For those who know or are looking to learn another language

For myself, I have taken some basic spanish in high school. I've attempted to learn arabic, I know barely just a few statements. I've attempted to learn more in to that, but I admit I've procrastinated over the years. Arabic is a hard language to learn because of the little squiggly lines, and they write backwards. From right to left. Not sure if up to down or down to up.

Anyway, what other languages do you all know aside from english and pig latin? And which ones would you be interested in learning?

I feel it could advance us as a community if we all started to learn other languages. At least 1 extra language.

I'm also suggesting to find at least one other person in this community, if not a group of people looking to learn the same language - or who already know the language you'd be wanting to learn - to help each other advance in it.

You never know when you might just need to know another language.

I'm in the process of learning - or relearning - Spanish right now. I took it for eight years in primary school, but promptly forgot everything except "enchilada" and the lyrics to some song I learned in third grade. (I don't know what the song translates to, but I do remember the words.)

Really, it's been a positive experience. My professor is this bubbly Romanian woman who's fluent like half a dozen languages, and I'm teaching Ms. Awesomesauce a little at a time, too. We also have this great Mexican restaurant down the road, staffed by folks who enjoy both helping me and picking on me in Spanish.

*grins*

Muy bueno, Simon de Gordo.

"Big Simon" would be "Simon Grande", rather than "Simon de Gordo", which is "Fat Simon". It would be somewhat akin to me calling you "Tothian de la Patrón de Calvicie Masculina". But if you're okay with that, I'm okay with that.

*chuckles*

I had a friend in second grade whose name was Matt - which, in Spanish, is Mateo. Our teacher used to call him "Mateo el Feo" - Spanish for Matt the Ugly.

At least neither of us are him, eh?

Apesadumbrado sobre eso, Simon Grande. Me disculpo.

Actually, I had mistaken, assuming gordo could mean either or, but I forgot gordo only meant fat and grande meant big. But it's like when I order Nachos Bel Grande at Taco Bell, I'm ordering Big Nachos.

Computer, Human, or Animal?

I know dozens of computer languages, know how Squirrels say hello, but only know a little of a few human languages.

I mostly speak English, some French, and a little Spanish in my house. I speak some french, a little - not a lot - of non-kanji mandarin (Chinese), learned some Spanish from living in a Spanish speaking area, learned a little Japanese from being immersed in it from my younger MA studies, know a little Italian from high school (This led to the Latin I know) Know a little Russian from living in high Russian population area for a little while (As well as from speaking to people in Russia for both work and play), Know a few words of Dutch from working with some people who spoke it, learned a little German as learned from my mother at a young age, know a little Irish Gaelic both from my mother and International Friends, A little Polish from family, and I also speak a little Twi (African Tribal Language in Ghana) and Wolof (spoken mostly in Senegal, Africa), among others. I am currently learning some Korean from my TKD.

But I only consider myself fluent in English.

When I worked at AT&T wireless we had an account with a translation service. All we had to do was determine what language the person was speaking, then we could conference a translator on the line.

Perhaps an Oracle dedicated to foreign language translation could be useful. I remember King had an aborted mission that was going to require a translator. While the mission wasn't likely to succeed, it did show that a translator on call could be useful for a mission.

I dropped Spanish in college because I could not conjugate verbs.

I speak a little Arabic because my family is from Syria. However, I understand much more.

Conjugating verbs is making a whole lot more sense to me now than it did back when I first took Spanish in elementary school.

Even though I've gotten lazy, and haven't studied like I should, I know some good books on Japanese you guys may want to check out.

By Naoko Chino:

A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns.

All About Particles: A handbook of Japanese function words.

Japanese Verbs at a Glance.

How to Tell the Difference between Japanese Particles: Comparisons and Exercises.





For learning to read and write Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, I recommend the following:

A Guide to Writing Japanese Kanji & Kana Book 1: A Self-Study Workbook for Learning Japanese Characters by Wolfgang Hadamitsky and Mark Spahn.

Japanese Kanji & Kana Revised Edition: A Guide to the Japanese Writing System by Wolfgang Hadamitsky and Mark Spahn.

A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters by Kenneth G. Henshall.


Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Japanese/English English/Japanese



With the economy currently in the toilet, I'd recommend getting these through Amazon's Marketplace sellers , because sometimes you can find books really cheap.

Also, from what I've heard, it's best to not try to learn Japanese from watching anime. Supposedly, it'd be like a Japanese person trying to learn English from watching Popeye, or Looney Tunes.





Hope this helps folks.
Transcendent

I am fluent in English, German, and Serbo-Croatian which includes Serbian, Bosnian, and Croation. I understand a little Russian, but can't speak fluently.

The army gave me the opportunity to learn Korean to a pretty advanced level. Whenever I use it among Koreans who don't know me it usually blows their minds, too. It makes me feel like I have a super power.

I thought about trying to use that as a selling point in signing on with LAPD, but after the army I really just want to work for myself.

I can dabble in Mandarin

ni hao any one?

so GingGing was a Mandarin speaker. doje/dojay (it works... I promise)

is GingGing gone?

yes, but she lived to a ripe 90 or 150 years..... I'm not quite sure. she spoke very little English and was actually my cousins grandmother but I spent quite a bit of time at her house in San Francisco as a kid.

I can get by in Tagalog, Russian, Arabic , Japanese and Korean. Im better in German and Spanish. I took german in High School and College, used it alot in Germany. Learned Spanish by absorption in my neighborhood, then in Panama. Tagalog (First Wife), Russian, Korean and japanese I learned in Korea and Arabic because I like to know what they are saying before they shoot at me LOL

Atavistik wrote:

yes, but she lived to a ripe 90 or 150 years..... I'm not quite sure. she spoke very little English and was actually my cousins grandmother but I spent quite a bit of time at her house in San Francisco as a kid.

Wo kan kan ni de zhong