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

[qwentoozla]

I've only studied Spanish. I took five Spanish classes in college. I've lost a lot of vocabulary since then, but I can still read it fairly well and get the gist of spoken Spanish. Actually speaking in Spanish myself is the hard part, because I don't get much practice in that!

[ganimede]

That's definitely the tricky part, being able to practice the language once you've started learning it. Without continuous use, it just fades away which is a shame. And if you're anything like me, once you know you're losing the skill, you start to lose confidence in using it.

You answered the Klingon question! Did you check what it meant or just guessed?

[qwentoozla]

You answered the Klingon question! Did you check what it meant or just guessed?

Google told me what it meant! Google also told me how to answer, but that would have been cheating, wouldn't it? :P

[ganimede]

Google also told me how to ask the question so I suppose we'd both be cheating! I don't know Klingon but I thought it would be fun to see if anyone did.

[manue7a]

..plus Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish.

[ganimede]

Interesting choices! I believe Norwegian and Swedish are quite similar but Finnish is completely different. Was it difficult to learn?

[manue7a]

The grammar structures remind of Latin. The vocabulary is completely different from most European languages, though.

[ganimede]

It's good if it's similar to something that you already know then, that probably makes it easier to learn and retain. Even if it has to be awkward and have completely different vocabulary!

[sullen_hearts]

Mine were all at school, but I enjoyed them, so I'm counting them :P I chose French at A level too, and I would have done a degree in French was it not for the fact that Theology fell into my lap

[ganimede]

I had to do French at school but hated it so I didn't include it :P What would you have done with a French degree?

[sullen_hearts]

Probably about as much as I'm doing with a Theology degree tbh.

[ganimede]

Probably. But more... French.

[sullen_hearts]

Oh I did too! And a tiny bit of Greek.

[ganimede]

I think that's to be expected considering the course you did!

[ellierachael]

My high school was supposedly a specialist language college. I learnt Latin for 3 years, Spanish for 5 and Japanese for 4 but I have ashamedly forgotten pretty much all of them as I've not used them since I left school!

[ganimede]

That is the main downside to languages, not getting the use out of them once you've learned them! Does Latin help with medical stuff? I did a year of Japanese at uni and I've forgotten most of that. I think other than hello and thank you, the main thing I can remember is 'Ringo desu ka' which means 'Is that an apple?' It's obviously a vital question.

[ellierachael]

Critical question to be able to answer in any language! Just like being able to describe that you have a mouse under the table, a cat on the chair and a monkey on a branch :p

[ganimede]

Ah yes, le singe est disparu! It's one of the major phrases, after 'Where are the toilets?', 'Two beers please' and 'Je suis le président de Burundi'. It's like something I heard ages ago about some lads who went to Spain but the only bit of Spanish any of them knew was for four beers and a white wine. So they kept ordering that even though none of them wanted the white wine :)