AnimeSuki Forums

CerealKiller · 2004-04-30, 04:51

Because i thought the previous language thread was interesting, i rephrased the title a little.
So what languages do you speak? Why?
What languages do you learn or want to learn? Why?
I'll start.
I speak Dutch (guess why)
German (I'm half-German and still go often to Germany)
English (had to learn in at school, and used it a lot)
some French (school and I spent some holidays in France)
I want to learn Japanese (for obvious reasons, but also because of it's economical importance. And Mandarin (China is getting a bigger player in the world-economy, so knowing its language is really usefull.

xris · 2004-04-30, 05:32

If you are considering replying to this thread, then please make sure you give a reason for your answer.

Please do not just give a one word or short one line reply (such as "I want to learn Japanese so I can understand the anime / manga"). If this happens then chances are your reply will be deleted.

Remember (from the forum rules)
All threads must serve a purpose and
No trivial polls allowed

So please discuss the topic and follow CerealKiller's lead and give reasons for your answer.

anime_luver · 2004-04-30, 06:20

Languages Spoken Fluently:
English: Living in Canada, therefore it is taught and useful

French: Good ol' Canada teaches French in school and i also was born in Montreal/in French immersion meaning French was the language everything was learned in (i.e. math, social studies, etc.)

Vietnamese: Because i'm 75% Viet and that would make it my Mother Tongue.

Languages Learning/Planning to learn:
Cantonese Chinese: I'm 25% Cantonese Chinese. So im gonna learn it, well i already am but what i mean is further learn it.

Japanese: seems like an interesting language. i like the way it is spoken too.

Mandarin Chinese: well after i SUCCESSFULLY learn cantonese, it is much easier to learn mandarin. well because cantonese is spoken with i think 8 tones while mandarin is only about 4 i think.

Scrumhalf · 2004-04-30, 06:48

Languages I'm able to understand & speak fluently is:

English (Australian English or English English; either way is fine

)

Welsh (Cymraeg): Because my ethnicity is half-Welsh/half-Vietnamese, my mother has taught me Welsh. It's a very unique language. Although only 26% of the population of Wales (U.K.) does speak Welsh; I'd always love to head up there and conference with my elderly relatives & as well sing & write poems in Welsh.

Vietnamese: My Dad is of Vietnamese origin, but he's a true-blue Aussie. I also speak my Vietnamese very well. Du ma may!

Japanese: Succesfully completed Japanese as a subject when I graduated from high school last year. Now all I need to do is buy my plane tickets and head up there for a holiday once mid-year semester break commences

Languages I'm in the process of learning:

Mandarin Chinese - Apart from Physiotherapy; currently I'm undertaking a part-time course in TCM Remedial Massage, which requires learning the basic skills of Chinese & even diagnostic conferencing in Chinese. It really is hard stuff

Scrum

TaMz · 2004-04-30, 07:13

Finnish (fluently): cause I live 'ere...
English (quite fluently): taught from 3rd grade up...
Swedish (one or two words): should know how to speak this, but don't want to...
Japanese (knows a little & wants to learn more): I really want to learn some of the kanji/hiragana/katakana, speaking japanase isn't hard, cause the pronounciation is the same as in finnish... (dunno if I wrote it right)

Sid_Burn · 2004-04-30, 10:07

I thank you for continuing my unsuccessful thread... anyway... I speak...
-English
-Russian
-German
-Japanese
-"the Unknown" language...
Hmmm... the reason i've learned lots of these languages... I think its bec. of over watching Anime's and being friend's w/ foreigners...

7thMethuselah · 2004-04-30, 11:40

The languages I speak or know in part

Flemish (Dutch) my native language, since my mom and dad spoke it I kinda had to learn it or they wouldn't feed me

English I can't remember where and when I learned it, I've been watching british tv and reading english literature and books since I was a little boy, so this language wasn't really a choice but I acquired it more or less naturally.
French If you happen to be unlucky and live in Belgium likeI do you have to know this language (I HATE french). But in Belgium if you can't speak at least a bit of french you can pretty much forget about a good job. Also in school this is an obligatory course starting from ages 10 and up. No one in Belgium graduates high school without having at least 9 years of french courses. While my french is far from perfect I can easilly read books watch tv and conversate in it. Writing is alot harder.
Japanese Why did I decide to learn this language? Several reasons, first of all I'm fascinated by Japan, Second I always wanted to be able to read kanji (never thought it would be this hard) and of course anime is a reason. To my own surprise japanese is actually a rather easy to learn language (grammarwise), only reading is very very though.
German It's a language similar to dutch and I can understand and read it on an average level, speaking is alot harder but I'm able to get the message through

Other languages : I used to know latin too but right now I've lost just about all my knowledge of it. Same goes for greec (although I never got past a basic level of Greec)

Languages I wanna learn : apart from further improving german and japanese I'd like to learn a scandinavian language or even give chinese a try but those are long term plans

Basically you can drop me in any dutch english french or german part of the world and I'll survive without problems, my japanese hasn't reached that level yet, only have a basic knowledge so far

mantidor · 2004-04-30, 11:52

My languages are:

Spanish as my first language

English learned at school. then I watched a lot of stupid sitcoms and movies so probably my english is not the best one, you'll be the judges!

Japanese: very little, but I can somehow mantain a simple conversation. I learned it at my university which offer courses on various languages. Almost everyone takes japanese just because they like anime, but they drop it rather quickly. In the later levels we were only five people! Japanese interested me because it was a completly new language for me, by the time I start taking it I din't know that anime came from Japan. Then the idea of studing in Japan grew on me. Now im waiting for the scholarship offered by the embassy, I hope I'll get it

.

I'm interested in german, but I don't want to left my japanese level like that, I prefer to know only three languages but speak them very fluently than learning more languages but being mediocre at them.

Loco-Motiv · 2004-04-30, 12:56

Dutch - This is my native language.
English - Had to learn this at school, but it turned out to be rather usefull

Those are all the languages I speak/write/read, I'm not that well at foreign laguages

Someday I will learn Japanese ('cos Japan is just a facinating country), but in a distant future

Rhia · 2004-04-30, 13:08

Im learning french and german because i have to(i do it at school) and im learning japanese because i love it,its a challenge and it makes me different for all of the other people i know :-D

Xess · 2004-04-30, 13:12

Bleh, people can speak so many languages...

Well, I can speak English, because... I don't know, it just happens that I was brought up speaking English. Also did 11 years of Malay, although I never use it, so it's a total waste of memory cells. And I can speak a dialect of Chinese called Hokkien, but I'm chinese illiterate. Oh yeah, and I'm also learning Japanese for obvious reasons. Would be nice to learn Mandarin as well, but hmm, various situations make it too difficult.

TronDD · 2004-04-30, 13:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sid_Burn

-Russian

Woohoo for Russian. Seemingly one the most overlooked languages in America. Even though it and other similar Slavic languages are spoken by so many people.

I started to learn Russian because I like their pop music. I got to a point where I understood the mechanics of the language enough to translate to English with my books but couldn't, for the life of me, memorize anything.

Then I started to watch tons and tons of anime in Japanese. I was picking up more Japanese than Russian so I basically put Russian on the back burner and there it sits.

If I could find a class near me I'd take it.

I want to learn Japanese now since I'm exposed to it. I love languages. I just have a horrible time learning them.

I took Spanish for a few years in school but all I remeber of that is:
Los pollos vienen.
and
Tu madre es una viejota.

Windpaths · 2004-04-30, 13:39

Chinese (Mandarin): This is my native language.
Because Chinese has got 4 accents and loads of vowels, with the same number of syllables you can often say more. When counting from 1 - 10, I often finish quicker than my English friends... But of course, languages are different; a word in English sometimes has to be explained in sentences and sentences in Chinese..

English:I've been living in UK for two years and a bit more, but I started study English in China already. I don't speak perfect English at all and the teachers always pick up grammar mistakes from my essays.. sigh.. even so I am still studying English Literature = =|||

Japanese:>_< I love learning Japanese! Firstly I wanted to learn how to sing some anime songs, so I started learning the hiragana, katagana and how the kanji should be pronounced... then I could not stop, just carried on by myself, passing Basic Level Japanese.. Until last October ---- Finally I got a Japanese teacher. I really plan to read Japanese Studies in University.

Italian:Since the school offers Italian course *for free*, I just wanted to have a try. The Italian Pronounciation is very similar to Japanese! (Even things like "tto", don't know how it is called) And it sounds as beautiful as music, too. But you can't really get Italian anime which can practise my listening.. So I can only do reading properly at this stage...

Killerattacks · 2004-04-30, 16:24

German - My native language and I like it

English - Well you need to know it and if you know german it's a piece of cake learning it (maybe Im not the best example^^; )
Latin - Had to learn a foreign language at school and I hate French and the spanisch teacher sucked, so the decision was easy.

That's it. Just the basics, all I need.

Lime-chan · 2004-04-30, 18:34

Lesse... first of all, I'm a german, too - sorts of. I used to grow up in several countries since my mom works with an ambassador. My dad's a german but an unchangeable globetrotter. I think it rubbed off. *sweatdrops*

So, my first language is german after all.

I tend to say I'm fluently speaking english and french (writing is another subject)
Dutch was fun to learn because a friend of mine spoke it. I picked lots and lots up and am still familiar with it.
Then I know some spanish and italian as well.

Japanese... right. Never forget the language I fell in love with. ^-^ Been in Japan, never got away from it's charm again. I'm not that bad but sad to say far away from perfect. Try to improve it.

And last but not least I know latin very well - I have to, after all thats what I'm studying...

Currently I'm learning classic greek, too. Need it for the studies. The teacher is really boring but the language is cool. (Remember me to think about how to get rid of that teacher. He's worse than that teaching ghost in Harry Potter!

)

Maybe I'll learn some arabic next year. Found a really nice person who is willing to teach me *cheers*

Oh, and I forgot about the whole bunch of turkish swear words I know

can't count that as a language, can I? That was because of an annoying student at school who wouldn't stop pestering me...

That's all for now. By the way I'm very impressed to read from so many multi-languaged people. It's just plain great.

Lime- long lives the multi-culti -chan

ramune · 2004-04-30, 20:55

Chinese (Cantonese) - My native language. I also studied in Chinese school for 4 years after I came to US because I didn't want to forget my native language while learning English. Now I'm slowly forgetting how to write in Chinese though, but I can still understand Chinese perfectly, more than enough to read newspapers.

Chinese (Mandarin) - Learned through watching Taiwanese soap operas and listening to songs. Enough to understand what other people are saying and can pronouce Chinese characters in Mandarin, but still couldn't speak fluently.

English - Been studying for 7 years since living in US. I would say I'm 90% fluent. Doing pretty well in college level English classes.

French - Studied French for 3 years in high school since my school didn't offer Japanese or any other Asian language courses. J'ai aimé apprendre le français parce qu'il etait une belle langue. But I'm slowly forgetting my French as well.

Japanese - Right now I'm studying Japanese in college. Only first semester though, so I still have a long way to go. But the Japanese I learn from watching anime helps a lot. I'm planning to continue learning this language.

Burmese - A language which I know less than 1% since my mom, who is Burmese, didn't want to teach me (she speaks Cantonese as well), so I ended up only knowing some food names.

I could've known more Chinese dialects from my parents, but they don't teach me because they believe it is enough for me to know only Cantonese and English.

harudasakurada · 2004-04-30, 21:34

German - I'm half-German, and my mother took it upon herself to teach me German.

English - I live in the US, so I kind of have to know it. I picked up on it in pre-school, since I was mainly exposed to German at home before that.

I know some, not much, Japanese. I've picked up all that I know from subbed anime, actually, so I'm not able to even hold a simple conversation. I do, however, understand some and can read a bit. Just keep the kanji away from me.

I can somewhat understand Dutch, because it's so similar to German. It's not like I know the actual language, I can just read some and make out what people are saying if they talk slowly.

Lina Inverse · 2004-04-30, 22:00

German - native language, obviously
English - learned it in school and using it many years already, first for newsgroups, now for forums
Latin - took it in school, it was either that or French, and since French sucked there, I took Latin, which turned out ok.
Italian - going on vacation to Italy for many years already, so I learned Italian all by myself
Japanese - learning this all by myself as well. Between the obvious reasons, the language and the country are quite interesting.
Russian - learned a little bit of it from email exchange with a Russian pal
French - got a French language course for the PC very cheap, so I tried it out just for fun

Xess · 2004-05-01, 04:18

It seems that almost all Germans here learn Latin as their 2nd or 3rd language or whatever. Isn't it a really hard language to learn and also that practically no one speaks it either?

Palani · 2004-05-01, 04:29

I Can speak a couple of different languages.

Starting off with the ones I was forced to learn at school:
Dutch, my native language ... no escpaing that one
English, the language of the new world .... again no escaping it
German, because we live right nextdoor to Germany and they want us to communicate
French, I like this language ... it sounds pretty

Languages I'm studying:
Russian, As for why. I've been to Poland and there I was intoduced to some of the Russian culture left behind from the sovjets. The one thing I was fascinated with was the language. It's hard to learn but I'm trying.
Japanese, because Iwant to understand ... the people. It is one of my dreams to go to Japan once in my life and on holidays I've found that nothing is more frustrating to be somewhere where you can't understand what the people are saying. And the fact that all good comes from Japan, Manga and Animé, and that I can then understand is another reason.

This conludes my list. Looking forward to some of yours.

2004-04-30, 04:51	Link #1
CerealKiller MoralMan Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Netherlands, near Leiden Age: 37	what languages do you speak/learn and why? Because i thought the previous language thread was interesting, i rephrased the title a little. So what languages do you speak? Why? What languages do you learn or want to learn? Why? I'll start. I speak Dutch (guess why) German (I'm half-German and still go often to Germany) English (had to learn in at school, and used it a lot) some French (school and I spent some holidays in France) I want to learn Japanese (for obvious reasons, but also because of it's economical importance. And Mandarin (China is getting a bigger player in the world-economy, so knowing its language is really usefull.

2004-04-30, 06:48	Link #4
Scrumhalf Ed & Winry? :O Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 42	Languages I'm able to understand & speak fluently is: English (Australian English or English English; either way is fine ) Welsh (Cymraeg): Because my ethnicity is half-Welsh/half-Vietnamese, my mother has taught me Welsh. It's a very unique language. Although only 26% of the population of Wales (U.K.) does speak Welsh; I'd always love to head up there and conference with my elderly relatives & as well sing & write poems in Welsh. Vietnamese: My Dad is of Vietnamese origin, but he's a true-blue Aussie. I also speak my Vietnamese very well. Du ma may! Japanese: Succesfully completed Japanese as a subject when I graduated from high school last year. Now all I need to do is buy my plane tickets and head up there for a holiday once mid-year semester break commences Languages I'm in the process of learning: Mandarin Chinese - Apart from Physiotherapy; currently I'm undertaking a part-time course in TCM Remedial Massage, which requires learning the basic skills of Chinese & even diagnostic conferencing in Chinese. It really is hard stuff Scrum Last edited by Scrumhalf; 2004-04-30 at 09:16.

2004-04-30, 11:40	Link #7
7thMethuselah Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Antwerp area, Belgium, Europa Age: 48	The languages I speak or know in part Flemish (Dutch) my native language, since my mom and dad spoke it I kinda had to learn it or they wouldn't feed me English I can't remember where and when I learned it, I've been watching british tv and reading english literature and books since I was a little boy, so this language wasn't really a choice but I acquired it more or less naturally. French If you happen to be unlucky and live in Belgium likeI do you have to know this language (I HATE french). But in Belgium if you can't speak at least a bit of french you can pretty much forget about a good job. Also in school this is an obligatory course starting from ages 10 and up. No one in Belgium graduates high school without having at least 9 years of french courses. While my french is far from perfect I can easilly read books watch tv and conversate in it. Writing is alot harder. Japanese Why did I decide to learn this language? Several reasons, first of all I'm fascinated by Japan, Second I always wanted to be able to read kanji (never thought it would be this hard) and of course anime is a reason. To my own surprise japanese is actually a rather easy to learn language (grammarwise), only reading is very very though. German It's a language similar to dutch and I can understand and read it on an average level, speaking is alot harder but I'm able to get the message through Other languages : I used to know latin too but right now I've lost just about all my knowledge of it. Same goes for greec (although I never got past a basic level of Greec) Languages I wanna learn : apart from further improving german and japanese I'd like to learn a scandinavian language or even give chinese a try but those are long term plans Basically you can drop me in any dutch english french or german part of the world and I'll survive without problems, my japanese hasn't reached that level yet, only have a basic knowledge so far Last edited by 7thMethuselah; 2004-07-20 at 12:46.

2004-04-30, 05:32	Link #2
xris Just call me Ojisan Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: U.K. Hampshire	If you are considering replying to this thread, then please make sure you give a reason for your answer. Please do not just give a one word or short one line reply (such as "I want to learn Japanese so I can understand the anime / manga"). If this happens then chances are your reply will be deleted. Remember (from the forum rules) All threads must serve a purpose and No trivial polls allowed So please discuss the topic and follow CerealKiller's lead and give reasons for your answer.

2004-04-30, 06:20	Link #3
anime_luver Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Canada Age: 33	Languages Spoken Fluently: English: Living in Canada, therefore it is taught and useful French: Good ol' Canada teaches French in school and i also was born in Montreal/in French immersion meaning French was the language everything was learned in (i.e. math, social studies, etc.) Vietnamese: Because i'm 75% Viet and that would make it my Mother Tongue. Languages Learning/Planning to learn: Cantonese Chinese: I'm 25% Cantonese Chinese. So im gonna learn it, well i already am but what i mean is further learn it. Japanese: seems like an interesting language. i like the way it is spoken too. Mandarin Chinese: well after i SUCCESSFULLY learn cantonese, it is much easier to learn mandarin. well because cantonese is spoken with i think 8 tones while mandarin is only about 4 i think.

2004-04-30, 07:13	Link #5
TaMz ninj4 from the north Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Espoo, Finland Age: 36	Finnish (fluently): cause I live 'ere... English (quite fluently): taught from 3rd grade up... Swedish (one or two words): should know how to speak this, but don't want to... Japanese (knows a little & wants to learn more): I really want to learn some of the kanji/hiragana/katakana, speaking japanase isn't hard, cause the pronounciation is the same as in finnish... (dunno if I wrote it right)

2004-04-30, 10:07	Link #6
Sid_Burn Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Unknown Age: 39	I thank you for continuing my unsuccessful thread... anyway... I speak... -English -Russian -German -Japanese -"the Unknown" language... Hmmm... the reason i've learned lots of these languages... I think its bec. of over watching Anime's and being friend's w/ foreigners...

2004-04-30, 11:52	Link #8
mantidor the Iniquitous Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: bogotá	My languages are: Spanish as my first language English learned at school. then I watched a lot of stupid sitcoms and movies so probably my english is not the best one, you'll be the judges! Japanese: very little, but I can somehow mantain a simple conversation. I learned it at my university which offer courses on various languages. Almost everyone takes japanese just because they like anime, but they drop it rather quickly. In the later levels we were only five people! Japanese interested me because it was a completly new language for me, by the time I start taking it I din't know that anime came from Japan. Then the idea of studing in Japan grew on me. Now im waiting for the scholarship offered by the embassy, I hope I'll get it . I'm interested in german, but I don't want to left my japanese level like that, I prefer to know only three languages but speak them very fluently than learning more languages but being mediocre at them.

2004-04-30, 12:56	Link #9
Loco-Motiv Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: The Netherlands Age: 41	Dutch - This is my native language. English - Had to learn this at school, but it turned out to be rather usefull Those are all the languages I speak/write/read, I'm not that well at foreign laguages Someday I will learn Japanese ('cos Japan is just a facinating country), but in a distant future

2004-04-30, 13:08	Link #10
Rhia shush! I was only helping Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Under ur skin Age: 33	Im learning french and german because i have to(i do it at school) and im learning japanese because i love it,its a challenge and it makes me different for all of the other people i know :-D

2004-04-30, 13:12	Link #11
Xess Go Suzuka! Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Malaysia	Bleh, people can speak so many languages... Well, I can speak English, because... I don't know, it just happens that I was brought up speaking English. Also did 11 years of Malay, although I never use it, so it's a total waste of memory cells. And I can speak a dialect of Chinese called Hokkien, but I'm chinese illiterate. Oh yeah, and I'm also learning Japanese for obvious reasons. Would be nice to learn Mandarin as well, but hmm, various situations make it too difficult.

2004-04-30, 13:39	Link #13
Windpaths Mirror Alchemist Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: UK	Chinese (Mandarin): This is my native language. Because Chinese has got 4 accents and loads of vowels, with the same number of syllables you can often say more. When counting from 1 - 10, I often finish quicker than my English friends... But of course, languages are different; a word in English sometimes has to be explained in sentences and sentences in Chinese.. English:I've been living in UK for two years and a bit more, but I started study English in China already. I don't speak perfect English at all and the teachers always pick up grammar mistakes from my essays.. sigh.. even so I am still studying English Literature = =\|\|\| Japanese:>_< I love learning Japanese! Firstly I wanted to learn how to sing some anime songs, so I started learning the hiragana, katagana and how the kanji should be pronounced... then I could not stop, just carried on by myself, passing Basic Level Japanese.. Until last October ---- Finally I got a Japanese teacher. I really plan to read Japanese Studies in University. Italian:Since the school offers Italian course for free, I just wanted to have a try. The Italian Pronounciation is very similar to Japanese! (Even things like "tto", don't know how it is called) And it sounds as beautiful as music, too. But you can't really get Italian anime which can practise my listening.. So I can only do reading properly at this stage...

2004-04-30, 16:24	Link #14
Killerattacks Senior Member Join Date: May 2003	German - My native language and I like it English - Well you need to know it and if you know german it's a piece of cake learning it (maybe Im not the best example^^; ) Latin - Had to learn a foreign language at school and I hate French and the spanisch teacher sucked, so the decision was easy. That's it. Just the basics, all I need.

2004-04-30, 18:34	Link #15
Lime-chan Pandoras child Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: somewhere globetrotting... Age: 41	Lesse... first of all, I'm a german, too - sorts of. I used to grow up in several countries since my mom works with an ambassador. My dad's a german but an unchangeable globetrotter. I think it rubbed off. sweatdrops So, my first language is german after all. I tend to say I'm fluently speaking english and french (writing is another subject) Dutch was fun to learn because a friend of mine spoke it. I picked lots and lots up and am still familiar with it. Then I know some spanish and italian as well. Japanese... right. Never forget the language I fell in love with. ^-^ Been in Japan, never got away from it's charm again. I'm not that bad but sad to say far away from perfect. Try to improve it. And last but not least I know latin very well - I have to, after all thats what I'm studying... Currently I'm learning classic greek, too. Need it for the studies. The teacher is really boring but the language is cool. (Remember me to think about how to get rid of that teacher. He's worse than that teaching ghost in Harry Potter! ) Maybe I'll learn some arabic next year. Found a really nice person who is willing to teach me cheers Oh, and I forgot about the whole bunch of turkish swear words I know can't count that as a language, can I? That was because of an annoying student at school who wouldn't stop pestering me... That's all for now. By the way I'm very impressed to read from so many multi-languaged people. It's just plain great. Lime- long lives the multi-culti -chan

2004-04-30, 20:55	Link #16
ramune Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: San Francisco, CA Age: 38	Chinese (Cantonese) - My native language. I also studied in Chinese school for 4 years after I came to US because I didn't want to forget my native language while learning English. Now I'm slowly forgetting how to write in Chinese though, but I can still understand Chinese perfectly, more than enough to read newspapers. Chinese (Mandarin) - Learned through watching Taiwanese soap operas and listening to songs. Enough to understand what other people are saying and can pronouce Chinese characters in Mandarin, but still couldn't speak fluently. English - Been studying for 7 years since living in US. I would say I'm 90% fluent. Doing pretty well in college level English classes. French - Studied French for 3 years in high school since my school didn't offer Japanese or any other Asian language courses. J'ai aimé apprendre le français parce qu'il etait une belle langue. But I'm slowly forgetting my French as well. Japanese - Right now I'm studying Japanese in college. Only first semester though, so I still have a long way to go. But the Japanese I learn from watching anime helps a lot. I'm planning to continue learning this language. Burmese - A language which I know less than 1% since my mom, who is Burmese, didn't want to teach me (she speaks Cantonese as well), so I ended up only knowing some food names. I could've known more Chinese dialects from my parents, but they don't teach me because they believe it is enough for me to know only Cantonese and English.

2004-04-30, 21:34	Link #17
harudasakurada Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Age: 36	German - I'm half-German, and my mother took it upon herself to teach me German. English - I live in the US, so I kind of have to know it. I picked up on it in pre-school, since I was mainly exposed to German at home before that. I know some, not much, Japanese. I've picked up all that I know from subbed anime, actually, so I'm not able to even hold a simple conversation. I do, however, understand some and can read a bit. Just keep the kanji away from me. I can somewhat understand Dutch, because it's so similar to German. It's not like I know the actual language, I can just read some and make out what people are saying if they talk slowly.

2004-04-30, 22:00	Link #18
Lina Inverse SL Aki fanclub president Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Germany	German - native language, obviously English - learned it in school and using it many years already, first for newsgroups, now for forums Latin - took it in school, it was either that or French, and since French sucked there, I took Latin, which turned out ok. Italian - going on vacation to Italy for many years already, so I learned Italian all by myself Japanese - learning this all by myself as well. Between the obvious reasons, the language and the country are quite interesting. Russian - learned a little bit of it from email exchange with a Russian pal French - got a French language course for the PC very cheap, so I tried it out just for fun

2004-05-01, 04:18	Link #19
Xess Go Suzuka! Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Malaysia	It seems that almost all Germans here learn Latin as their 2nd or 3rd language or whatever. Isn't it a really hard language to learn and also that practically no one speaks it either?

2004-05-01, 04:29	Link #20
Palani ///_^ Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Mushroom County, Mario World Age: 36	I Can speak a couple of different languages. Starting off with the ones I was forced to learn at school: Dutch, my native language ... no escpaing that one English, the language of the new world .... again no escaping it German, because we live right nextdoor to Germany and they want us to communicate French, I like this language ... it sounds pretty Languages I'm studying: Russian, As for why. I've been to Poland and there I was intoduced to some of the Russian culture left behind from the sovjets. The one thing I was fascinated with was the language. It's hard to learn but I'm trying. Japanese, because Iwant to understand ... the people. It is one of my dreams to go to Japan once in my life and on holidays I've found that nothing is more frustrating to be somewhere where you can't understand what the people are saying. And the fact that all good comes from Japan, Manga and Animé, and that I can then understand is another reason. This conludes my list. Looking forward to some of yours.