What languages do you speak already and which would you like to learn? (and why?)

[The Nomad]

Hail to all of you folk I haven't seen in a while. Truthfully, I've been short on time, and I doubt I'll be here for long. But languages have always held a huge interest for me. Alas, I'm quite bad at learning new ones...

The only language I can speak full sentences in is English...
I took 3 years of German in high-school, and I forgot most of it. I'm currently in Chile, and I'm working on Spanish, but I'm not too motivated even though I expect to spend a total of 5-6 months here.

In the past 2 years, I spent almost 7 months in Taiwan (and dated a Taiwanese lady for 16 months). I'm still quite keen on learning Mandarin, but it's bloody hard. The grammar's relatively simple (no genders or conjugation!), but the tones and orthography is quite different than any westerner used to...

Nightwish -- Century Child -- Beauty of the Beast (10:20)
/* random quote */
It's like talking to a wall, except that walls usually shut the hell up.
-Brent Spillner

 

[Thidrek]

No I learn swedish
I borrowed a book from the library

 

[goblyne]

i can currently speak english and french. (go canada!)

i'm learning swedish (self-taught)

aaand... i'd really like to learn faroese! not because of much practical usage, but more because it is a language that interests me. go check out Tyr (www.tyr.net) to hear some of their songs in Faroese \m/

 

[Thorin Oakenshield]

And here's a Finnish word with one prefix and "a couple" of suffixes:
Epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän.

What on Earth does that mean???

I speak Croatian for about 20 years, English 10 years, I know some German, just a tiny bit of Swedish, some Polish, Czech and Russian (because they are similar to Croatian ).

 

[Stricker]

I speak Danish, English, Swedish, Norwegian, German

Same. Well, I only speak Danish, English and German. But I understand Swedish and Norwegian.

BTW: The Finnish language sounds NOTHING like the Scandinavian languages.

 

[Thidrek]

aaand... i'd really like to learn faroese! not because of much practical usage, but more because it is a language that interests me. go check out Tyr (www.tyr.net) to hear some of their songs in Faroese \m/

Yeah, Týr do really rock! Because of their video for "Regin Smiður" i think of starting Viking Reenactment
"Ramund hin Unge" is also a great song but this is danish.

@goblyne: I also know some czech words a friend told me but it's a pity I cannot write them down. He can't do this, too, because he only speaks czech. But those are very unimportant cause they are about drinking

 

[AsModEe]

I speak french ( first language ) and english. I would like to learn spanish and german. Both look fun to learn and are pretty useful in one's life.

 

[Thidrek]

My spanish teacher always says that spanish is the most important language in the western world. Besides English but that is matter of course!

German is really hard to learn and you will never manage to speak it perfectly if you are not born in here and are over about... 10 years old. I know some foreigners who live here since they are 8 and 10. That is really awesome! This language is definetly a challenge

 

[Frostheim]

i'd really like to learn faroese!

As for me, the faroese language turned quite soon to be a bit boring; it was extremely interesting at first, but then it started to be extremely difficult, mainly for it's pronounciation and such.

(Why should everything be pronounced totally otherwise it's than written, silly indeed, heh)

BTW: The Finnish language sounds NOTHING like the Scandinavian languages.

ENG. Of course not.
SWE. Förstås inte.
FIN. Ei tietenkään. :Smug:

What on Earth does that mean???

Here goes, heh:

Epä-järjestelmä-llis-ty-ttä-mättö-myy-de-llä-nsä-kään-kö-hän:

prefix:
Epä = "un"

the main word:
järjestelmä = "a system" (järki [substantive] = "sense", järjestää [verb] = "to put in order")

suffixes:
-llis = the verb järjestelmällistää = a sort of a meaning "to make it become a system / in order"
-ty = the substantive järjestelmällistys = "the action of making something to become a system / in order"
-ttä = the verb järjestelmällistyttää = "to make somebody else to make it to become a system / in order"
-mättö = an adjective järjestelmällistyttämätön = a negation: "something that has not being made to become a system / in order"
-myy = järjestelmällistyttämättömyys = here meaning "a state or a condition where it has not being made to become a system / in order"
-de = an inflection that belongs to certain words in certain situations, ie. käsi (a hand) -> kädellä (on a hand, with a hand...)
-llä = possession suffix, "with (somebodys) epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyys"
-nsä = an addition to the possession suffix, a bit of dialectic/poetic/eloquent expedient / style
-kään = a sort of a meaning "not even with"
-kö = a suffix for expressing a question
-hän = meaning: a suffix to express one's attitude of finding something to be kind of self-evident OR a question-like guess-work of trying to find out if something is really as one has thought

The word is grammatically right, but the IRL situation would be totally absurd and impossible. Here can thus be seen that Finnish is a very complex language; much of small and significant matters concerning attitudes, starting-points, purposes, meanings etc. in every possible hall.

 

[Thorin Oakenshield]

(Why should everything be pronounced totally otherwise it's than written, silly indeed, heh)

I agree, just pronounce it as it's written and all problems will be solved! That's how it is in Croatian, each letter is always pronounced and you can't get confused while pronouncing a word. The same thing is in Finnish, right?

 

[Frostheim]

I agree, just pronounce it as it's written and all problems will be solved! That's how it is in Croatian, each letter is always pronounced and you can't get confused while pronouncing a word. The same thing is in Finnish, right?

Aye, Finnish is pronounced just as it's written. Actually the only exception is the nasal ŋ-sound, that is written as "ng" in a word, although there is a very clear and easy letter for it as we can see. A bit odd because ie. the sámi languages that are also finno-ugric languages does have got this "ŋ" in their alphabet.

Example of this:
kenkä (a shoe) -> kengän (singular genetive), as it would be better as kenkä -> keŋän, although the older form has been kenkän.

 

[Thidrek]

Are the letters "ä" and "ö" spoken out like the German and Swedish ones?
And you don't have a "ü", do you?

 

[Frostheim]

Are the letters "ä" and "ö" spoken out like the German and Swedish ones?
And you don't have a "ü", do you?

Aye, "ä" and "ö" are pretty much like in the Germanic languages, and instead of "ü" we've got "y". The letters "b", "f", "q", "å", "w", "x" and "z" are only used in names and words that are of foreign origin. The letters "d" and "g" have their functions both in borrowed words & names as well as in more original Finnish constructional matters.

 

[Thorin Oakenshield]

There's one thing that confuses me. I heard that "ä" is pronounced like ae - example would be "a" in english word "bad", but in some finnish songs I heard it pronounced sometimes like normal a and sometimes like e. Is it just me or what?

 

[Thidrek]

@Frostheim: Do you use ŋ as a letter? I only know it from dictionaries

 

[Thorin Oakenshield]

I don't think they use ŋ. I also saw it only in dictionary (English).

 

[Frostheim]

There's one thing that confuses me. I heard that "ä" is pronounced like ae - example would be "a" in english word "bad", but in some finnish songs I heard it pronounced sometimes like normal a and sometimes like e. Is it just me or what?

It can be posible that one can sometimes hear it as "a"-ish or even "e", but it surely should be pronounced as "æ" in every case.

Aye; we don't have "ŋ" as a letter in our alphabet, but I think that we really should, because we've got "ng" in written language instead of "ŋ" in certain words and constructions. The solution! -> I'm going to use it, although no-one else wouldn't, hah!

 

[Arch]

English, Chinese (Mandarin), and German.
Learning Swedish on my own (with not much luck) and took 2 college classes of Japanese.

 

[amf]

There's one thing that confuses me. I heard that "ä" is pronounced like ae - example would be "a" in english word "bad", but in some finnish songs I heard it pronounced sometimes like normal a and sometimes like e. Is it just me or what?

Depends on the dialect. People from Stockholm for example tend to pronounce it "e", for which we others rightfully make fun of them.

 

[Illnath]

What the giant cookie said: Finnish sounds nothing like the Scandinavian languages. It has more to do with Hungarian than the Scandinavian languages.


Finnish is the funniest sounding language in the world

They have some pretty good bands though