Just curious, mainly. Do you guys know any other languages? (I know a few people on here have English as a second language, which totally trips me out.)

So what’s your first language? Was English harder to learn?

If English is your first language and you know another language or two, how did you learn them, what did you learn, and how hard was it?

And, because I’m curious, what would be the easiest European language for an English speaker to learn?

German is quite easy. I’ve learnt a bit of it (though not enough to say that I know it) and it is quite similar.

Swedish is my mother language, though I've grown up partially with Italian, which I'm not nearly fluent in. Thankfully we dub few movies in Sweden, so English was pretty close at hand. I can also easily understand Norwegian and Danish, as well as German, since out of the Scandinavian languages Swedish is the one with the most German influences. I don't know wich language would be the easiest for an English speaker, though. Probably German, since their grammar is very logical.

I know some Spanish, mainly from traveling down there a lot (my aunt and uncle are missionaries in Pachuca, Hidalgo) and from taking it my freshman/sophomore years. I’m certainly not fluent, but I can read a bit of basic Spanish and communicate at a very substandard level.

I speak English, but I’m learning German. Strangely, some people think I started with German and am some weird immigrant who speaks flawless, unaccented English…

English with an official government-certified Advanced French level: native speakers are Superior and true bilinguals are Advanced Plus. Very limited Chinese.

I can read/write/understand Spanish, but I can't speak it very well.... The solution? I have to recite poems in Spanish to practice pronunciation =(

I can read/write/understand Spanish

Reading and writing it always came so much easier to me. Speaking and understanding was tough…

I can’t really speak it/write it very well. =/

Come on, man. It’s only several thousand characters you’ve got to know.

That said, at least Chinese writing seems fairly consistent… unlike Japanese writing, which is basically hard-mode Chinese.

I speak some Spanish and some very basic French, and wish I knew somewhere nearby where I could learn Welsh.

I will. It requires a scalpel.

and a lot of English. ;D

NO WAY!! Me too! :D

and who ever remembers that?

Surprisingly, some of it started to come back when I went travelling with this German woman. And I learnt some new stuff. :3

I speak Formal English, Somewhat Formal English, Somewhat Casual English and Casual English.

NO WAY.

Me too. Only Somewhat Formal English and Somewhat Casual English are more often lumped together in the same category. And my Casual English is less like English and more like Mumblish.

For this reason, I am actually multi-lingual.

It’s English and French for me, as well as a little bit of Spanish. I should also be starting Russian before the end of the school year. Whee!

And, because I’m curious, what would be the easiest European language for an English speaker to learn?

All languages are easy in some aspects and difficult in others, and if you’re past puberty (which I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you are) learning a language will require a lot of hard work over a long period of time. You should probably pick a language you’re interested in rather than one that seems easy.

But, speaking from personal experience, French and Spanish aren’t too bad. French has a buttload of cognates, especially if you’ve got a good English vocabulary. There’s nothing too foreign in the grammar either, but spelling can be difficult for English speakers. Spanish is about as hard to learn as French, and while it has fewer cognates, it has much, much easier spelling.

Eh, I’m a bit biased on the matter, too. I learned Spanish second, and your second non-native language is always easier, especially if the languages are closely related. But yeah, you’re right about there being more conjugations. The imperative in particular has always given me headaches.

I really want to learn Russian and German. I’m thinking I may do an exchange program at some point in my educational career. ;)

Jeez, I can’t really even fathom knowing that many languages fluently. I wonder if it gets easier or harder with each successive language?

Yeah, it seems like on the one hand, you end up with more and more information to keep track of, but on the other hand, you ought to learn how to learn languages better with each new one.

That said, I had to pretty much forcibly expunge some 95% of the Spanish I knew when I started taking Japanese, because the way I remembered the vowels and such were interfering. I don’t regret it though, because I never liked Spanish.

He was talking loudly, stretching his legs out, taking space and stuff….

Delivering a Gaijin Smash, you mean.

Yeah, Japanese really can’t be laid side by side with Euro languages at all, and that’s probably true of other Asian languages as well(although I really don’t care for any of the others much).

What kept screwing me up at the start was that standalone Spanish vowels sound the same as Japanese vowels, and I had 6 years of having remembered them in AEIOU order, whereas Japanese arranges them in AIUEO order. Also, false cognates being distracting and so forth.

Fun thing to note is that knowing the Swedish language has some advantageous qualities when learning Japanese. For one, both lack stress-accent, second, the U’s are pronounced the same

Also, Swedish is one of the few European languages which uses tones, as in one can say the same word, but make the tone go up or down, hence changing the meaning of the word. (if that makes sense…) And that’s why Swedish sounds like singing. :D Chinese is another language that uses the tones, so people who know Swedish typically find it easier to learn Chinese than people who don’t speak Swedish.

...I confess to a lot of cackling at the students taking Chinese classes at school just because their accents are so bad and they think they’re speaking it fluently.

The only way that I can think in French or any other language is if I’m trying to memorise a list of words and they get stuck in my head (okay, simple verbs, Spanman… mange, bois, dort, marche, eat, drink, sleep, walk, mange, bois, dort, marche, eat, drink, sleep….) And on and on forever in dull monotony. As you can see, I’m really bad at French. :D

Spanny, your misspellings made me laugh. ;)
Rocky, I is major jealous. I wish my school offered Russian!

I sort of.... Think in Swedish and English simultaneously. I mean, thoughts are just thoughts, right? I used to pay attention to the fact that my thoughts were in English around the time I just started getting somewhat fluent in it, nowdays they just melt together into a great mish-mash. Being aware of it is probably just another way to practice and explore vocabulary while learning.... So, @Elanor: He's just a n00b...!

Though you should hear Swedish WoW-players.... They speak so-called Swenglish (Svengelska).



Language takes practice, practice, practice, and you should never try to claim being more fluent in any other language than your mother tounge. I consider loosing touch with you mother language leaves you crippled, both linguistically and as a sense of identity. Language is a large part of culture, after all. I really regret not knowing Finnish, for instance, since I'm half-Finn. Since I have never been able to communicate with my Finnish-speaking relatives, I don't identify as one, which makes it harder to understand and relate to my father, since we don't share the same cultural roots.

Language goes beyond just grammar and words. It's history, culture and communication in a bundle.

you should never try to claim being more fluent in any other language than your mother tounge.

If that was the case, I wouldn’t be speaking English fluently. I don’t think that should be the case at all; I know the French are very protective of their language and get upset when anyone says that they speak fluent French when in fact they’ve only lived here for a few years. But take, for instance, someone who’s lived in France for many years, worked with French people and has French speaking friends. I think they could definitely claim that they spoke fluently.

WOOOOOOO

I enrolled for French in the spring. Now I can finally learn how to say basic French phrases correctly. :D

@Elanor: ..... Wait, what? I said more fluent, not that you can't be fluent at all. For instance, I have been fluent in English since I was 11-12 years old, but Swedish is still the language most natural for me when it comes to making puns and play on words, etc. That doesn't mean I can't do the same in English, I will however pick up on the important facts in text more quickly when they're written in Swedish rather than English.

@RVL: You're right, of course it's possible to have more than one mother tounge. I have several friends who were raised bilingual, and I consider that any language that you have been fluent in since childhood can qualify as one. However, compare: If you didn't speak English for once year, contra not speaking Mandarin for one year, which do you think you would catch on to most quickly again afterwards?

If you didn’t speak English for once year, contra not speaking Mandarin for one year, which do you think you would catch on to most quickly again afterwards?

Hmm… Well, all I meant was that it is possible to be fluent in more than one language, so I don’t see how your question would really make much difference…

@Elanor: That can be so, but from what I’ve experienced with my older sister, who moved to America at 16 and has lived abroad ever since, She slowly started loosing bits and pieces of her Swedish, meaning that while she was in the environment where the other language was spoken, she barely remembered Swedish at all, however, once she comes back home she remembers a whole lot of it very quickly, even though she’s now lived abroad about half her life…. And, man, I’m getting so tired of this discussion right now that my English is slowly falling apart. Which is another point. Your mother tounge should be the language that’s the least demanding of you to speak.

It’s “tongue”. :P

What I’m saying is that I don’t think you should generalise so much, since there are exceptions, so that rubbed me the wrong way a bit. Also, when you define the mother tongue as the one closest to you, what I get out of it now is that you shouldn’t claim to be more fluent in another language than the one you’re most fluent in. Which, er, while a bit circuitous, makes sense, so whatever.

I'll be back to you in the morning. For the moment all I have to say is that if you consider yourself to be more fluent in another language than your mother tongue (I don't mind corrections), I honestly feel sorry for you, since you mother tongue should be the language that also defines your cultural roots and so on. I for one find listening to my mother language to be very soothing. And if you cripple that language (through not keeping it active, never deepening your knowledge in it or instead do so in other languages, etc.) something very precious is lost.

I didn't say that there are no exceptions just by questioning whether your cases were really so, but on the other hand I don't know very much about you, do I?

Well, goodnight. I'm damn tired right now, and to be honest, partly of you guys.

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I also speak horse, but that is generally a silent language- mostly posture, facial expressions, eye-aversion and eye-contact in appropriate measure.

since you mother tongue should be the language that also defines your cultural roots and so on.

Maybe it does for you, but for many people, it doesn’t. My mother tongue was Bangla, but I was brought up and born in the US. In my case, it does define my roots but not my nationality. (I know this was not the point you were trying to make, but I’m simply trying to be clear.) However, think about a child who lived in an expat family and was born and brought up in Germany for three years. Then they moved to France and then the US, all by the age of 5. German is not necessarily going to be a source of that person’s roots; they may well forget it.

The point I was trying to get across from the very beginning was that truly knowing your mother tongue can be a vital tool when learning new languages.

Now that I understand where you were trying to go with this, I can respond better. I think that yes, knowing your mother tongue may help you learn a new language. Especially if the two are similar.

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Anksthay.