Languages and the like

[Shiny Motley]

I'm more than 100% positive a thread like this exists, but it seems to be relatively old by now and I didn't want to gravedig. Anyways, what language(s) do you speak/are learning? What was your first language? And while we're at it, do you have an accent for any of the languages you speak?

Anyone who knows me well enough should know that I'm bilingual and consider myself relatively fluent in both Chinese and English. Though technically Chinese (Mandarin) was my first language, I'm much more adept at English now due to having to use it more in my daily life. I can only read and write in English, though; I'm nearly illiterate in Chinese save for a few simple/very commonly used words. Hopefully that'll change by next semester since I'm taking a Chinese class specifically for people who can speak and understand it but not read or write XD

I also know some very limited Spanish due to high school. Don't expect me to be able to hold a conversation with you, though; I only know very basic things and I'm anything BUT fluent. I also know very little Japanese, mostly because of anime and Vocaloid. I have been learning hiragana and katakana in my spare time, though, and I can somewhat read simple words thanks to my background in Chinese.

As for accents... I always say that I have a slight mix of Texan and Chinese when I speak English, though you have to listen pretty hard to hear it (the Chinese comes out in a few words and the Texan is barely there) and people say overall I still sound rather general American. I KNOW I have an accent in Chinese, but it's not quite American but also not purely Nanjing (the dialect my mother speaks). It's just kind of odd? I went back to China and everyone asked me where I was from because I had a funny accent, so yeah XD

 

[Alexxander]

I speak English and English only, I would like to learn other languages but I struggle remembering English words most the time, so I have no chance with another language. I did do Spanish at school for 3 years and was apparently one of the best in my year group/grade for written Spanish not so much spoken Spanish (speaking is where I struggle remembering words).

I like listening to bilingual songs, so I'd like to learn foreign languages to understand the none English parts. One of the big markets in the bilingual sector is k-pop which contain English words, phrases or lines.

A list of languages I'd like to learn is

German
French
Dutch
Swedish
Korean
and a recent addition is Slovene

 

[pokeman266]

I can speak English and French.
A language I can understand but not speak (other than a bit of counting) is Afrikans ( The language they speak in South Africa )

 

[Magpie]

I can only speak English. Four years of Spanish and two of German were sadly wasted completely on my brain, although I do remember much more German than I do Spanish. On my African trip last year two of the people with us were from Switzerland and they didn't speak fluent English, but I had quite a few conversations with them in my attempted German. I'm still friends with them now so I must have done okay xD I think I maybe have the potential to be good at a different language, but I'd have to be really interested in learning it. Language certainly doesn't come easy to me, my Spanish teacher pretty much said as much to me. Apparently I 'do it wrong' and try to translate the language into English in my head, to then go back to the other language... rather than just trying to learn and speak the new language :V But I feel that if I had a genuine interest I'd do okay. If I'd had the option to learn Japanese at my school I think I'd be decent by now, since from watching Naruto and the like I've picked up a little xD

Given the choice I'd love to be fluent in German and Japanese.

Moving away from spoken language, from my interest in Mythology I can read and write in Futhark Runes. And I can read Hieroglyphics to a decent degree, but write them myself less so. It's something I'm really interested in though, so I'm learning it slowly in my spare time. It was nice to use when I went to Egypt, being able to read what was written on the temples was really exciting. My Middle Egyptian Dictionary is evil though :V

 

[StellarWind Elsydeon]

(Obligatory Fifth Element quote)​

While my brain basically works in English 99.999% of the time, it's actually my second language. My first language is Hebrew, though I picked up English very early on in my life and the amount of time I spent (and continue to spend) surrounded by English speakers - primarily online - caused it to more or less absorb my mind, and I find that quite often I'm not sure how to say something in Hebrew when it comes naturally to my mind in English (and then it's a few awkward moments of 'excuse me, my internal babelfish seems to have been eaten by my feline side').

I have a rather strange accent in English. It's been compared to some forms of British accents - and I suppose that at its basic level it does sound like that - but it sort of does its own weird thing that seems to fluctuate with my mood and what I'm talking about. XD

There are no other languages I'm fluent or even remotely conversational in at the moment - although over the years I have absorbed the occasional words and phrases in various other languages by osmosis. I used to have a bit of a natural ability for languages, although I seem to have lost it over the years - or maybe I still do have it but I lack the energy and motivation to actually invest in properly learning more languages. If I were to do so, though, it would probably be either Japanese or Italian. I enjoy the sound of Italian a great deal - and Japanese would be nice to have due to the various forms of Japanese media I consume sometimes in the forms of anime and video games - would be definitely nice to not need to rely on translations. @_@

 

[Whimsical Totodile]

I speak English (my first language) and currently taking French. Bonjour! Ca va? Tu t'appelle comment? I also took one year of Spanish back in Sixth Grade but I don't remember any of it!

 

[Secad MS]

I'm an English speaker and only that, unfortunately. I know I should pick up French at some point if I want to move to Canada or something, but I had a year of that in high school and mangled it. I took a year of Latin during undergrad to fulfill my language degree, but I was terrible at that too. I took a Latin lit course to fill up my second year requirement for that. As for an accent, it's midwestern American for the most part. However, I've been told I occasionally slip into some weird mid-Atlantic accent. Where did I get that? Watching too much Doctor Who and reading too much Harry Potter or something? XD

 

[Linkachu]

While I have studied a bit of French and Japanese in school, I only speak, read, and write English. Learning new languages is not quite my forte, and while I have a very real interest in learning more Japanese someday I'm not at all confident in my ability to do so (both skill-wise and dedication. I'm a lazy bastard). xp

I've never really noticed if I have much of an accent so I'd have to leave the answering of that question up to others who've heard my voice before. I'd assume that I do have some sort of Eastern Canadian accent, though, simply because I've lived in the area for 15+ years now.

 

[Jhan Garc]

Such english,very many,WOW!
Af for me,english is actually my 2nd language,spanish being my first. I don't like french that much,its too complicated for me!
Now a test of every language:
Spanish: Pero que hermoso dia el de hoy!
English: What a beatiful day this is!


EDIT: I sometimes get a british accent out of the nowhere

 

[voidaquariums]

Well, I speak English, Bad English, and Pig Latin. And a bit of regular Latin, 1337speak, what am I forgetting...
EDIT: Luxravian.

 

[Dark Soul]

The languages I speak fluently are Dutch and English. I've had several years of lessons in French and Spanish but I haven't remembered much from it, though I can read French texts without too much difficulty.

Because I have German family members, I can also follow a conversation in German, though actually speaking that language is a lot harder.

 

[Rinoa Heartilly]

I know a little of French, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
I would like to know more of the basics regarding Russian, Gaelic and Minbari.
I'm rather fluent in bad English and Al Bhed!

...I may or may not know some Klingon too.

 

[TheSeaGoat]

My first language was English, I can speak fluent Spanish. That's it, never mind I know a tiny bit of French, but yeah, that's it.

 

[Clementyne]

Well, being surrounded by many languages practically all my life, I speak fluent English, Serbian and Greek. I know some Italian and Russian, and some German stuck in my head.. my dad tried teaching me French, but no use
I can communicate in any of these languages ( excepf French ), but I mostly talk the first three.

 

[theclownfish]

im a pure english speaker. i think i know only 50-200 words in spanish

 

[AzureEdge]

I speak English. I also learned Latin from my years at school,Not that anyone speaks that anyway.When I go on vacation, people know I'm from the city. Apparently city people have an accent.
But I can understand Urdu, Panjabi,Russian(Basic bits,not much. and most of Japanese ( I'm can't understand kanji. It's too hard, or that's what I think of now.). I'm taking Spanish,Italian right now, and it's really interesting!
I want to learn German,French, and Polish.

 

[Dragonwinx]

I speak Dutch (first language) and English(second language), iam kinda learning Spanish.

 

[Lord Of Pain]

OK so let's see.....my first language is Iranian because my mother is from iran and that is the language we speak with at home, my second language is Arabic which is the language us Arabs speak (yes I am from an Arabian country) and my third language is English because that is the language most of the world speak.

 

[EspeonTheBest]

Well, I moved to the United States a few years ago from France. It was very hard because the area we lived in spoke only French and I didn't hear nor see English until I moved to Missouri. At first my Mom wanted to homeschool me, but I decided that I really wanted to make new friends. So I took it upon myself to learn the some of the basics of the English language before the school sessions would start up. Over these years I have learned to speak fluent English (though sometimes I mix up the definitions of words that sound the similar, like I mixed up Homophones and Hormones the other day.) but still I can speak fluent French, and I prefer to do so. If you catch me at home or alone sometime, you may see me writing or speaking French. I've also practiced an English accent, so I sound pretty 'normal' to my friends and at first they couldn't tell I was French. I plan on learning German in high school so I can speak both my Mother's language (French) and My Father's (German).

 

[alolatrainer]

I speak english but i have been teaching myself japanese

 

[Spooky Sploosh]

Mainly English and "Canadian" (South Park Canadian accent. It's a language in my eyes.) I knew a bit of Japanese until I moved to America, now it's 95% gone. I'm learning Latin, but I would like to reclaim my Japanese and learn German.

 

[Firox]

Spanish and English are the two languages I'm fluent in, speak, write, read, and type (memorized the alt codes for Spanish accents).

For languages I like? - from my high interest in Scandinavian culture, the 5 main languages there I love hearing (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese, and Icelandic) especially in music - too bad for me the main language I want to try to learn is also very hard which is Icelandic. One of my most favorite songs is also a "sléttubönd" an Icelandic poem that can be read forwards and backwards without changing the meaning or poetic form of the song/poem

I also like Baltic languages Estonian, Finnish, Latvian, Latgalian, and Lithuanian