Learning a language?

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Anyone know more than their native tongue? I learnt a bit of french when I was in school, but I don't think I was mature enough to care.

Any places in dublin that teach dutch? Money is a factor.

I was never good at languages, but I am prepared to give it another shot to broaden my job prospects

I meant to ask, how do you know if you have a brain for languages or not? O.o

My name is URL

Dutch is a very difficult language to grasp. Why not French or Spanish?

markopantelic

French(if I lived in France for 6 months I reckon I'd be fluent) and Irish(although not enough use for it)


German would be a better option than Spanish in terms of job prospects I reckon but it be class to work in a year round nice climate.

Piste

I speak fluent English, reasonable Irish and can hold a conversation in French or German (though my French is much better)

javaboy

Moved from After Hours.

WIZE

English and German

IvyTheTerrible

I'm getting pretty fluent at French. I did it for my Leaving Cert and was ok (got a but hadn't used it since (10 years); I've been here for 4 months and it's amazing the difference a few months of total immersion makes. When I arrived, I had to watch everything on tv with subtitles, never read newspapers. Now I don't need subtitles, I understand nearly everything.

So if you have a chance to go to Holland (you mention Dutch) for even a month, it would surprise you what you can learn.

PeterLT

I consider myself fluent i English and Russian. Learned German for 5 years, but as you say wasn't mature enough to care, so I'm not very happy with my German skills. Lithuanian is the tongue, hence I can understand Latvian. Knowing Russian let's me undertand 80pc of Polish language... And I can order wine and some basic meals in Spain using Spanish. Don't know am I right, but I allways get what I order

I would like to learn Gaelic, but I find it difficult to learn it on my own with out any help. I think the best way to learn a language is to buy some books that are used in school and start from a scratch, like colours, numbers, cat, dog, yes, no, beer, whiskey, pint, girl... (no that's to advanced)...

is_that_so

Best to start with one you may know some of like French just to get back into it. Of the languages mentioned Spanish is the easiest to learn along with Italian. If you do want to learn Dutch German would be a better option and you can probably get courses in public libraries, although it is tough work learning German.

What you do find is you use the ones you already speak, English and Irish(assuming you know some) to work out how the new language works. Whatever one you choose , first learn the sounds of the letters.

EDIT: Speak Irish, Spanish pretty well.
Can hold conversations in French & German, understand some Italian and Portuguese and can do some rudimentary things in Polish. Tried Russian but never got further than the basics. I can also introduce myself in Japanese for the all use it is. I will say the more languages you know the easier other ones become.

Deedsie

I speak English. Bit of Irish, Bit of German.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Dutch isn't as hard as some people make it out to be. It's quite similar to english is many ways.

Girlfriend is Belgian, so dutch will be more benificial to me. I will be using the language more than any other foreign language.

Why the hell would french and german be of any use to anyone? Such remote languages. French is easier, but it's sh!t, has no use, and learning a language because it is "easier" is one very stupid reason.

Surveyor11

I had to brush up on my German for a recent job interview, there's a great free online course at Deutche Welle http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,2547,00.html. Found the on line course very good,follows the same format in terms of levels as paid course

FruitLover

Asher Beautiful Spinach wrote: »

I was never good at languages
...
I meant to ask, how do you know if you have a brain for languages or not? O.o

You understand English, don't you? If you can learn that, you can learn any other language. There's no such thing as a 'brain for languages'. Over a billion people speak various forms of Chinese (supposedly the most difficult family of currently spoken languages), including infants and retards, so you can do it too.

9wetfckx43j5rg

I am a 18 year old student who just did her leaving cert.

I speak fluent English obiv.

Speak average/moderate Irish.

Speak way more French than I do Irish. Can hold a good conversation in French. (Know around seven tenses). I write French better than I speak it.

I can speak basic greetings in Polish, Lithuanian. (Hello, How are you, I'm good, I'm hungry, I'm tierd, And you?, Bye ect)

I also know a few words of Italian and Spanish. (Hello, how are you, good ect)

I studied Latin for a year but only know four words!

I can speak the alphabet and my name, greeting and sing a song in Irish Sign Language.

At the minute I am trying to learn some Chinese. I've got "Hello", "how are you" and "thank you" down.

So thats English, Irish, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latin, Chinese and Irish Sign Language.

p1akuw47h5r3it

I speak English, decent standard of french, abysmal Gaelic and I (hope) to start Russian in TCD next year so in 4 years I hope to be relatively fluent in that.

shewasoctober

I love Dutch. I think it's a beautiful language, and I love the Dutch culture as well. It's actually not that difficult to learn. It's the 2nd closet language to English, just behind Fresian.

I'm really just starting out with Dutch. I spent last summer in The Hague and love it. I worked as an au pair there. I had a blast.

Also, having Dutch means there is always a job available in Dublin. My housemate is Dutch and can get a job any time as Dutch speakers are needed and not many people seem to learn Dutch. The Dutch are usually quite impressed when a non-Dutch person speaks Dutch.

I'd say, if you want to learn, go for it. Everyone learns French or German. try something else out. check out Trinity or Sanford Language Institute if you're interested. They both seem to have good courses at a decent price.

I also have a bit of Spanish as most Americans pick it up with how widely it's spoken. I took Italian & Latin as well, but I was so young that I really don't remember much. Only a few words here and there.

Alun

I lived in the Netherlands for 13 years and spoke Dutch like a native, but get little use out of it now. It's still there in the background though and I can slip back into it as if I'd never left the place. It's also pretty handy for discussing things with my wife that we don't want other people to overhear The only kinds of jobs using Dutch, or pretty much any language for that matter in Dublin, are phone based sales or support jobs which don't appeal to me in the slightest.

I agree with others here that it really isn't that difficult to learn, but a big problem can be getting to a fluency level where everybody is happy conversing with you without them reverting to English at every opportunity. Once you've got past that stage you're flying.

earwax_man

I speak English, Irish, German, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Although I have a brian for languages, they are just easy to learn anyway.

German grammar is NOT hard btw.

jester77

German is the most widely spoken language within the EU, so from a job perspective that would probably be the best option. Plus it's not a difficult language to learn either. Don't think you need a particular type of brain for languages, if you are exposed to it every day then you will naturally pick it up.

spurious

Have German (fairly OK) and French (less OK) from school and am in my third year of Polish.

boonen

I speak English, Portuguese, Spanish and a bit of Italian, French and Swedish

Femke

I speak Dutch fluently (since I was born and raised in the Netherlands). I'd say I'm almost fluent at English, I've studied English at uni for the last 2 years and I started learning the language when I was 10. I can have a conversation in French and German but most of it slipped away after I stopped taking classes (which I did in high school). I've taking 2 beginner Irish courses at uni so I I'm slowly getting better at that Summers are bad though, when you just learned a new language and don't practice as much :P

Oh and I love how so many people are trying to learn Dutch! shewasoctober is right, we are impressed when a foreigner speaks Dutch. Mostly because we get to learn quite a lot of languages at school (everyone has to take up English and at least one other foreign language) so it's not problem when foreigners come to visit Holland and speak their own language.

dlofnep

I speak english, obviously, have a reasonable level of irish, and i'm learning gaidhlig slowly but surely.

dlofnep

Femke wrote: »

I speak Dutch fluently (since I was born and raised in the Netherlands). I'd say I'm almost fluent at English, I've studied English at uni for the last 2 years and I started learning the language when I was 10. I can have a conversation in French and German but most of it slipped away after I stopped taking classes (which I did in high school). I've taking 2 beginner Irish courses at uni so I I'm slowly getting better at that Summers are bad though, when you just learned a new language and don't practice as much :P

Oh and I love how so many people are trying to learn Dutch! shewasoctober is right, we are impressed when a foreigner speaks Dutch. Mostly because we get to learn quite a lot of languages at school (everyone has to take up English and at least one other foreign language) so it's not problem when foreigners come to visit Holland and speak their own language.

I only know one dutch word from a friend - Proost and he knows one Irish word - Sláinte!

GoingBk2School

Hi All,

I speak English and Spanish (I speak Spanish at home) and I'm currently teaching myself Russian (I would like to see a 'Russian' thread - would there be much support?).

I think Spanish is one of the most useful languages to learn, especially if you want to travel to the US or S.America.

I don't understand at all the earlier attack on French for being a useless language! Obviously, outside of France, you have Canada, various African countries and also various places in the Caribbean. It's also a popular choice for people as a second language - which is something that should not be underestimated when choosing a language to learn. Spanish is also useful for that. Often I will meet foreigners who don't speak English, but they've learnt some Spanish along the way, so we can communicate through that.

I would be interested in hearing from anyone else who's learning Russian. I've only just started, but I'm really enjoying it.

Alun

I'm English and speak (in rough order of fluency) Dutch, German, French and Swedish. I also did Russian at school many years ago, but have all but completely forgotten it. Oh yes, Latin too (traditional English grammar school education!).

The most interesting language to learn for me was Swedish, mainly because I was learning it in an environment and in a language that was also foreign to me (Dutch). Actually, the teacher, a native Swede, was fluent in Dutch and English as well, and the other Dutch people in the class were near fluent English speakers as well, so it made the whole experience quite interesting. Some grammar constructs in Swedish are closer to English than they are to the Germanic languages like Dutch or German, so occasionally she'd slip into English to explain some things, simply because it was easier to give parallel examples that people could relate to in English than Dutch. Fascinating!

drakshug

Well.
My Native tongue is English (Lowland Scots).
I can speak fluent Lithuanian - I lived there for 12 years. I can speak French and read enough Gaidhlig to get by with those road signs in Ireland (though the spelling is different-ish)
I can also swear like a trooper in Russian and order beer etc in most European languages.
My Kids speak English, Lithuanian and are quite good at Irish.

I've found the best way to learn a language is to go and live in the country, make friends and avoid self service supermarkets. Basically, when I moved to Lithuania, there were only Soviet style shops with grumpy Bobutes and if you didn't learn the vocabulary, you starved. The grammar comes later.

dlofnep

drakshug wrote: »

and read enough Gaidhlig to get by with those road signs in Ireland (though the spelling is different-ish)

The English is written on the same sign

Nah, but Gaidhlig and Irish are very similar. Are you from Scotland? I was under the impression that it wasn't very common outside of the Hebrides..

drakshug

dlofnep wrote: »

The English is written on the same sign

Nah, but Gaidhlig and Irish are very similar. Are you from Scotland? I was under the impression that it wasn't very common outside of the Hebrides..

Yeah but I still try to read the Irish. It is more interesting.
It isn't that common outside the West coast but a lot of us have relatives who speak it and some of us have a smattering. I'm not a teuchter but my family is

dlofnep

Ah fair play - I studied a little bit of it, it's handy enough to pickup from Irish

drakshug

A bit harder the other way round.
I wondered what dove was for ages and found out it was doo :):) (dubh)

dlofnep

Is Gaidhlig taught in schools over there? Even as an optional cultural subject?

drakshug

Well. It wasn't in my days but it seems to be gaining in popularity. The Exec is bunging up bilingual signs even in areas where Gaelic was never spoken. Had a chuckle when my Ayrshire school's website described it as Ard Scoil .........
Gaeldom isn't the whole of Scotland. Heritage wise, a helluva lot of us south of the highland line are of Highland descent but the lowlands weren't Gaelic. The only place in the south that spoke Gaelic was Galloway. Two cultures and one imposed on the other and has almost destroyed it (Scots on Gaelic) but we shouldn't try to impose a Gaelic culture/language on places that never ever spoke it.

dlofnep

Yeah, I watched an interesting documentary on it - Scotland was essentially divided into 2 seperate cultures, and it wouldn't be by all means strange if it had eventually evolved into two separate countries.

Still though - it's nice to see it still survive. Is there any hostility towards it? Obviously here - Irish can have political overtones, especially in the north - so hostility is often seen. I wonder how Gaidhlig does in Scotland.

drakshug

It is seen as country (Culchy?). Teuchter.
Also seen as romantic but not seen as identifying Scotland as a whole.
We speak Scots but some speak Gaelic at home. My name and surname is Gaidhlig and some of my family still speak it but only 80000 Scots do, out of 5 million. There are probably more Gaidhlig speakers in Canada. Nobody is hostile to it and with the parliament there is more money for BBC Alba etc. It is part of a lot of Scot's heritage and we respect it. Also in everyday Scots English we use a lot more Gaelic than I've noticed in Irish English. It is bastardized Gaelic but still recognizably Gaelic. You see, Scots is also a language. It was a state language when Scotland was independent and has literature written in Scots. When the Gaels were forced off the land, they moved to the big cities and added their language to it, preserving many words and phrases. For all that, I don't think the Government should be promoting that the whole of Scotland become Gaelic. It wouldn't work. It hasn't in Ireland and it misn't even linguistically correct. If you go far back enough, most of the lowlands spoke Welsh.

dlofnep

I'm curious about the Scots thing - as I had always considered it as just a dialect of English, akin to Hiberno-English - but spelt phonetically opposed to the English spelling of Hiberno-English.

I know it's origins go back 100's of years and as such - it's a distinct part of lowland Scottish culture. In terms of Scots today - is it still spoken and spelt accordingly or how does it work?

drakshug

The UK government treat Scots as a minority language. Others see it as a dialect. I'd consider it as a language due to the fact it has it's own dialects, a long and large body of literature and is the official language of the Scottish parliament. A similar debate raged about Norwegian being a dialect of Danish at one point too. It is mistaken to say it is a dialect of English though. It isn't. It is a Germanic language, still using words closer to the original Fresian/ Anglo saxon.
As to how many speak it. That is difficult to say as most Scots will code switch from Scots to standard English depending on the situation. There is also a speech continuum ranging from broad Scots up to standard English. Remember, we were told that speaking in broad Scots was common and if we wanted to get ahead, then we had to speak standard English. We were told that broad Scots was bad English at school. That is changing now thanks to the Scottish parliament.
As for spelling. We spell it phonetically and it all depends on where you are from, what dialect and words you use. We didn't get taught broad Scots at School. It is a language for the home and with mates and very handy abroad as ithers dinnae ken whit yer haverin aboot

dlofnep

Ah fair enough. Interesting all the same.

Did Scots start from English, or did it mutually grow as a language alongside English - each having an effect on each other?

drakshug

Well afaik it was a parallel growth from the Anglic dialects of the south. I tend not to use wiki but it has quite concise history of Scots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Scots_language

And this table shows the languages that came from Old English

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_languages

I speak fluent Spanish and French, although both still need a lot of work. I barely get to use them these days. I learned German at school for 5 years but have lost most of it now. I picked up some Dutch from living in Belgium and I understand a lot of Portuguese. I'd like to pick up a new language but can't decide on which one!

dory

I never know when to say I'm fluent! But I'm comfortable conversing in English, Irish and Spanish. I studied French and German in school and have since spent tim learning Hindi, Khasi and Arabic. At the moment I am trying to get some classes in Russian to impress a friend and prepare for a Russian trip next year.

anplaya

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

I am a 18 year old student who just did her leaving cert.

I speak fluent English obiv.

Speak average/moderate Irish.

Speak way more French than I do Irish. Can hold a good conversation in French. (Know around seven tenses). I write French better than I speak it.

I can speak basic greetings in Polish, Lithuanian. (Hello, How are you, I'm good, I'm hungry, I'm tierd, And you?, Bye ect)

I also know a few words of Italian and Spanish. (Hello, how are you, good ect)

I studied Latin for a year but only know four words!

I can speak the alphabet and my name, greeting and sing a song in Irish Sign Language.

At the minute I am trying to learn some Chinese. I've got "Hello", "how are you" and "thank you" down.

So thats English, Irish, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latin, Chinese and Irish Sign Language.

alphabet,name,greeting and a song.
thats hardly knowing how to use irish sign language:rolleyes:

9wetfckx43j5rg

anplaya wrote: »

alphabet,name,greeting and a song.
thats hardly knowing how to use irish sign language:rolleyes:

I didn't say I could speak the language did I?

This thread if called Learning a Language, not what can you speak.

anplaya

learning a language ,not knowing a few words.
sure i know plenty of words in different languages but that doesnt mean im learning it.
learning it to me means going the whole 9 yards and learning to pronounce and speak the words and then go on to read and write in that language.
having a few words doesnt mean youve learnt a language.

9wetfckx43j5rg

anplaya wrote: »

learning a language ,not knowing a few words.
sure i know plenty of words in different languages but that doesnt mean im learning it.
learning it to me means going the whole 9 yards and learning to pronounce and speak the words and then go on to read and write in that language.
having a few words doesnt mean youve learnt a language.

I also didn't say that I had "learnt" sign language.

Learning doesn't just take place in a classroom, it is something one does constantly. Just because I am not sitting in a classroom in front of a book does not mean I am not learning. And just because you have a different definition than I do doesn't mean that what I do isn't learning, because I will never stop learning and never stop trying to know how to greet everyone in their own language, and I will never stop trying to better myself.

anplaya

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

I also didn't say that I had "learnt" sign language.

Learning doesn't just take place in a classroom, it is something one does constantly. Just because I am not sitting in a classroom in front of a book does not mean I am not learning. And just because you have a different definition than I do doesn't mean that what I do isn't learning, because I will never stop learning and never stop trying to know how to greet everyone in their own language, and I will never stop trying to better myself.

ya dont need to be in a classroom reading a book to learn a language.

most people have a few words in most languages,that doesnt mean they know the language.3 or 4 words doesnt make a language.

i dont think its impressive at all ya would want to know how to say hello in every nationalities language,thats more of an oddity than a skill,what are ya going to say to them after ya say hello?assume they speak english:rolleyes:

it would be more impressive if ya know how to read and write and speak in say arabic however.that would be bettering yourself rather than learning a meaningless thing as you discribled above.

..Summergirl..

I speak fluent English, Russian, Ukrainian. I spoke Serbian and German before, but because I don't use them often I all must forgot them. German is a beautiful language, but I noticed that Austrian-German and Germany-German are quite different in pronunciations. Like Germans usually says Jung- boy, Austrians usually says bub. It's similar like here, I hardly understand people from Cork and Kerry area. Same in Austria, some Austrians do not understand their own people.

Tobias Happy Lasagna

Tobias Happy Lasagna wrote: »

I didn't say I could speak the language did I?

This thread if called Learning a Language, not what can you speak.

Yes, but learning also doesn't mean having picked up a few words in the past. If you're not currently taking a class or self teaching the language, or planning to continue it in the near future, you're not learning it, and if you only know hello and goodbye, you don't speak it. I wouldn't bother mentioning a language if I only knew a few words. Not having a go though, just saying anplaya has a point.

9wetfckx43j5rg

anplaya wrote: »

ya dont need to be in a classroom reading a book to learn a language.

most people have a few words in most languages,that doesnt mean they know the language.3 or 4 words doesnt make a language.

i dont think its impressive at all ya would want to know how to say hello in every nationalities language,thats more of an oddity than a skill,what are ya going to say to them after ya say hello?assume they speak english:rolleyes:

it would be more impressive if ya know how to read and write and speak in say arabic however.that would be bettering yourself rather than learning a meaningless thing as you discribled above.

You call it meaningless being able to greet people in their language but I have had girls come up to me and tell me how it made them feel more at ease and welcomed within my school community because they were able to speak those few words to me when we met in the morning.

9wetfckx43j5rg

And I believe something entirely different. Different people, different opinions. I believe that a person never stops learning throughout their life. I don't classify learning as the actual activity of reading the book or taking a class, I define learning as every new thing we know at 11pm at night that we didn't know that morning. I define learning as any method a person takes to better themselves or their knowledge.

earwax_man

I speak fluent English, Irish and German; but I'd love to become fluent in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. I can actually hold a conversation with both of them, but I have no one to practice these with, so I can't get any better with speaking them. But I can write 850 Chinese Hanzi, and I know both the Japanese alphabets and about 300 Kanji.

I love languages.

Someday I'd like to learn Finish and Dutch. :P