What languages do you speak?

Salvete, new amici; tell us a bit about yourselves! But this is no ordinary Intro forum; you will learn quite a bit about the rest of us too. >({|:-)

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:06 pm

Salve Prime,

Well, since I took a college course of Norwegian this year (and plan on continuing it next year), I can relate to it. The grammar really is a lot like English and some of the vocabulary reminds me of German (or Dutch). If you can read/understand Swedish, it probably works for Danish and Norwegian as well (the reverse works for me, so...). Of course, it's still a bit odd to learn a language of a country where most people speak English or German already as a second language 8). But then again, we are real freaks :).

Vale bene,
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Postby Aulus Dionysius Mencius on Thu Jul 15, 2004 6:40 pm

Salvete, fellow linguists!

Since it is allowed once to brag, according to Draco... Here goes.

Dutch is my native language, so that should be fine. My English is excellent, due to television :wink: ,language courses, one year of extensive translator-interpretor studies; which, btw, also left me with a litlle Spanish, but that needs refreshing :oops:

Since Belgium has three official languages, I am quite proficient at French, I guess. I can communicate fluently as long as it doesn't get too specialised. German, that I can understand nicely, but speech is another matter... well, only if you would not mind too much errors in flection.

Then we have Chinese. Still much work to be done... And finally, by next year I should be able to speak some Japanese, as well.

I would like to add Mongolian and Hindi at some point in the future. But I fear that this is wishfull thinking...

PS And I almost forgot my most impressive reference... I can speak like Yoda, too :lol:

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:53 am

Salve Draco,

Gnæus Dionysius Draco wrote:Well, you must have noticed that the French have another type of 'r' than the English do, which often poses difficulties for anglophones in particular, and people who speak with a tip-of-the-tongue-r in general (i.e. Spanish or Italian people, for instance).


Oh I see. I've never really struggled with the French 'r'. The thing that I'm struggling with at the moment is the Polish 'r' which is a tip-of-the-tongue 'r' rather than a back-of-the-throat 'r'. I just cannot get it, I always end up pronouncing it either like a French 'r' or an English non-rolled 'r'. Tis highly frustrating... :evil:

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:25 pm

Salve Curio!

That's odd, then we are facing the same problem, since I naturally speak with the uvular r. I can make the English tap without any problems, but that rolling r always ends up sounding like I'm an angry Scotsman or an African speaking French :P.

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Postby Marcus Pomponius Lupus on Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:53 pm

Salvete,

Like most Belgae, Dutch as a mother language, English and French at a reasonable level and a bit of German. I started with Italian as well this year and I'll throw in Latin and ancient Greek as well :wink:

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:53 pm

Salve Draco,

Well the angry Scotsman accent always raises a laugh. :)
As a student of languages that bear no relation to Polish, I don't suppose you have any idea of how to say the Polish 'r'? :D

Bene valete,
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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:55 pm

Marcus Scribonius Curio wrote:As a student of languages that bear no relation to Polish, I don't suppose you have any idea of how to say the Polish 'r'? :D


Your guess is correct.

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Postby Curio Agelastus on Sat Jul 17, 2004 12:16 am

That's a shame, I can't find anyone who can tell me just how to roll the damn 'r'... :evil:
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Postby Q. C. Locatus Barbatus on Sun Jul 18, 2004 1:16 pm

Again, as most Belgians I speak Dutch, French and English fluently, and now I'm going to berlin for four months I will speak German fluently too.

Oh, and I can understand West-Flemish too!
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Postby Anonymous on Wed Aug 11, 2004 5:27 am

M. Arminius, being an brazilian of german extraction:
- speaks portuguese very well, of course;
- can read english well and speak poorly;
- can understand german not very well;
- pretends to understand spanish.
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Postby Anonymous on Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:16 am

English and Turkish fluently. Intermediate German, that is, I can understand written German okay but when it comes to speaking I get stuck. I do okay with writing and am currently taking German classes, too. I understand some French (thanks to my father and his wife), know the art terminology in Italian and can read and write Russian although I understand very little. Am now struggling my way with Latin with a book "Latin Made Simple" by Rhoda Hendricks, M.A which has some pretty helpful exercises and a generally understandable layout. I did take a look at the book by Lovelock? Hemlock? Sorry, forgot his name :) but anyway, it was pretty scary so I had to content myself with the "made simple" series, a Latin verb drill book and Conversational Latin -which is supposed to be pleasantly simple but is not. I very much doubt that I'll ever get to learn even passable Latin. :?
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What Languages?

Postby Valerius Claudius Iohanes on Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:47 pm

Salvete omnes -

Ego hoc in loco novus sum sodalis. Seems like a very gracious group here, and I'm pleased to be part of it.

On the subject of langauges, and despite an interest in languages, hic sodalis remains a hick, with only parts and partials.

I'm an English-speaker by birth, upbringing, education;
the first language I tried to learn was French, so I still know a bit but can't hardly converse in it;
I do better with Spanish - more chances to practice in the years I studied it;
Cantonese, for my wife speaks that - but once again, not fully - only bits and pieces (I've never had to LIVE using Cantonese);
a brief flirtation with Deutsch; and
a fair amount of practice (scholastic only, of course) with Anglo-saxon, for a couple of years in school; and
Latina lingua ipsa, of course, but only as a reading language and not as well as I would like.
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Postby Primus Aurelius Timavus on Fri Sep 10, 2004 10:41 pm

Welcome, Valeri! Hope you enjoy it here.

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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:12 pm

Salve Valeri,

Welcome to the Societas Via Romana. I hope you'll like it here, and hope to see you around here :).

Anglo-Saxon eh? I am studying that right now for my second-chance exams :).

Vale bene,
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Postby Aulus Dionysius Mencius on Sat Sep 11, 2004 9:40 am

Salve Valeri

Cantonese? I bow down humbly at your feet. I mean, Cantonese has 9 tones... And I am having a hard time as it is with the 4 tones of Mandarin. But then again, I don't have a Chinese girlfriend (yet :wink: )

See you around, amice
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languages

Postby Anonymous on Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:10 pm

well i'm half french half english, and so fluent in both.

i know very little german, spanish, italian and breton, but some.
i know a few more russian words thanks to a russian best friend (my plan is to learn russian at some point).
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I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese...

Postby Anonymous on Thu Nov 25, 2004 3:07 pm

Salvete,

:o I'm happily surprised that I should find people here who can speak Mandarin or Cantonese. :)
I was born Cantonese, so I'm perfectly fluent in that language, and the tones never seem a problem to me. 8) In fact, I totally ignored their existence until one day I became a teacher of Cantonese as a part-time.
My English is ok, due to over 11 years of study, but I'm not confident in speaking it at all. I attribute that to our way of language teaching.-_-|||
Now I'm having French courses at Alliance Francaise, and dreaming of studying in France. A Montpellier III, au mieux. Je voudrais obtenir un DESS de FLE.:wink:
Puisque l'opera est un de mes loisirs preferes, je m'essaie d'apprendre l'italien, mais comme des amis ci-dessus, le [r] est un cauchemar...
Valete,
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