Can any of you speak a foreign language?

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maxiep said:
Learning Swedish is a waste of time. I lived in Stockholm for a few years, and while I can understand Swedish just fine, my spoken Swedish sucks. Why? BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD SPEAK TO ME IN SWEDISH!!! They were so fired up to practice their English, and were always trying to be so damn accommodating, I rarely spoke to anyone in Swedish.

Those damn Scans are just too nice!
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They can all speak English already, anyway. My Swedish cousin speaks it better than i do.

I also took Spanish in high school and only retain a few words.
 
When I was single and I traveled to another country, the first things I learned in the native tongue were "hello" and "you are beautiful". Everything else took care of itself.
 
I can speak and write Japanese.

Similar to Maxi's experience, it's been a waste of time. I put a large amount of time and effort into learning the language. I've passed the highest level of the Japanese proficiency test.

It's marginally help me in my career. It's proved useless in many social situation. I would often find myself in awkward conversations with me speaking Japanese and the other party replying in broken English.
 
bluefrog said:
I can speak and write Japanese.

Similar to Maxi's experience, it's been a waste of time. I put a large amount of time and effort into learning the language. I've passed the highest level of the Japanese proficiency test.

It's marginally help me in my career. It's proved useless in many social situation. I would often find myself in awkward conversations with me speaking Japanese and the other party replying in broken English.
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Why did you learn it? How did you learn it?

Ever been to Japan? If no, you should plan a trip, your skills will be appreciated there and its a fascinating country.

I've been considering trying a Rosetta Stone program. Probably never get around to it, but I'm curious if it worked for anyone.
 
I took Japanese in college and learned a bit. Lost a lot of it since then.

My fiancee is fluent in Spanish so I just lean on her in most situation when that's needed.

Would like to continue to study Japanese and want to learn Spanish.

I figure it will be easier to teach my kid Spanish if both parents know it and speak it at home
 
I have a few Iranian friends. I'm serious when I say that the only Farsi they ever taught me was "You're gay" in like 8th grade. I think I remember how to say it but I'm not really sure.

Sent from my banana using Tapatalk 4
 
I took four years of Japanese in high school, but I don't feel proficient in the least. It seemed like we spent most of the time learning the writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji). I can understand a few words/phrases here or there, but I wouldn't be able to make conversation with a Japanese speaker.
 
donkiez said:
Why did you learn it? How did you learn it?

Ever been to Japan? If no, you should plan a trip, your skills will be appreciated there and its a fascinating country.

I've been considering trying a Rosetta Stone program. Probably never get around to it, but I'm curious if it worked for anyone.
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I took Japanese as my foreign language elective in high school and college. I thought at the time it would be a good language to help in a career (I work in IT).

I lived there for several years and put more effort into mastering the language. I had a tutor but the thing that helped the most was bar tending.

Speaking Japanese may help you get a job in Japan but typically the bar is set very low for proficiency.
 
Nihongo sukoshi hanashimasu. Ima wa, naka naka heta desu yo. :(

Gramps...
 
with all the cosmopolitans on this board, I was sure we'd have a Mandarin speaker around.
 
I also took japanese in high school. Did a homestudy abroad program, lot of good that did. Was VP of our school's Japanese culture club.

fast foward a few years...some japanese guy called our work and all I could muster out was

wa ka ri masen

although I could probably tell you what's the latest haps with Jiro Tanaka-san.
 
hoojacks said:
hoojacks does speak terrorist, but only the North African kind.

also has basic French and super basic Tamazight
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I'm picturing the "terrorist language" sounding like the faux Arabic spoken in Team America for some reason. Amiright?
 
Lol, Spanish is the first language of Miami. It doesn't matter that schools teach in English, just an interesting observation for you outsiders.



I speak that fluently, also I just got to an intermediate level in Korean. I plan on learning a few more languages because I like to travel, or go on vacation in other words. : ]
 
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Can have a basic conversation in Spanish, cant read it very quickly though
 
huevonkiller said:
I speak that fluently, also I just got to an intermediate level in Korean. I plan on learning a few more languages because I like to travel, or go on vacation in other words. : ]
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If you don't mind me asking, where are you learning Korean? I don't know of too many schools teaching it. I know enough to buy kimchi-jiggae in Pusan without using English, and riding the train where I need to go, but not much else. Reading is really easy--I just don't know what most of the words mean after I've sounded them out. :dunno:
 
How do you get the tones down in Mandarin? That seems like the most useful Asian language to learn, but i'm so horrible with that kind of stuff i think i'd go for Japanese or Korean over it for that reason.
 
Also, i've heard Spanish speakers have an easier time learning Japanese, any truth to that?
 
santeesioux said:
How do you get the tones down in Mandarin? That seems like the most useful Asian language to learn, but i'm so horrible with that kind of stuff i think i'd go for Japanese or Korean over it for that reason.
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I did a quick course on Hausa, which has 4 modalities (low-high, high-low, high-high, low-low), and it was honestly just listening over and over until your brain gets a hold of it.
 
Is learning German worthless? Most likely, but I hate learning a foreign language anyway. I've always had a really hard time processing it for some reason. I figure, if I'm going to have to learn a language, it might as well be one that I enjoy.
 
I don't know about German specifically, but I've always thought of languages as gateways. I mean, I learned French in HS and became fluent the summer i lived over there. Didn't speak it for 15 years. Then I did for a few months on a French ship in W. Africa, and it came back. Knowing French to that degree has made it pretty easy to pick up other languages (as disparate as Korean, Pashto, Creole and Hausa).

Having a good grasp of the mechanics of grammar (what's an adverb, what's the past perfect tense, what's the difference between should and shall) makes it easy as well, but if you don't have it then the first "new" language you learn you'll pick it up by necessity, and then you'll be on your way to others.

Additionally, if you start with one of the latin-based languages (French/Romanian/Italian/Portuguese/Spanish) it might be easier to pick up another. I've never formally looked at Italian or Spanish, but when I was in Naples I could read most signs and figure out most newspaper articles. Same for when my little girl watches Dora or Handy Manny. ;)
 
German sounds cool, so it has that going for it.
 
BrianFromWA said:
Additionally, if you start with one of the latin-based languages (French/Romanian/Italian/Portuguese/Spanish) it might be easier to pick up another. I've never formally looked at Italian or Spanish, but when I was in Naples I could read most signs and figure out most newspaper articles. Same for when my little girl watches Dora or Handy Manny. ;)
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I met a guy from Mexico City when I was in Italy and he would just speak Spanish to all of the Italians, and they Italian to him, and they understood each other quite well.
 
Baracuda said:
I'm picturing the "terrorist language" sounding like the faux Arabic spoken in Team America for some reason. Amiright?
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hahaha basically. Me and my American friends would routinely say "derka derka Mohammed jihad"

but not in public, of course
 
Natebishop3 said:
It does. I also like that it shares so many similar words.
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Yeah, right. You just want to know what you're saying when you're singing along with your Rammstein and David Hasselhoff CDs.
 
BrianFromWA said:
If you don't mind me asking, where are you learning Korean? I don't know of too many schools teaching it. I know enough to buy kimchi-jiggae in Pusan without using English, and riding the train where I need to go, but not much else. Reading is really easy--I just don't know what most of the words mean after I've sounded them out. :dunno:
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Well if you have 300 ish dollars to spend you can get that Rosetta Stone thing. That might be the best option. I'm cheap though so I found free websites by searching enough. I've used 7-9 websites so I cannot recommend one single place, just use your favorite search engine. It is extremely time consuming though, and I have a binder full of notes already in just a few months.



Natebishop3 said:
Is learning German worthless? Most likely, but I hate learning a foreign language anyway. I've always had a really hard time processing it for some reason. I figure, if I'm going to have to learn a language, it might as well be one that I enjoy.
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German is a very useful language in Europe, if that is worth anything to you.
 
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Everyone in germany speaks English.

hoop fam
 
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