russian I studied later, as a teenager. I was one of those who seemed to be able to learn languages fairly easily, so I concentrated on those when I was a university student.
Have I been able to use them in their environments? Well, French got me through France (and other parts of Europe) pretty well years ago. As for Russian, I had some good friends who were originally from Russia, and I was invited along for all the family celebrations (Christmas, Easter, and so on), as well as other times. All the conversation was in Russian, and I found that I could hold my own!
But like I said, nowadays both my French and my Russian could use some brushing up.
Raised unilingual English (no thanks to my father: “I didn’t think you’d need to speak Slovak.”)
Working knowledge of French, thanks to the Ontario school boards. Fluent with immersion.
I have an instinctive grasp of Italian, which I took in high school and university. I know that with immersion I could become as fluent as one can become as an adult.
I took Latin in high school and German in university. I have a decent Czech vocabulary with no grammar. I have some little knowledge of many other languages from my own studies in linguistics (you can learn a lot by diagramming sentences.)
I am proficient in Korean and Spanish, competent but badly accented in French, and I can buy a beer/order a meal/rent a room/and get directions in Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese), Japanese, Italian, and German. I can read Latin and New Testament Greek (thank you, parochial school!), and I taught myself to read Russian, although I need a dictionary handy.
