Languages

[Tigerchu]

Hi, I was wondering how many languages each person spoke, or if not that many, how many you'd like to speak and which ones.
I'll start:

English (native)
French
Japanese (a bit)
Russian
German
Chinese (Mandarin)
Korean (working on)

Wow, that's a lot of languages. Are some of these native to you (apart from English) ?

It can be an edgy topic for me to say which are native and which are not. Kinda like which countries are like home for me. But as for me, actually, Spanish isn't on this list, though it is technically my second language. I have a personal issue with Spanish, for some reason I don't like it; probably because I haven't studied it hardcore until recently (actually, I did listen to the radio a lot). I might have 2 mother tongues, English and Spanish. I speak French like a native speaker at times, but I don't have a perfect vocabulary, so I don't know if I can call it fluent. Japanese is sort of the same. It's techically my 5th language, Ithink. In order of me learning, I think it's this:
English, Spanish, Arabic, French, Japanese, then it gets mixed up as I learned German, Italien and more as I aged. Sorry if I misspell things, I get French mixed up sometimes.
So, did I answer your question? I hope so.

[Tigerchu]

Polyglot

Aside from being called Multilingual, we can be called "Polyglots". We are simply people who speak lots of different languages.
Here are some videos on youtube I found on the matter.

Polyglot club in France. Main languages: French and English. We meet a Grandmother who doesn't speak English too well and she's shy, but she tries anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJIoCIWaioE

Here we meet a 16 year old who speaks 20 languages.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOiXtWcQ8GI

Here is a girl who speaks 5 languages plus a sign language:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65gRED0gGz4

Older man who speaks 16 languages
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAtWuQmdexs

And here's an interview with a polyglot and they speak in a few languages including Swedish and French.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn2Uhq1wP6c

Summed up, tips of how to learn a language:

Make learning it fun (do fun stuff to learn it).
For example, if you like sticky notes post them everywhere in your house.
Personally, I like saying things randomly, so I'll say random words in Japanese, even to myself.
No stress
Don't stress over learning it. Keep it fun. I have a habit of breaking this one.
Repetition
Keep going back to it. This is generally for those with poor memories. I don't have a perfect memory, but I get the
feeling it's better than "most". So anyway, repetition is generally good.

[Sammy Boy]

Thanks for your reply, it's just I don't come across many people who speak more than three languages often, despite living in a multicultural country.

I think you have a gift for languages - do you work in any linguistic related industry or have you considered it?

[Tigerchu]

Thanks for your reply, it's just I don't come across many people who speak more than three languages often, despite living in a multicultural country.

I think you have a gift for languages - do you work in any linguistic related industry or have you considered it?

I think I have a gift for everything I do. Thanks, I haven't heard it put that way for languages. Art yes, but not languages.

No, I don't think I've worked in any linguistic industry. I've been a self-employed ESL and French tutor. (Just a little bit of French). If you want I could try teaching you Japanese for free. Oo, I just got a totally cool and cute dictionary. It's Berlitz and it's so small. It's like 3 inches by 4 inches. It's Japanese and English.

[Sammy Boy]

Thanks for your generous offer, I can't commit to learning another language though - all my spare time now goes to either catching up on sleep or learning how to draw space art (it's a bit of an obsession, lol).

[Sheenar]

I am a native English speaker.

I can "get by" in Spanish ---I live in an area where I encounter it a lot--though my expressive and receptive skills need MUCH practice. I can ask and answer basic questions, though. I can get the meaning of written Spanish a lot of the time.

Am still in the process of learning American Sign Language (am Hard of Hearing and want to be able to still communicate once I lose the rest of my hearing). I can carry on basic conversations, but am still lost a lot of the time when I am around native signers. Going to contact the community college here about auditing some ASL classes so I can get back into practice (took ASL 1-4 in college, but have forgotten MUCH of what I learned due to lack of use).

[Zeldafan2]

Natively, I speak English. I'm taking a course in elementary Japanese, however.

[Tigerchu]

Thanks for your generous offer, I can't commit to learning another language though - all my spare time now goes to either catching up on sleep or learning how to draw space art (it's a bit of an obsession, lol).

Ok. What's "space art"? Do you have a link you could show me to explain it? Or a deviantart account?

native signers, I think that sounds cute.

Oh, slighty off topic, I just got my A1 CDs in the mail. British boyband. My all time favorite song "Same old brand new you (remix)"!

It's pretty hard to get on my favorite list. But One Direction's "What makes you beautiful" also made it". That's 2:)
Ok, back to languages

I'm getting some good Mandarin lessons from my radio. I usually don't fall asleep until 3 am, so that's plenty of time to listen to Chinese. It flips between a whole bunch of languages, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean. But I'm getting plenty of Mandarin practice. You see, I actually prayed for this. I got worried about my poor Chinese accent. I lived in Taipei when I was 7 but didin't learn a lot of Chinese, and at 21, as I was when I prayed about my accent, I was worried that I wouldn't get a good accent because I thought I'm only getting older and I'll probably lose my ability to learn accents. The way it usually is for people, or at least over emphasised. Well, I got on the radio and I'm working on my accent at the age of 26, and its working out fine. Cantonese and Mandarin. I notice that Mandarin is playing more now. It used to be Cantonese. I'm also trying to work on my Hakka, which is another type of Chinese. But I guess God's telling me to practice Mandarin more, because it's all over the radio. Well, on the stations I'm listening to and it takes a lot of willpower to study any language on the internet.

[uc pseudonym]

English (native)
Spanish (once fluent, haven't used in years)
Swahili (fluent)
Minimal: Kikoma, Kikuria, Kimasai

I don't like the language learning process, so the only time I can put in the effort necessary to learn a language is when I need it for work.

[Sammy Boy]

I'm getting some good Mandarin lessons from my radio. I usually don't fall asleep until 3 am, so that's plenty of time to listen to Chinese. It flips between a whole bunch of languages, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Korean. But I'm getting plenty of Mandarin practice. You see, I actually prayed for this. I got worried about my poor Chinese accent. I lived in Taipei when I was 7 but didin't learn a lot of Chinese, and at 21, as I was when I prayed about my accent, I was worried that I wouldn't get a good accent because I thought I'm only getting older and I'll probably lose my ability to learn accents. The way it usually is for people, or at least over emphasised. Well, I got on the radio and I'm working on my accent at the age of 26, and its working out fine. Cantonese and Mandarin. I notice that Mandarin is playing more now. It used to be Cantonese. I'm also trying to work on my Hakka, which is another type of Chinese. But I guess God's telling me to practice Mandarin more, because it's all over the radio. Well, on the stations I'm listening to and it takes a lot of willpower to study any language on the internet.

That's interesting, my mum's Hakka. It sounds a little like Cantonese.

With regards to Mandarin accents, I've noticed that people from Taiwan generally have a "softer" accent than mainland Chinese folks (esp. "northerner

Re: Ok. What's "space art"? Do you have a link you could show me to explain it? Or a deviantart account?

My dA account: http://wildspark.deviantart.com/gallery/
Space Art = art relating to celestial stuff (e.g planets, stars, galaxies). In many cases the objects might not actually "exist".

[samurai10]

English is the language that I know best, since it's my native language. I know sprinklings of other languages, namely, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Tagalog. Korean is the one that I have a biggest sprinkling of. (I can read hangul! Very slowly, but I can read it. ) For the others, I just know a few random words.

[Ally-Ann]

I forgot to mention that I would love to learn Swahili. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn-6PPuRFls

It sounds so unique and interesting and fun. *__*

[Shao Feng-Li]

Just English.

[*fragment]

I'm a native English speaker, and can read some Latin with difficulty - probably wouldn't be able to hold a conversation in it, but there aren't too many opportunities to practice that skill. I'll be taking classes in Biblical Greek this summer.

I'd kinda like to learn Quenya (Elvish) and take my Tolkien geekdom to the next level...

[ClaecElric4God]

English.
A little Spanish - I couldn't carry a conversation in it, but I can basically understand the gist of what someone is saying if I hear it.
I would love to learn Japanese, Chinese (mandarin and cantonese), German, Biblical Greek and Hebrew. And by "I would love to" I mean, "I plan to sooner than later". I'm sure if I thought about it, I'd come up with some others I'd love to learn, but I'm trying to limit myself to the possible.

[Cheetah]

English-fluently(all dialects)
Spanish-enough to carry on a simple conversation(Honduran)
Sign Language-barely(ASL)
Japanese-I wish:)

[JesusJedi]

Native is English.
Broken Spanish haha
Teaching myself Japanese through anime and programs.
Also been learning some simple greek and hebrew through Bible studies.
And of course igpa atinla

[AnimeSpriter7.4]

English(what i speak best in)
Spanish: i don't speak it much. unless if it's my parents or people who need translating.
French: i was born in Canada, soyea. i'm still in progress of learning more.
Japanese: i'm learning

[Wild Eagle]

English (Native)
French (Learnt it up to Grade 9. My reading knowledge is okay but I can't speak well in it )
Japanese (Been self-teaching myself for years but had to intensify my study once I entered grad school because of the nature of my research. I can do basic stuff in conversation and reading, though more advanced/abstract dialogue and writing is still a major hurdle. Also people in Japan speak extremely fast so it takes awhile for my ears to catch up!)
Hindi/Urdu (I can read both scripts of these languages but half the time I don't understand what I am reading! We speak Hinglish, a mix of Hindi and English at home sometimes so my conversation ability is basic.)
Tamil (I just started attempting to pick up this language to do the maternal side of my family proud! The grammar is actually fairly similar to Japanese so it's not too hard to construct sentences sometimes, though I still need to pick up a lot of vocabulary. Haven't touched reading in this language however)

[Furen]

Native in English.

I can survive in French if I have to, but it's so limited I can get needs and ask people how they are.

I can get through with sign language (ASL) enough, but I have to resort to finger spelling.