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Complexity
Metal newbie

Joined: Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:49 pm
Posts: 51
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:17 pm 
 

Anyone else have a knack for the study of foreign languages? Care to boast about how many you can speak at a conversational level or even fluency? We seem like a pretty educated bunch here (:lol:)... has this intellectual curiosity flown into linguistics?

I take Spanish in high-school, Arabic classes after school every day, and study Icelandic/Old Norse a couple times a week. Foreign language study is a break from the rigors of math and science, for me, anyway.

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Zelkiiro
Pounding the world with a fish of steel

Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:30 pm
Posts: 7729
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:18 pm 
 

Took 3 years of Latin in high school. Totally useful stuff.

I also just finished my 4th semester of Japanese, so I can almost communicate as well as a grade-school kid!
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Last edited by Zelkiiro on Sun May 03, 2009 3:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Gravemarker
The Bloody Heartland

Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:32 pm
Posts: 1416
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:22 pm 
 

Complexity wrote:
Anyone else have a knack for the study of foreign languages? Care to boast about how many you can speak at a conversational level or even fluency? We seem like a pretty educated bunch here (:lol:)... has this intellectual curiosity flown into linguistics?

I take Spanish in high-school, Arabic classes after school every day, and study Icelandic/Old Norse a couple times a week. Foreign language study is a break from the rigors of math and science, for me, anyway.


Wow, you almost parallel me, dude. I take Spanish in High School and at home (was advanced two levels in my high school class), I take Arabic every weekend, (I speak it at home with my parents, too, so I can speak fluently, but my reading and writing need work) and I'm to begin taking French in a month.
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Deviante
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2009 7:59 pm
Posts: 651
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:28 pm 
 

In addition to my first language (Finnish), I can speak English, Swedish, Japanese, German and some Latin.

Of those languages, I'm fluent/very good in English, Swedish and Japanese. I've been studying Swedish and English both for like 10 years, so I'm more or less fluent.

As for Japanese, I've been studying it at university for nearly a year now, and 4 years prior to that, by self-studying. I am not fluent, but I can manage very well. My oral/auditive skills are better, hence talking or listening in Japanese is easy, but writing and reading are a tad more complicated. That's of course due to the writing system. I know hiraganas and katakanas (of course!) and about 350 kanjis and their radicals, smoothly. And for the record, hiraganas and katakanas are kind of like the ABC of Japanese, and there's 46 of each (in use), and kanjis are the more complicated symbols used for writing most words, of which there are about 2000 or slightly less in official use. Though of course, you'll manage with less. They are used because of the vast amount of homonyms. (Eg. the word 'kami' can either mean 'god' [神] or 'hair' [髪]).

So yeah, at the moment I'm working with advanced grammar and kanjis, as well as slowly vastening my vocabulary...

When it comes to other languages, I know some basic expressions and stuff. I took some courses of German and Latin in school, and I still remember something, surprisingly enough. Italian was something I learned a bit whilst learning Latin. Danish and Norwegian words and expressions are also often guess-able, because they have lots of stuff in common with Swedish.

So yeah, that's it.

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~Guest 98976
Metal Pounder

Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:08 pm
Posts: 8000
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:30 pm 
 

I'd actually love to learn Japanese, but my brain doesn't have that sort of attention span or capacity.

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Snowgrave
Under The Plaintive Sky

Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:31 pm
Posts: 2336
Location: U.S.
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:32 pm 
 

I'm fluent in Spanish and English...that's it.

I can also speak Hieroglyphics and Braille.

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aChapo
Token Jew

Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:34 pm
Posts: 428
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 3:34 pm 
 

I can read/write/speak Hebrew and English, and speak/kind of read Russian.
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noks
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 1:34 pm
Posts: 3
Location: Denmark
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:03 pm 
 

My mother tongue is Danish, but I can speak/write/understand English and German.

Swedish and Norwegian I understand, but I can't write and speak it..


Last edited by noks on Sun May 03, 2009 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rexxz
Where's your band?

Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2004 8:45 pm
Posts: 9094
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:04 pm 
 

Let's just cut the redundancy and not bother listing English as a known language, I mean seriously.
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Wretchedspirit
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:57 pm
Posts: 1135
Location: South Africa
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:06 pm 
 

Working on my Portuguese, as Portugal is the land of my forefathers.

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ShadowlOflDarkness
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:37 am
Posts: 17
Location: Spain
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:09 pm 
 

I can understand, write and speak (not very well, though) English and my Spanish is pretty good as well :)

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overkill666
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:43 pm
Posts: 1358
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:38 pm 
 

Currently studying the French language. Pretty interesting stuff.
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Fanfarigoule
Veteran

Joined: Tue Aug 17, 2004 11:59 am
Posts: 3254
Location: France
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 4:55 pm 
 

I grew up bilingual, French and German. My mother tongue is French but I can perfectly understand/write German and speak it without any accent.
I manage, not too badly, in English. Without being pretentious, my level is way above the national norm. English is much neglected in France, unfortunately. I'm always amazed to see how much English is used in the Northern European countries. I once saw at the news random Swedish people being interviewed in English. It appears to be the norm there.
I have few experiences with spoken English, I have a pretty good accent, though, thanks to my German I guess.

overkill666 wrote:
Currently studying the French language. Pretty interesting stuff.

Not too hard ? :p

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Gravemarker
The Bloody Heartland

Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:32 pm
Posts: 1416
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 5:00 pm 
 

I've heard that the level of language education is much higher in Europe than in the U.S., to the extent that people come out of school in Europe speaking two languages other than their primary language with a high level of fluency, compared to here in the U.S., where most people get out of school barely being able to speak one foreign language at a first grade level.

Is this true?
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RageW
Marisa's Harlot

Joined: Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:44 am
Posts: 743
Location: Colombia
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 5:02 pm 
 

Snowgrave wrote:
I can also speak Hieroglyphics and Braille.

The...fuck...? How do you speak braille?

And I'm just beginning to learn French :P, my school requires it. I've never been very eager to learn any other languages!
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overkill666
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:43 pm
Posts: 1358
Location: Tulsa, Oklahoma
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 5:10 pm 
 

Fanfarigoule wrote:
overkill666 wrote:
Currently studying the French language. Pretty interesting stuff.

Not too hard ? :p


It's not too hard if you study, pay attention..etc. The major reason people fail at foreign languages is because the lack of studying. Foreign Language is not something you can put off and come back to..it requires daily studying..even if only for short amounts of time.
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ShadowlOflDarkness
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:37 am
Posts: 17
Location: Spain
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 5:20 pm 
 

Gravemarker wrote:
I've heard that the level of language education is much higher in Europe than in the U.S., to the extent that people come out of school in Europe speaking two languages other than their primary language with a high level of fluency, compared to here in the U.S., where most people get out of school barely being able to speak one foreign language at a first grade level.

Is this true?

It depends on the country... In Spain at least things aren't that good at all; people come out of school without even know how to write correctly in their own lenguague... On the other hand, in Germany the educational system is way better than American or Spanish.

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MaDTransilvanian
Caravan Beyond Redemption

Joined: Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:56 pm
Posts: 3789
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 7:33 pm 
 

I'm fluent in my native Romanian and French so I can talk/read/write in three languages with no real difficulty. I've learned some German and plan on learning it extensively before moving on to Russian and perhaps other languages later on.

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Snowgrave
Under The Plaintive Sky

Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:31 pm
Posts: 2336
Location: U.S.
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 7:38 pm 
 

RageW wrote:
Snowgrave wrote:
I can also speak Hieroglyphics and Braille.

The...fuck...? How do you speak braille?

You can't. ;)

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AppleQueso
Veteran

Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:02 am
Posts: 2525
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:02 pm 
 

RageW wrote:
Snowgrave wrote:
I can also speak Hieroglyphics and Braille.

The...fuck...? How do you speak braille?


How do you speak Heiroglyphics for that matter?

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Wretchedspirit
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:57 pm
Posts: 1135
Location: South Africa
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:02 pm 
 

MaDTransilvanian wrote:
I'm fluent in my native Romanian and French so I can talk/read/write in three languages with no real difficulty. I've learned some German and plan on learning it extensively before moving on to Russian and perhaps other languages later on.


Shit dude, that's crazy. Congratulations.

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screamingstatue
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2008 11:06 am
Posts: 579
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:07 pm 
 

I speak basic French and took German in my first year in high school but can only remember a few words and phrases now.

I'm really impressed with the level of English exhibited by non-native English speakers on this board. Even before seeing this thread, it's always been something that's struck me :)

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levanah
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun May 03, 2009 7:04 pm
Posts: 27
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:12 pm 
 

I took three years of Spanish in high school and didn't comprehend enough of it to speak it fluently...

I learned bits and pieces of Hebrew and Yiddish through some of my casual studying (not enough to speak fluently, but I recognize the Hebrew alphabet, know a few words, I wish I could learn it still.), as well as Japanese (was a total anime dork in high school) and some sign language (daughter has speech issues so I learned some sign to talk to her and help her learn words till she started talking)... but not enough to be fluent. :(

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OneRodeToAsaBay
Unangeschnallt den Bullen reingefahren

Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:49 pm
Posts: 2199
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:24 pm 
 

English and Serbian perfectly fluent, although my grammar in English gets a little wonky at times and my vocabulary in Serbian has contracted since I haven't read any Serbian books in a while and use English much more on a daily basis. Knowledge of Serbian means I understand most south Slavic languages fairly well, with standard Makedonian being my strongest thanks to Makedonian friends (although I can't always follow when they slip into their dialects).
In school, I've studied French, Latin, and (Mandarin) Chinese, and am presently studying German. I've forgotten most of Latin and Chinese, but I'm fairly confident I could remember French if I had to use it--this'll be tested out this summer when I'm abroad (and when I go to Hellfest!).
I also understand and can read most Russian (my father studied Russian throughout his school years and has taught me a lot of the language) but can't speak it comfortably at all.

I want to learn a little bit of Portuguese at some point--it's a beautiful language and easily my favorite out of the Romance languages.

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ChurningtheMaelstrom
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 11:36 pm
Posts: 231
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:28 pm 
 

screamingstatue wrote:
I'm really impressed with the level of English exhibited by non-native English speakers on this board. Even before seeing this thread, it's always been something that's struck me :)



I concur totally. The diction of most of the non-native English speakers here is for the most part exponentially greater than most Americans I come into contact with.

As for me, I took 3 years of German in high school, along with 2 years of Russian. I learned German very quickly, and was at my best probably semi-fluent. I also had a chance to live in Germany for a month during my summer vacation in 11th grade, which was obviously a cool experience. But in Russian, I didn't fare so well. My teacher was so overwhelmed with different responsibilites that we didn't really get to study and learn as consistently as we should've.

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TooHuman
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:46 pm
Posts: 283
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 8:47 pm 
 

I got to a fairly proficient level in Japanese during the 3 years I studied it, though I never learned enough kanji to call myself adept at reading everyday stuff. I stopped studying it this year, though, and my capabilities in the language have plummeted. I can understand quite a lot of Spanish, though my speaking isn't so hot. Next year, when I move to Montreal, I'm going to study French and Russian so hopefully those will be the next two languages I become good at.

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Snowgrave
Under The Plaintive Sky

Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:31 pm
Posts: 2336
Location: U.S.
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:15 pm 
 

AppleQueso wrote:
RageW wrote:
Snowgrave wrote:
I can also speak Hieroglyphics and Braille.

The...fuck...? How do you speak braille?

How do you speak Heiroglyphics for that matter?

Tree owl goat fire toaster.

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OzzyApu
Metal freak

Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:11 am
Posts: 10821
Location: Seattle
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:17 pm 
 

Speak English, speak French though I suck at it, and I hope to learn Arabic to get me some of that $$$$$$$$$ from the army.
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Durandal1717
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Jun 02, 2006 10:36 pm
Posts: 293
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 9:21 pm 
 

Took German and later Latin in school and forgot most of it (goddamn declensions). Also picked up Esperanto in a couple of weeks, but what good is that really?

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MaliciousAwesome
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:13 pm
Posts: 605
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 10:07 pm 
 

I'm currently in my 2nd year of French.. and will be taking it again next year.

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UnserHeiligeTod
Lagompräst

Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2004 7:45 pm
Posts: 834
Location: Colombia
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 10:25 pm 
 

Spanish (native), English and German. Very little knowledge of Italian and Portuguese.
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Marag
Veteran

Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2009 8:55 pm
Posts: 2773
PostPosted: Sun May 03, 2009 10:46 pm 
 

I love to study languages, but I usually don't have patience to learn them properly, so I kinda pick up a language to learn, study it for a few weeks and then stop...

I take Spanish and English classes every week school, and i'm somewhat fluent at english, but not very much at spanish(my grades in spanish are higher than the english ones, but what I speak is more akin to the infamous "Portuñol" than spanish.)

I started to learn Polish a few day ago, from a book that I bought, with some help from the internet too.Very interesting language.I've studied a bit of Russian, German, Swedish, Romanian and Icelandic, and I have plans to someday restart it.Specially German, because my school offers classes and books for a extra price.And Russian too, but this one will be a little bit more difficult.

My friend is learning Hungarian right now, and when he finishes with his book/cd, I think I'll try it.

Anyway, I doubt I'll learn this shitload of languages that I want, but if I at least can speak properly German and Russian, and master my Spanish/English, I will be very happy with that.

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godofgomorrah
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:07 pm
Posts: 55
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 4:45 am 
 

Apart from english i Speak dutch fluently

I also speak French to a level of near fluency and chinese is ok - i studied it for two years.

I can also speak/understand hebrew - but not on conversational level. Its more of a technical thing due to Qabalah studies.

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somefella
Veteran

Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:57 pm
Posts: 3134
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 7:25 am 
 

ChurningtheMaelstrom wrote:
screamingstatue wrote:
I'm really impressed with the level of English exhibited by non-native English speakers on this board. Even before seeing this thread, it's always been something that's struck me :)



I concur totally. The diction of most of the non-native English speakers here is for the most part exponentially greater than most Americans I come into contact with.



I use English all the time when speaking, so that's to be expected I guess. But most of my countrymen speak some weird conglumeration of English and a few Chinese dialects, which I try to avoid for the most part unless I'm deliberately attempting to be extremely informal.

Btw, I can speak Mandarin pretty well, as well as a bit of 2 dialects. I know swearwords in about 20-25 languages too :P

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FASTOWL_IS_FAST
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Fri May 01, 2009 7:16 am
Posts: 27
Location: Latvia
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:14 am 
 

Hi friends! I come from the land of Latvia! It is okay place when there is potato. I speak also English and how is that I speak here with you. My dream land is land called Ohio. There is much potato and many people that will like the music. We make music for people of land of Ohio for one day when we make money for go to land of Ohio! We hope these people like and they have like now so that is good!

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Evil_Johnny_666
Reigning king of the night

Joined: Wed Jun 06, 2007 8:54 pm
Posts: 4008
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 8:36 am 
 

I don't speak much in english so I'm not very fluent, I'll search my words and all. Though I don't remember not being able to understand sentences over the net, except for some very technical words. As for hearing people speak, I'm pretty ok, well I have no problem at all when someone is speaking to me.

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Emerald_Sword
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Oct 30, 2005 7:37 pm
Posts: 41
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:06 am 
 

FASTOWL_IS_FAST wrote:
Hi friends! I come from the land of Latvia! It is okay place when there is potato. I speak also English and how is that I speak here with you. My dream land is land called Ohio. There is much potato and many people that will like the music. We make music for people of land of Ohio for one day when we make money for go to land of Ohio! We hope these people like and they have like now so that is good!


You sound like Borat :lol:

I speak Swedish (native), English and half-decent Spanish, although both my English and my Spanish are going down the crapper since I don't study anymore.

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Stormalv
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2006 4:09 pm
Posts: 643
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 9:23 am 
 

I'm Norwegian, but because of the media we also speak perfect English here (except the 80 year olds). Swedish and Danish are pretty easy to imitate for us as well I guess, lol. Also, I know a little German (he's sitting over there!), but I hated the language because of the boring ways we learned it in school, so I didn't learn it perfectly.
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Sagebear
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:04 pm
Posts: 416
Location: United States of America
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 10:23 am 
 

Foreign languages is one of the many things I absolutely fail at. I've tried taking Spanish classes, but I could never pick up the language aside from a couple words. Not to say I even want to learn Spanish anyways.
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Spenot
Metalhead

Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:58 am
Posts: 540
Location: Romania
PostPosted: Mon May 04, 2009 10:42 am 
 

Well, I'm fluent in Hungarian (my native language) and English, mostly fluent in Romanian, and rather good in German. I also studied Japanese and Latin at one point, but that was a long time ago, so I barely remember anything from those.
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