In all known languages, including Welsh

[ganimede]

Following my attempt to learn Dutch last year, I have been inspired to continue learning a language. I keep seeing job vacancies for German speaking posts so I thought it might be useful to brush up on that. For those who don't know, I lived in Germany when I was a very small person up until I was 12 so I started learning the language quite young

Comments

[sparkythegeek]

I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and 7 years of French between junior high, high school, and college. I read/write French much better than I speak/understand it audibly.

I taught myself the ASL alphabet in first grade and still recall most of it. I don't really know any words, though.

I tried to teach myself German from a book, 20 years ago. That was laughable. :p

[ganimede]

How come you didn't pick sign language in the poll then?

[sparkythegeek]

LOL Didn't even see it. :p I don't know that just knowing the alphabet counts though.

[ganimede]

I didn't ask for fluency, I just asked about languages people wanted to learn.

[meathiel]

I didn't click German obviously as that's MY native tongue.

Learnt English for 9 years in school and took my A-levels in it. Learnt French for 3 years (I think) and have forgotten all of it, Spanish for about 3 years and have forgotten most of it unfortunately. Latin for 5 years but of course have never "spoken" it ... but it's still usefull for doctor talk or understanding some Spanish or Italian. ;-)

[ganimede]

I should practise my German on you but I'm too shy and afraid I'll make a fool of myself!

I've learned so many languages over the years but I've forgotten most of them. It's nice to learn them - and they look really good on my CV! - but without using them regularly, they just fade away.

[chaquir]

i always wanted to learn sign language. Perhaps one day, I will

[ganimede]

My ex taught me some, it came in very handy for talking across noisy train carriages! That's American sign language in my icon :)

What sign language would you learn? Is there a Belgian one or would it be Dutch?

[chaquir]

hey look, I have an icon too that signs.

I don't know if there would be a Dutch or a Flemish. (btw, we speak Flemish not Belgian). I never did look into it really

[ganimede]

Yes, that's American fingerspelling. As far as I'm aware, 'I love you' tends to be done with one sign rather than being spelt out. It's a very easy sign too: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/i_love_you.htm

Oh, I know it's Flemish, I was meaning whether it would be sign language that is specific to Belgium, rather than using one from the Netherlands. Apparently there's French Belgian sign language or Flemish sign language, depending on whether you're from a French speaking area or a Dutch speaking one, I think.

[spaciireth]

I say I learned Italian, it was a six week course and really haphazard and I basically can't remember a single thing. I might be able to come up with a few verbs if really pressed. I'm thinking of doing a German course that starts in May, I've always wanted to learn it. I started on Duolingo, but I agree with you about it needing to be supplemented.

[ganimede]

That's fine, I was more interested in intent than fluency. I thought it would be interesting to see which languages were the most popular choices.

I've only been doing the Duolingo course for 3 weeks now and while it's nice to be able to say things like 'The women are drinking coffee', I'd rather know how to say, 'I'd like a medium coffee with no milk to go please'. I think that would be far more useful! I'm hoping the Coffee Break German will be able to fill in those gaps.

[hobbitblue]

So I have my degree in German, took 2 years of Russian at uni and periodically poke at it again to remind myself, i can read novels and textbooks in French, I've taught myself Italian enough to read kids books, and then there's Latin, ancient Greek, biblical Hebrew, anglo saxon, mandarin and arabic. Oh and dutch which you know cos we did the beginner course together :) I didn't tick the sign language box because its so long since i learnt the alphabet i'd likely just gaze blankly at anyone trying to communicate that way. I can also pretty much read middle high german and afrikaans but don't really count those as things i've learnt or studied, just sort of can access thanks to being confident with German. Oh forgot the "learn swahili" book on my shelf, made no headway with that as yet mind

[ganimede]

Just one or two languages there. I had a friend in South Africa who was teaching me bits of Afrikaans. It's more based on Dutch than German though, isn't it? But Dutch and German are similar as we've already discovered :)

The problem with collecting languages is how rapidly they depreciate without use! I wouldn't have realised there were things like Chinese resources only published in French, that seems a strange combination!

I like how Duolingo mixes up the different aspects of a language and that it manages to include the speaking aspect, albeit with a rather mechanical voice. I find that it's quite tricky to get it to pick up my speech for some reason. I do feel that it's not teaching the useful aspects of a language so far, there seems to be too much focus on the grammar and less on being able to say useful phrases. Quite the opposite to the Dutch course!

[hobbitblue]

Yes, they're all linked so it makes sense if you know one you can puzzle your way through the others with greater or lesser success - understanding it, i mean, don't think i'd want to try speaking Afrikaans

[ganimede]

It is nice being able to put a sentence together even with limited vocabulary but surely it's better, both for remembering and for understanding, if it's a sentence that's actually going to get some use. The example I gave somewhere else was that "The women are drinking coffee and the men are drinking milk" is all well and good but being able to say "A medium coffee without milk to go please" is far more useful and therefore surely better to build on?