Poll: Do you know/are you learning a second language?

[Ieyke]

I'm a Texan but technically English is my second language. Though I don't remember it, I spoke German first. I still speak fluent German, but I don't remember speaking it first.
I know bits and pieces of French, Latin, Italian and Spanish...and lesser bits of Greek and Japanese...
It gets a bit confusing sometimes to remember which words belongs to which language...:/

 

[Zarkov]

Hello mono-, bi-, and multilingual escapees, what (second) language are you learning and why do you learn it? and if you aren't learning one, why not?

It's a question of mine, because here at my high school (in the US) there a maybe 3 people in the entire school that actually like learning a second language. Learning a second language in this school, and in general America, doesn't seem very popular and I'm not sure why. Learning a second language doesn't seem to be a very popular decision in the states (and at my school).

So what's your opinion about foreign language, Escapist community?

Oh, und, ich hab Deutsch seit zwei Jahren jetzt gelernt, und ich liebe Deutsch. Tut mir leid, wenn mein Deutsch nicht perfekt ist. (Use Google translate )

EDIT: I'm really liking all of the foreign (Foreign to me, at least ) language love! You know what I think? The Escapist should have a group for each respective language. lolololo

I wonder if there's a German group here...

On the poll results are a little surprising in that I thought there would be more people against learning a second language, but I forget that the Escapist a large group of speakers which their second language is English.

ah deutsch ja? ich als fur vier jahre (es tut mir leid, mein deutsche ist sogar schlecter)

At the time i took it as a requirement, and i honestly couldn't have given less of a fuck about it, i hated the grammar of it and i am probably never going to leave the states so my lazy side never cared for it. (i'm slowly picking up more and more surprisingly..somehow?)

but yeah, i live in the center of the damn united states, and the onyl other language remotely spoken besides english is super broken spanish, which i also have no intent on learning.

Exactly! That's why it's so hard to learn a language right now (here in the states). I've got practically got no one to speak it with and I only see my German speaking uncle once in a blue moon. But I will continue and learn the language fluently, even if it ends up killing me.

basically same, any friends i had in my german class are even worse than i am at it so my deterioration rate is next to impossible to stop lol

if i know i'm going to leave the US, especially towards a german speaking place, i will definitely kick my butt in gear to re learn what i have semi forgotten (i know enough german to get from once place to another, but beyond that i'm basically poop.)

Es kann schwierig sein, Deutsch zu lernen. Like any language it takes lots of hard work and a function enviroment to learn it in, so I don't blame you for forgetting German because it hard to retain.

 

[floppylobster]

I learned Japanese, and although I don't use it much, I'm very grateful for all that learning a second language taught me about English.

 

[Keepeas]

Japanese.
I took 3 years in High School but after that I stop studying...mostly because I didn't have to for anything...
But whenever I watch anime I learn a little bit or at least refresh what I already knew(I watch with subtitles)
I'll probably go back to studying Japanese again someday.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I speak 3 languages.

two of which can both be considered a 'native' language, and the third I spent several years learning at school.

I'm trying to improve on this third language, because I'm at a really annoying point with it where I can understand much of what a person says, but it's quite difficult to put a sentence together without resorting to a dictionary.

Then there's Japanese, which I started trying to learn some years ago out of trying to figure out a game that I had no translation for.

Then there's the 3 or 4 other languages which I've been subjected to in school but have pretty much forgotten every word of... (These are french, indonesian and mandarin by the way.)

So...

I speak English and Dutch... English slightly better than dutch, but both well enough to not worry about it. (Except that if I haven't spoken one in a while it can take a few days to get a proper feel for it again.)

The third language is German...

So with Japanese that's 4 languages, two of which are native, one I'm borderline with, but trying to improve, and the other which I'm hopeless at, but keep practicing anyway.

And yet, that just shows how indifferent I am to languages really, because if I had kept up with everything I've ever been taught I'd know 7 languages, instead of approximately 3...

 

[EpicEps]

Estaba estudiando español en el colegio por 4 años, y aún puedo hablarlo y escribirlo bastante bien. Ya no estoy asistando a clases de español porque ahora estoy asistando a la universidad, pero siempre estoy aprendiendo más por el internet y lo practicando con cosas como este thread (fans de anime hispanohablantes son un bien modo especialmente para mi).

だけど、今日本語を勉強してる。まだ下手だけどがんばっているよ。ぶんぽうはむずかしくないと思うでもそのかんじはちょっと。たのしいだけどたくさん練習した法がいい。

Su palabras en Japonés, como usanos? Quando uso Japonés con este, solos numberos fueron y nada de la hiragana o katakana. Es el ordenador o un programa? Lo siento de español de mi es mal, no hablé con un otro en tiempo grande.

No es un programa, es un característica de la computadora. Estoy usando un mac, y por eso, es diferente. No sé por cierto como se escriben en un PC. Es posible, yo lo sé ciertamente, pero no puedo recordar los detallos. Lo siento.

Bueno, sobre tu español, puedo entenderte, y mi propio español tambien es obviamente imperfecto. Se parece que solo tienes que practicarlo para mejorarlo. Veo que sabías más español en el pasado que puedes recorder ahora.

ありがとう。よく書きます。日本語のクラス大好きです。いちがっきをべんきょうします。難しいと楽しいです。日本語の教科書を読んで、日本語を書きます。勉強しますから。

 

[EpicEps]

Does anyone know how to type in hiragana or katakana? I can't get the languages to type right on my computer.

Windows Vista/7 has a built in program to make your keyboard type in whatever language you want. That's how I get the umlauts for German and the Japanese characters for Japanese.

Just look up "IME Microsoft [input OS here]" on google.

Thank you! I got it to work and I'm getting used to the typing now. ありがとう。

 

[Cpu46]

I wouldn't consider myself mutilingual. I know enough German to get by but not enough to carry on a full conversation. I can also grasp a few words of chinese (spoken not written) because my aunt is from China and I just picked a bit of it up from spending time around her. I also learned how to make homemade Pot Stickers (Jiǎozi) from her which is awesome. I hope to gain a full library of homemade chinese dishes from her and possibly pick up on more of the language.

 

[Thaa'ir]

Du hast rechts, es soll "ich lerne seit" nicht "ich hab seit gelernt" sein.

Ach ja, ich mache die ganze Zeit diesen Fehler. Ich denke immer "I have been learning German since", wenn ich den Satz schreibe.

Und seit wann lernst du deutsch? (oder haben gelernt? lerntest?! Ich weiß nicht lol) Ich sah, dass du geschrieben hast, dass du seit langer zeit lerne, aber seit wann ist das? Nur neugierig =]

Und es ist schwierig Deutsch zu lernen, weil ich in den USA wohne. Niemand spricht Deutsch hier, außer mein Onkel und ich. Also geh ich nach Deutschland mit meinem Onkel im Frühling. Ich werde dort nur eine woche bleiben und ich werde mein Deutsch während der Reise üben. Hoffentlich werd ich bessern, wenn ich zurück komme.

You said it correctly...and I've been learning German for a little over four years now.
Well, yeah...I'm American too, so I understand. You can drive a thousand miles in any direction (depending on where you live) and not any major regions where English is not the predominant language...so ist es halt.

Don't stress it, my friend. Learning a language takes time. Lots of it. Looottsss of it. Bother your uncle for help. If you have German friends, bother them too. It always works. Be patient, but if you really want to achieve a good level of fluency with a language, you will, so long as you keep at it.

Your progress thus far is great. Keine Sorgen, mein Freund. Ich wünsch dir viel Spaß bei deiner Reise. Wo gehst du genau hin?

Also, study in Germany. It helps. I've been here for three months. It's awesome.

 

[Zarkov]

Does anyone know how to type in hiragana or katakana? I can't get the languages to type right on my computer.

Windows Vista/7 has a built in program to make your keyboard type in whatever language you want. That's how I get the umlauts for German and the Japanese characters for Japanese.

Just look up "IME Microsoft [input OS here]" on google.

Thank you! I got it to work and I'm getting used to the typing now. ありがとう。

Yeah, it's deceptively simple in design and it's very useful. Glad I could help!

 

[Joel Dawson]

Really? I'm only in Latin 102. We haven't gone into sentence structure*** too much and most of the translations are adaptations. I have seen some poetry though that basically said "fuck it" and just threw words everywhere, separating some prepositions with clauses basically completely unrelated to those prepositions...I think it was Virgil. Something about "great waves of anger" written as "[something something] irarum vastus [big long sentence] fluctus."

I don't know, there's just something about the language (aside from poetic use I suppose) that just feels...mathematical. Like factoring a function from several polynomials multiplied and divided by each other into it's individual parts and seeing how each could affect the others.

*** *Edit* I don't know how to explain what I mean by this. Of course I know the basics of how to set up clauses and to put adjectives near what they modify, that sort of stuff, but not the really complicated stuff reserved for later on.

On a side note, how do I make notes? I just put asterisks because I'm too lazy to search for the answer.

Virgil is evil. Some of his sentences go on for lines with multiple clauses and there'll be a verb at the end and you just need to somehow infer where it goes. I do get your point about some of it being formulaic. It's also nice that the rules don't have a lot exceptions like in english.

 

[Cogwheel]

I'm effectively a native speaker in Japanese and English, and translate from the former to the latter for a living.

I also speak Hebrew, but my Hebrew is frankly awful, and could use a good deal of work.

 

[conflictofinterests]

I can get by at my work with the snippets of Spanish I know... I really wish I knew Arabic this well, though. All the Spanish speakers seem so relieved when they come through my line and I'm all "Como estas? Es todo? Tienes unos cupones o tarjetos de regalo?" I wish I could do that for the 20 people who come through my line who only speak Arabic. :<

 

[Fishehh]

Learning Spanish in School (I need to take a language but French is the Default (I blame Quebec.) but I'm taking Spanish instead) so I say I choose to take it, as I should be taking French.

 

[Wintermoot]

I kinda picked up US English by playing Pokemon as a kid.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I used to be a Chinese linguist for the military, and I also know German (and Pennsylvania Dutch, if that counts as another language). I understand Spanish and studied it for years but I don't have a good command of the language because I've rarely had to speak it. The language skills that I do have help me read and understand languages I never studied, but I don't have the time to seriously take on a new one. I'd like to, though.

 

[Aljarel]

Interesting to see so many people learning german.

For me german is my native language and I speak english and french fluently. I tried to pick up danish at the university, but there is not much left by now. I also had latin in school for seven years. Although I could never converse in that language. Translations from text still work a little bit.

 

[moonlantern]

Ich bin studiert Deutsch wegen viertel Deutsch bin mich. (I think that's right.)

 

[Wolfwind]

I speak Spanish and English already, and have been picking up Japanese in bits and pieces in my spare time for the last few years. I only know a tiny little bit.

Being fluent would be great though, since I'd like to visit Japan one day. I'd also like to learn Italian some day, but I don't think stuff sticks with me unless I actually USE it, and since I don't know anyone who I can ask to just speak either language with for the sake of learning it, I have to be content with just learning what I can on my own.

I suppose any progress is good progress though.

 

[Thaa'ir]

Interesting to see so many people learning german.

To many, German sounds angry and harsh. A lot of guys in my high school would be like "I wanna learn German so everything I say sounds like I am yelling!" Rawr, rawr, rawr. In the US, a lot of people start learning it because they are descendants of ethnic Germans or take it because they (at least where I live) had already been inundated with at least five years of Spanish in elementary school and want something new.