Multilingual NS Members

rtl32

rtl32

Member
Can any NS members speak 2 (or more) languages? If yes, is it, and how did you come to learn it?
 
I speak Czech and French fairly well. English is my first. I was exposed to a lot of Czech as a kid (my parents are Czech) and somehow I just kind of managed to pick it up. Been teaching myself to read using my cousins Facebook posts. I'm Canadian, so was taught French from grades 1-7; kept with it through university and I bought a little exercise book with simple French exercises for when I want to brush up. I would recommend listening to the language all the time, watch movies/tv shows with subtitles, and don't be shy of fucking up when talking to native speakers, I don't make fun of people learning to speak English (to their face) they won't make fun of you (to your face).
 
I took spanish from 6th grade up through my sophomore year of college. Haven't studied/spoken it in like 5 years now and can barely carry on a conversation. I guess I don't really qualify for this thread, but I definitely did at one point haha.
 
Dutch, German, French, English, Latin, Greek, Italian & Spanish.

I was forced to in school, no wonder we Dutchies always get +3 trade in turn based strategy games.

Currently learning Russian, might be the main-language in Europe a few more years.
 
German is my mother tongue, learned English as first foreign language and French as third in school and I can translate Latin if it´s written but that was a complete waste of time to learn in my opinion
 
Estonian, English, Finnish, German

Learned German and English in school. Learned Finnish while working/university.

I also am thinking about learning Russian, I don't know why I haven't already since 25% of the population of my country are russians. And I agree with omnidata..
 
grew up in english/cantonese household. pretty fucking cool being born into knowing a ''career'' skill without having to learn it at school
 
If the American school system wasn't so retarded, they would teach us multiple languages from a young age, as it's been scientifically proven that it's way easier to learn. For a country as advanced as America (not saying it's the most advanced, but it's up there) our educational system is appalling.
 
French, English and mandarin.

French was my first language, spoke it with my family, went to french school up until grade 5, where I went to a fully billingual elementary school. Then to a billingual middle and highschool.

I learnt english when I was pretty young because I went to an english daycare place.

I picked up mandarin, one because I went to china for a month with my family and two, because as of middle school, we had a choice of either spanish or mandarin for a third language course. My mandarin isn't be any means very good, I wouldn't say I'm fluent, but I can sort of get by. I honestly just never put any effort into it.
 
Exactly my point ^^^ If you take more than two languages in the American public school system, you're considered a genius. We didn't even start taking languages other than English until 7th grade (at least at my school)... And the only two languages available are French and Spanish
 
Good lord....I could take this whole concept and run with it all day. It's a vicious loop of our country's general educational disparity from the rest of the world and the progressing lack of interest on behalf of the parents as well as the decision makers in politics.

It's disgusting.

The constant pull in every direction leaves language and arts at the very very bottom of the barrel.

"We need to improve our educational awareness and quality of schools!"

"Well we need more money."

"Get those test scores up and we'll get you more money"

"Why aren't our children learning shit?"

"We can't teach them real skills, we have to focus on these tests"

"Why are we getting complaints about students falling behind?"

"My kid learns at a different speed than the rest. Cater to him."

"The other 29 students are now bored and learning the bare minimum"

"The test scores aren't improving....cut their budgets."

"You do get that this is YOUR kids' education....right?"

.....you get the idea.
 
I can read French but have a really tough time writing it. Conjugation gets me every single time. Not great with conversational French either.
 
I have a German GCSE, don't really speak it, but I can understand some of it when I see it written or hear it being spoken.
 
I studied Spanish from 7th grade to 12th grade. By the time I graduated I could speak it decently. If put in Spain I would have held my own. But the number of situations in where it has become practical since I've graduated has been 0, I remember a lot less
 
I went to french immersion from k-8 so I can understand french pretty well but my grammar and vocabulary are pretty balls
 
I'm taking AP spanish now, and intend to keep with it through high school and college. I can speak/read/write/understand pretty well and all at a similar level.
 
I have been living in Quito for about a year coupled with taking spanish all through highschool and college I think I can say I am pretty competent in almost all situations. There are things I still find difficult like the other day I got into a conversation about cars and realized I didnt know any spanish words for different car parts. Oh by the way taking spanish classes in the states does not mean you can really hold your own in a spanish speaking country, even with eight years of spanish it took me a solid three months to not sound like a complete idiot.
 
honestly though, the American educational system is more retarded than the disabled kids they do nothing to help.
 
I think maybe the biggest issue, might be whether or not the majority of the people actually want to learn a whole new language. And I mean really want it, l because in theory we all want to be fluent in 20 languages, we all want our kids to know 20 languages. And yes, I understand that most kids don't necessarily know what they want. So I think the biggest step would be getting kids as well as their parents, motivated and encouraged to learn another language. Get the majority of them to want it. From there it would create more of a demand, and hopefully more languages would become available.
 
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but seriously thats awesome and really impressive. as someone who only speaks english i really wish the educational system in america was more proactive in getting kids learning and interested in learning new languages.

there seems to be this prevailing sentiment in this country that 'if you dont speak english well you can just git out,' which is ridiculous. look at the reaction to that superbowl coca cola commercial. i mean really america? people here are getting pissed because we sang america the beautiful in different languages? just... why?
 
Conversational in French and Spanish, can also fight my way through Italian and German. Next up is Russian hopefully.
 
Fluent in Arabic, Farci, and English. Im from the USA and learned the other languages through my work with a security contractor in the middle east. I can speak and write Arabic and can speak Farci.
 
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Braille
 
Isn't it Farsi? Idk.

And I can read Latin pretty well. I'm still learning some shit but i'm very apathetic towards the whole subject, which hinders any progress that can be made. I also am pretty shaky on English to Latin.

I'm confident I could learn a romance language fairly quickly. I'd like to learn Russian, Bosnian or Finnish/Hungarian though.
 
Swedish, english and used to be really good at spanish. Took it for 7 years but as soon as youre not surrounded by it/exposed to it on the daily or weekly (even monthly hah) its hard to keep it up. Determined to pick it up again though.
 
French, spanish, italian, arabic, farsi, urdu, englsh and maori.

My old man worked for DHL and moved countries almost every year, specifically the Midde East. Learned the European languages at school, though.
 
Dutch (my first language)english (from tv/media)

french (mother is french)

german (dad is german)

and a little bit of spanish and latin
 
Swedish, mainEnglish, school, media

Norwegian, don't know how I learned it, but my dad is norwegian so

Got a passing grade in spanish, can't speak it properly tho

Kind of understand really easy stuff in russian
 
Not me, but my brother learned spanish in argentina on a one year exchange, and then learned french in high school, as well as at uni and on exchange/coop in paris.
 
I speak Polish relatively fluently, my parents are straight off the boat from Polska (Im 1st gen 'Murican) and made me go to Polish school on saturdays K-8
 
English - first language.French - 7-12, can ask to use the restroom

German - Fluent, Was a foreign exchange student senior year of high school in Austria so I was able to speak fluently by the time I left, then did a minor in college to touch up on grammar and useage - not as good as I used to be (some people would mistake me for being from there), but I've still got it, it helps to have people to practice with (skyping friends, mom speaks minimal german)

And yeah, after going to high school in a foreign country, the american education system is fucked. I don't know why there isn't a giant reform to fix an obviously flawed system.
 
English cuz I'm murican

I kind of self taught myself German but in no way could I carry on a conversation.

I'd like to learn Russian and for my nerdy side Elven.
 
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