Language

[宇佐見 蓮子@C94]

Eh, why not. After the status bar, I feel like this thread might be worth it.

 

Discuss language, aka the foundation of society, the foundation of thoughts and ideals, and other stuff like that.

 

Also discuss how many languages you can speak of or more lighthearted topics along the same line. Me personally, I speak fluent Indonesian (mother tongue) and English. Learning Japanese, Mandarin and had some experience with French.

 

Personally, I think learning a secondary language besides your mother tongue does heaps and bounds to increase your worldview and lets you understand and absorb more knowledge than to simply be limited to one language.

[Tentacruel]

I only speak American. 

[Rodrigo]

I speak fluent Portuguese and English, can communicate in Spanish and I have basic knowledge of French. I also know several Japanese words that I learned with YGO and anime, but not enough to have proper conversations.

 

Knowing a 2nd language is pretty much a basic skill these days, in my opinion.

[宇佐見 蓮子@C94]

I speak fluent Portuguese and English, can communicate in Spanish and I have basic knowledge of French. I also know several Japanese words that I learned with YGO and anime, but not enough to have proper conversations.

 

Knowing a 2nd language is pretty much a basic skill these days, in my opinion.

Not in certain countries or areas though :P

 

I guess this is less prominent in western countries, but even countries like France and Italy have their fair share of people who only understand the most basic of English. Granted it's most prominent with older people, but still.

 

Same holds true for Japan and Indonesia. While English is (as far as I know) mandatory education in both countries, the amount of fluent speakers is actually not very high. Moreso Japan, though.

[mitchermitcher]

My mother tongue is my native language(not elaborating) but because I seldom find any opportunity to use it, I'm not as fluent in it as I should be. Can't read or write it as well as I could when I was a wee lil' kid. I then moved to Switzerland and learned French, and I was fluent as funk for a 6 year old or so I was told. Again, lack of opportunity to use it made me forget pretty much all of it. Then I learned English and that one stuck(because video games!...and because the internet is in English). Studied some French and Japanese in high school, the former when I had no real motivation about learning languages and the latter for less than pure reasons, but I am improving, if perhaps a little too slowly.

 

I consider English to be my main tongue, the language my mind and hearts speaks. I do feel as if I'll never completely forget my native language, and I guess that's what it means to have a mother tongue. With that said, knowing my native tongue and English has absolutely helped a lot when I try to learn Japanese. Sometimes it's because I can draw parallels from both, but it's also because I can think beyond the boundary of a single language and that makes trying to understand other languages easier. I love and appreciate that I can already speak in two tongues, and once I'm fluent enough in Japanese I plan to tackle French again, or look into some German.

 

I've read once that the current 'murrican president Obama had said that if he could have one superpower, it'd be the ability to learn and speak every language in the world, and regardless of whether he actually said that or if I'm remembering it wrong and attributing the quote to the wrong guy, I do think that's an absolutely amazing ability to have.

 

 

Knowing a 2nd language is pretty much a basic skill these days, in my opinion.

I'm in full agreement.

[Night]

Fluent in English and Arabic, and although my French isn't what it used to be I could still get by with it. Going to Paris in like a week actually, hopefully I pick it back up with moderate ease. 

[ENMaker]

English and not fluent Irish but close enough to it that I can hold a conversation comfortably, not that it's of any fucking use whatsoever but it's nice to know it nonetheless. And I suppose enough German to get by if required but really I've forgotten most of it already despite having been doing it for 5 years and only stopping 6 or 7 months ago.

[Shalltear Bloodfallen]

Fluent English and Swedish (latter being mother tongue). Got some basic knowledge of German, so I can atleast get a vague understanding of what someone is saying and (hopefully) make myself atleast kinda understood xP

 

Also, fun fact about my mother tongue, I'm waaaaaay more fluent in English then Swedish to the point I actually think in English instead of Swedish most of the time.

It's to the point I sometimes joke that Swedish is actually my secondary language XD

[Fusion X. Denver]

I speak English. I studied Spanish throughout my entire education, but I haven't been using it outside of school, so I've forgotten a lot. Other than that, I know Japanese words and phrases from all the anime I watch, but I could never hope to hold a conversation in Japanese.

 

I remember visiting Switzerland and feeling amazed at all the bilingual people I came across. If that really is a common thing, then the world's even more amazing than I thought it was.

[Tojin]

English-speaker, been learning Spanish since preschool, though I'm not quite fluent yet. I'm trying to learn as many languages as possible, because holy sheet language is really cool. Probably going to start with Hebrew, or maybe Greek. I was learning Turkish via Duolingo (which I cannot recommend enough for learning new languages), but I've gotten lazy and haven't done it for a while. I can still remember a few words though.

[Althemia]

Fluent in English and German, knowing little bits of French on the side but not a lot to call myself "fluent." Will soon be learning Mandarin and potentially Italian as part of my accounting course, so woo.

[Simping For Hina]

American.

 

I know enough Italian to act like I am one of the stereotypes. Bobbity Boopy is appropriate, right?

[Tourmaline]

My first language is French. I taught myself English at home in my youth.

 

I can also read Hebrew.

 

Nobody speaks the same language. Though, as a Linguistics major in university, the sophistication of people's understanding of language is disappointing. It's unexplored and people refuse to expose themselves.

[ihop]

Properly fluent in English and German and I speak a reasonable amount of French, enough to hold a basic conversation. My Mum's a massive linguaphile and can converse in basically every latin-based language as well as obviously English and German, but I was never quite as good. I think if I put my mind to it I could learn more languages but I don't travel enough to make it worth it.

[EndUser]

English, and that's all about me.

 

I'm not interested into learning many languages (but I do know the importance of it). However, I may need to learn German (because of sircumstances).

I'm impressed by the number of people who have mentioned German and/or France (also, my language, yay...).

[Northern Sage]

Near equal fluency of swedish and english, pretty decent german and some knowledge of italian.

[epicmemesbro]

Spanish was my first language although O began to learn English when I was 4, I eventually managed to to read and write in English when I was 5. But the discriminatory ELD program thought I should be placed in their program. When I was eight I got out of it. To be honest, I think my English is better than my Spanish.

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Mine are English [primary] and Spanish (although I'm somewhat iffy on a few things; better fix that before I take SPAN 302 this spring).

 

I know some Japanese from watching anime and other places, but can't really say too much. I did borrow a book on Japanese verbs from library so I can say more stuff, but that comes with learning the polite forms as well.

 

There's some bits and pieces from Hawaiian (yeah, you pretty much learn that in schools down here), but I am nowhere fluent enough to say full sentences (bar for maybe small stuff).

 

(I'd mention pidgin English now that it's official, but I wouldn't say I'm fluent in it. Basically slang English with stuff from other languages.)

 

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Thinking about learning Chinese (I know a little bit but not too much; that, and it's compounded with traces of Mandarin and Cantonese).

[Maeriberii Haan]

Mother tongue is Indonesian, semi-fluent in English and Arabic, though haven't really used that for years in actual conversation. Really wanting to pick uthep Japanese and German again, but haven't got enough free time for it sadly.

 

This is not counting local languages, though really, I think I'm only confident in Indonesian and English (kinda) at the moment.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Wow like 8 people said German. 

 

I speak some French, it'll be the most spoken language by 2050 apparently. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I am barely fluent in English. Mostly I say barely fluent because I tend to take a lax approach to English. I can churn out proper grammar when needed but...I suppose casual English is the best way to describe.

Sadly while I love languages and would like to learn more, I've discovered I'm pretty terrible at learning it, and haven't been able to dedicate enough time to it.

 

Second language really should be mandatory in America....

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

Second language really should be mandatory in America....

 

It technically is to some extent.

I know that I had to take a secondary language in high school, hence Spanish (I wanted to do Japanese for the purpose of watching anime, but parents deemed it too hard).

 

Over here, most college majors need to take up to the 202-level in some language (so 2 years worth).

 

Not sure what the policies are on the mainland, but I'd assume there's some amount of language requirement.