Hmm... what's your second (and third, and fourth, and...) language?

[latteromden]

Technically, my list goes like this:

1. English
2. Spanish
3. German
4. Japanese
5. Chinese
6. Norwegian
7. Swedish
8. Danish

BUT! I consider Norwegian my second language, Chinese my third, Danish my fourth, and Swedish my fifth, because even though I took three years of Spanish, three years of Japanese, and six years of German, I don't know enough to consider them "second languages." Norwegian, I speak well; sometimes I speak it better than English. Err. Danish is easily understandable, and with a couple pronunciation and word changes, I can speak it pretty well. Swedish, same.

Edit: Somehow, I forgot, even though I was listening to music in Italian, that I'm currently trying to learn Italian. Good job.

Y'all?

[qnr]

1. english, morse code, baudot, Ada, Italian, Modula-2, Spanish,

I can read some French and German. To be honest though, with no practice, I've forgotten most of my foreign languages.

I also know about 8 other programming languages, if that counts.

Morse code is pretty significant actually, if you know your Operating Signals, you can communicate with people all over the world.

[Allenberg]

22. Heh.

I'm very proficient in morse. (110 characters per minute, in 5 letter groups properly formatted).

Then again, I'm military trained. :P

[qnr]

24. Same here, originally, though I haven't used it since '92. n/t

[Allenberg]

25. Did you go to Ft .Devens?

I trained at the new place, Ft Huachuca.

[qnr]

26. No, I was Coast Guard, I went to RMA school in Petaluma, CA

[Allenberg]

29. ah,...thought you might of been a Navy CTR

I'm the AF's equivilent.

[qnr]

30. Yeah, we're the redheaded stepchild, so small, we had to do

everthing from CW through satcom.

[Allenberg]

34. Yikes

That's insane.

[driver8]

32. My father is a retired CTR

He retired from the Navy 25 years ago and says he could still do morse code in his sleep.

[Allenberg]

35. I tell you one thing

You never hear random beeping. Any kind of beeping or rhythmic noises, and your brain begins to automatically translate it. Quite annoying sometimes.

[alittlelark]

2. Is this you Bjorn?

You never told me your username (and I never gave you mine!).

[latteromden]

5. Ah, nope, sorry! :)

[RevolutionaryActs]

3. Gibberish?

[koneko]

4. Impressive list!

I only speak two -

English (obviously)
Japanese (reasonably fluently)

I took two semesters of Japanese in college, then moved to Japan for 6 years. It was a lot easier to pick up over there, obviously! :)

[latteromden]

7. I loved Japanese, but I just never picked up on it. I reckon I should take

some more, but I just haven't had the time in my schedule. I'm a geek, so I just love Japanese spelling and pronunciation. ;)

[koneko]

11. You should

I think that it is a pretty easy language to learn - especially the pronunciation!

Then again, I am envious of you. I don't manage more than one foreign language at the same time. I did pretty well with French, till I displaced it with Japanese. There were times early on in Japan when I'd come out with French phrases because I knew the words in French. But once I got better at Japanese, the French was pushed out for good.

[latteromden]

12. I can keep my foreign languages straight - it's mixing them with ENGLISH

that's the problem! ;) Last week, I could not, for the life of me, remember the word "vowel" in English. I actually had to think to Wheel of Fortune, to "I'd like to buy a... uh... a... vowel!" to come up with it. So I definitely know how that is.

[koneko]

14. I sooo get that

I've been back in the US for 5+ years, but there are times when I just go blank. It's the moments where Japanese just infiltrates my mind & I lose all thought in English. My friends who saw me when I first moved back see me now & think the occasional 'moments' are an improvement on how I was when I moved home. I mean, my English was all KINDS of fucked up. I spoke slower, I enunciated EVERYTHING, and I definitely spoke simpler English than a native speaker would. Those who haven't known me as long think it's a 'quirk' I have - I don't broadcast the bilingual thing unless I have a SERIOUS lapse.

Do you have moments when people look at you blankly & you realize that you're NOT speaking English & thought that you were? That happens less frequently now, but I do have moments where I lapse into Japanese without realizing it.

[latteromden]

20. *Yes*! It happened a few weeks ago with, of all languages, German.

Haven't spoken it in at least a year, and I swear, I was THINKING in English, but speaking it just didn't work.

Although, it's nice to know that you're capable of switching between two or more languages quickly. Veeery helpful sometimes.

[aePrime]

38. Reminds me of a friend

I have a friend who's native Mexican. He moved to the United States when he was nine or so. Speaks excellent English, with no hint of an accent. He says that when he goes to Mexico to visit family, he's a little slow in the Spanish. He can't think of words, and speaks with an American accent. After a couple of weeks he adjusts again, but when he comes back to the States it's the opposite. He can't think of English words and he speaks with a Mexican accent for a while. Quite amusing.

[RagingInMiami]

6. English, Spanish and Italian

[FizzFuzz]

8. Geez, I feel so insignificant

I only know two, English, my first language, and Americal Sign Language, began learning at age 24. I'm fluent, native-like actually, now. I can proudly say that's somewhat unusual, for someone to learn late in life yet become native-like. (grinning proudly!)

(I work as a Sign Language Interpreter. I specialize in performance-- comedy, plays, music, academic lectures...really just about anything. I've been especially proud of my comedy work, poetry performances, concerts and some Shakespeare plays.)

There, now I don't feel so insignificant! LOL :D

[lenidog]

17. I have to agree with you

I feel like an idiot. I was proud that I learned German and then minored in Russian with straight A's. That is now all blown to hell.

[FizzFuzz]

28. lol! Hey, last summer a troupe of Deaf Russian performers stayed with us

I learned a little bit of Russian Sign Language. Very little bit, but it was cool. They did a great show and I really enjoyed them, nice group of people.

You do have to use it, or else it just falls apart. I would love to learn German or Russian, but I never was good at spoken languages. Maybe I'd be better now. who knows?

[lenidog]

37. If you learn it in a class

the smaller the class the better. I started learning German in the military. I took a class because I knew I was going to be stationed there. It was about ten people and picked it up rather quick. When I got home and went to college, I decided to take Russian as a minor started out with 8 and ended up as a one on one with the prof. I learned to read, write and speak both language. Dammed if I can say the same thing with the Spanish I learned in HS. I probably knew more Russian and German in a couple months than I learned in 4 years of HS Spanish. I also retained more of it. This coming from someone who thought he had no talent for language. I am actually tempted to learn some other languages. Possibly taking enrichment classes somewhere for either Japanes or Arabic. I am nervous don't if I can get the alpahbets or in Japanes the pictograms. (?)

[FizzFuzz]

40. I've heard that once you have mastered a second language, it's easier to

learn others.

So there's hope for us?

Japanese would be very cool, but it seems incredibly hard.

[lenidog]

43. I would hope that is true

They say its best to learn a second language when you are a kid. Supposedly there are neural pathways in the part of your brain that control language that close as you get older making it harder to learn. Maybe successfully learning one may help open those up again. Learning Japanese does seem to be a daunting undertaking but I am little more confident after learning Russian. Everyone told me that it was going to be very hard and it ended up being easy. I had no problems even learning a different alphabet. I knew I had it down pat when I started having dreams where I was speaking in proper Russian.

[lenidog]

44. I had a prof in school

Whose first language had been Ukranian, second Russian and then went on to learn every other language in the Slavic language family. He also learned German the hard way. As a young teen during WWII he was grabbed and sent to Germany as a slave laborer.

[SnowBack]

21. COOL! Another Signer!

Used to interpret, but I'm just not a performance kind of guy... Very impressed :-)

[FizzFuzz]

27. Far out!!!!!!

Do you hang out in the Deaf community?
It would be cool if you knew some people I knew years and years ago when they lived here. :D

Ain't ASL the best?? :pals:

P.S. San Fran...I am soooo jealous!

[jellybelly]

9. my languages:

english
portuguese
spanish
arabic (beginner)

[shraby]

10. WoW

I speak

English
Baby talk

[Taverner]

13. Mine is

English
Spanish
Thai

[yellowdogintexas]

15. OK, you language savants, I can't even begin to tell you how

much I admire you, and envy you but I do speak the following:


English
southern
Medical terminology
Health insurance jargon.

like a native LOL

I really think that any specialized professional jargon or set of knowledge is in fact a second language.


but I still wish I could speak Spanish, French, Italian etc.

[HEyHEY]

16. Mine

English, French

Do we have to be fluent or at least functional...cause if we do I gotta stop there.

[Heidi]

18. English . . .

Swiss-German, German, Spanish, survival Italian.

[SnowBack]

19. English, Sign Language and French...

or should I say Anglais, Français et la langue du signes...

:thumbsup: <- almost Sign Language

[FizzFuzz]

41. so you know French Sign Language, not ASL? n/t

[Heidi]

47. Whoops . . .

I forgot to include American Sign Language, which my mother forced us to learn when we were very young. There were some hearing-impaired kids in our school, and Mom was a teacher, and she thought we'd be better citizens if we could communicate with ALL the kids in our school. She was right (again).

[EstimatedProphet]

23. English, French, Latin, Russian

But I'm really only functional in English

[HEyHEY]

31. Latin doesn't count!

[EstimatedProphet]

33. Why not?

What if I run into a band of roaming taxonomists?

[FizzFuzz]

42. Operae Pretium Est.

Actually, I don't know Latin (wish I did, it's cool), but I came across this once and it stuck with me. I think it means something like "How Convenient", but I'm not sure.

[aePrime]

36. Still learning

1. English
2. Maxscript
3. C++
4. Perl
5. PHP
6. C
7. Icon
8. Lisp
9. Python
10. Java
11. Prolog
12. Scheme

As far as spoken languages go, I've always wanted to learn French for some reason. I tried to audit a course last semester, but the teacher wouldn't let me! She said people who audit always mean well, but never follow through. I can understand though -- turns out I was way too busy last semester to worry about French.

[WindRavenX]

39. English, Japanese...

...might start learning Arabic next year. How hard is Arabic?

[njdemocrat106]

45. English, a good deal of German, a little French

I've definitely studied German the most, though by no means do I consider myself fluent. I had 2 years of French in high school and a good portion of that has stuck with me. The only Spanish I really know is from the Pimsleur Quick & Simple Spanish CDs. Finally, I know Italian and Dutch pronunciation rules.

[Timebound]

46. English, Spanish, then a bit of German. n/t

[flvegan]

48. English, French, DOS

2 of them I haven't used in a while.