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I envy those who are multilingual

HomokHarcos

Member
Jul 11, 2018
2,447
Canada
One of my main interests since I've been a kid is studying the world and its history. However, learning a new language has always been difficult for me. I went to French immersion as a kid, but then went to an English school. Years later I took German classes, and failed at that too. I'm really interested in Middle Eastern history and culture, so I tried to teach myself Arabic.

Making it harder to accept for me is just how well my brother is with foreign languages. He studied French in France, got 100% in Spanish, 99% in Greek and might study in China next year, and is a little well in Japanese.

I just really wish I was able to learn Arabic when I tried to study it, but learning languages is just not a strength for me.
 
y2kyle89

y2kyle89

Member
Mar 16, 2018
9,532
Mass
Yeah, I've been raised around the Portuguese language since I was a baby and I never learned how to speak it. Something my family delights in teasing me about :/
 

Deleted member 4783

Oct 25, 2017
4,531
Tu envidia me hace más fuerte.


JK, it's good. I'll be learning my third language soon enough
 

Dark_EMT

Banned
Apr 19, 2018
571
It is pretty great being able to enjoy different types of music, movies, tv shows, etc. from different countries.
 
Mauricio_Magus

Mauricio_Magus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,060
I know Spanish and English pretty damn well, and I'm so glad I learnt them both when I was a child, because learning a new language is difficult, or at least it was as I tried to learn French and Japanese and failed hard at that as an adult.
 
Mortemis

Mortemis

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
7,424
I know two and really want to expand that, but it's tough dedicating yourself to learning another language. I'm jealous of all those people that can speak three, four, or even more languages. Hopefully one day I can get there.
 
taahahmed

taahahmed

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
622
United States
My whole family can speak Urdu pretty well back in Pakistan though as a kid growing up in the US, I've slowly forgotten how to speak it. Forgotten may be the wrong word because I can understand it in casual conversations though I have trouble coming up with coherent sentences because I either don't know how to conjugate some verbs properly or I am lacking the needed vocabulary. It sucks but at least I have an okay base to build on.
 
Paquete_PT

Paquete_PT

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
5,343
y2kyle89 said:
Yeah, I've been raised around the Portuguese language since I was a baby and I never learned how to speak it. Something my family delights in teasing me about :/
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Hahahahah...mas que palhaço (just joking! Portuguese should be a very difficult language to learn, specially for someone of anglo-saxonic origin)

I had french in school for 3 years and I get embarassed every time I have to speak it because almost nothing comes out the way it should. I can read and understand it okay-ish, but I don't feel comfortable enough to have a conversation.
On another note, a lot of portuguese people manage to speak some sort of spanish very easily, but I'm not good at all with it. I'm also not good in doing accents, so maybe I'm not that good with other languages. I do have a pretty good spoken english.
 
Vincent Alexander

Vincent Alexander

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,785
I became damn good at Japanese in college. I'm so pissed at myself for letting it rot. Luckily, the hiragana and katakana was drilled in enough that I've never forgotten, but I don't remember shit for vocabulary or sentence structure anymore.
 
You Are Viewtiful

You Are Viewtiful

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,428
Learning languages is easy, OP. Just requires a lot of time.

Learn the grammar and basic words from a textbook, then watch TV/listen to music/listen to podcasts/play video games/read books/write a journal on lang8/talk to people on Skype in that language (with dictionary in hand) until you're fluent. Use flaschard programs like Anki to help you remember words.
 
AdaWong

AdaWong

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,805
Raccoon City
Learning a language does not necessarily follow the normal procedure of learning something new, and it's not just "with time, you'll know it!" either; I know SO many people who were raised in a household with a different language than what they know and hear it 24/7 yet never learned to speak it or even understand it. Sure, practice makes perfect 100%, but languages in general IMO is all about actually using the language in a real-life situation -- that means a LOT of embarrassing moments and putting yourself out there to sound so dumb and simulating a conversation or something. I am trilingual already, so I know how to manage languages, yet I can't pick up French to save my life because I never bothered to use in a conversation beyond my "learning sessions".
 
pirata

pirata

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,411
I've been obsessed with learning other languages for a long time, and know Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German to certain extents, and I've been working on Japanese for a while now (spoiler alert: it's way fucking harder than the others). I have this problem, though, in that I'm way better at speaking and reading languages than I am at understanding others speaking them, which tends to get me in trouble (people think I'm fluent just because I can imitate accents very quickly, and they start speaking at me at a million miles an hour).

Studying linguistics is a good way of speeding up the learning process for any language, since it's kind of like understanding the code powering a video game or something.

Also: make a shit ton of flashcards by hand. Writing stuff by hand and having a physical object you can refer to really helps.
 
Hypron

Hypron

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,059
NZ
I wish I had learnt several as a kid - it's a huge advantage later in life, and you can naturally develop a perfect accent if you start young enough.

As of now, I'm bilingual (but I do have an accent when speaking English) and I'm currently learning a third language (Japanese). After I become proficient, I still want to learn German and then finally my parent's dialect (Alsatian). After that, I think I'll concentrate on other endeavours because 5 languages is already pretty good and after a point I imagine it gets a bit hard to maintain all these languages at a decent level.
 
Doctor_Thomas

Doctor_Thomas

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,678
A personal embarassment to myself that I only speak English fluently (though, I can understand the basics of French and Spanish if I'm reading it, enough to work out roughly what something says).

I do, however, try to learn a bit of the languages when I go abroad. I don't see why people from other countries should come here and speak English, but I can't do to their countries and speak the native toungue.

Actually found most people really accomodating if I actually attempt the language, rather than making the assumption they speak English.
 
FernandoRocker

FernandoRocker

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,987
México
Quick question.

My primary language is Spanish, but I'm fluent in English too. But I usually try to emulate an American accent (yes, I know there's tons of accents in the USA, but I try to use a generic accent like the ones from TV or movies).

But... Would you prefer for me to emulate an American accent or use a more foreigner accent? Maybe I would sound more interesting, but I don't know.
 
hitme

hitme

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,909
English is my second language and people can barely hear my non-American accent.
 
Zukuu

Zukuu

Member
Oct 30, 2017
6,809
FernandoRocker said:
Quick question.

My primary language is Spanish, but I'm fluent in English too. But I usually try to emulate an American accent (yes, I know there's tons of accents in the USA, but I try to use a generic accent like the ones from TV or movies).

But... Would you prefer for me to emulate an American accent or use a more foreigner accent? Maybe I would sound more interesting, but I don't know.
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It's silly to "fake" another accent. Just accept that you have an accent - there is nothing wrong about it. Just remember, if an english speaker would talk in spanish, he would also have an accent.
 

Deleted member 23212

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
11,225
Hey, brother here. You just need to have a goal and work towards it. Have a big goal and then several smaller, daily goals to work towards it.
 
Hypron

Hypron

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,059
NZ
FernandoRocker said:
Quick question.

My primary language is Spanish, but I'm fluent in English too. But I usually try to emulate an American accent (yes, I know there's tons of accents in the USA, but I try to use a generic accent like the ones from TV or movies).

But... Would you prefer for me to emulate an American accent or use a more foreigner accent? Maybe I would sound more interesting, but I don't know.
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I mean, when you speak another language the holy grail is to speak like a native speaker. All native speakers have accents, so you do need to mimic one of those native accents if you want to get as close as possible from that holy grail. It will make communication easier and you'll sound more fluent.
 
Menx64

Menx64

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,774
I speak English and Spanish fluently. Portuguese and Italian I can understand people talking, but I still have problems talking myself. It is harder as you get older, buy my mom is 52 years young and learning Italian and she knows a lot more than I do.
Try OP, you will get there.
 
Jintor

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,494
gotta work at it brah, gotta find the methods that work for you. i spent 10 years cursing chinese because i sucked at it, but when i finally got into japanese on my own terms i found to my surprise i did actually have the capability of learning languages. i'm not super great at it, but it's better than where i was before with chinese

it's a long, hard road, but you gotta take the steps
 

Deleted member 3815

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,633
I can barely speak English let alone trying to learn another language and believe, I have tried with French and Spanish but it just wouldn't take.

Next year I am going take up sign language as a back up option should my hearing worsen.
 
Kapryov

Kapryov

"This guy are sick"
Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,152
Australia
Yeah me too.
Schooling in Australia is pretty whack when it comes to language selection as well, for the first few years we learned Italian, then it randomly switched to French (which I did OK at) and ended with a couple of years of Japanese. Oh well.

I can count to ten in several languages now though.
 
sayuuna

sayuuna

Member
Sep 6, 2018
548
臺灣 「 臺北市 」
Spanish is so beautiful. It's a shame, I ended up way further away from it by the time I've left secondary school, but if I hear it I can understand decently well. The immersion I had was all the reason.

I am happy with my big 4 though!!!

Kapryov said:
Yeah me too.
Schooling in Australia is pretty whack when it comes to language selection as well, for the first few years we learned Italian, then it randomly switched to French (which I did OK at) and ended with a couple of years of Japanese. Oh well.

I can count to ten in several languages now though.
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Hey!!!!!!! nice avatar sestra!!!
 
Jintor

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,494
Kapryov said:
Yeah me too.
Schooling in Australia is pretty whack when it comes to language selection as well, for the first few years we learned Italian, then it randomly switched to French (which I did OK at) and ended with a couple of years of Japanese. Oh well.

I can count to ten in several languages now though.
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yeah i learned like 4 different languages in year 7, then if you want they funnel you into a class. Funny realising later though that about 3 years of HS learning is equiv to like two - three weeks of Uni learning, lol
 
Oreiller

Oreiller

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,865
My attempts at learning german and japanese went so poorly it stills hurts thinking about it...
 
Malo

Malo

Chicken Chaser
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,153
Bronx, NY
I'm bilingual (fluent in english and spanish) and I'm currently learning a third language (Italian), it's a lot harder than I anticipated.
 
Rory

Rory

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,159
Its often discussed what advatages bilingual or even multilingual education has. Mostly people list work related advantages, but what I think is way way more significant is, that understanding of multiple languages raises your vocabulary, empathy along with understanding culturally.

I cant even describe it really, but maybe you guys get what I mean? Is there a word for that in any language?

If you speak multiple languages you will look differently at things.

I have always been lacking a word for it, and wondered if there exists one.

Teh Hamburglar said:
You know the joke "what do you call someone who speaks one language?"

An American
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Japanese and/or Chinese?
 
Paperboywriter

Paperboywriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,150
english is pretty easy to learn compared to many other languages. and there is a way bigger payback for non english speakers to learn english than the other way around.
 
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