Language fluency

Shadowfax said:
I would really like to learn Russian and Japanese....it are beautiful languages to listen to IMO :)
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My boyfriend is Russian, he taugh me a few phrases. He and his parents speak it fluently and he can also type in Russian. He worked for a place that ordered him a Russian keyboard. Since the characters aren't the same and some letters don't exist in both languages, it's not as easy as you think :)

Cock tea la : How are you?
Ya tibia lou blue : I love you
Speck quoi nah no tch : Good night
Spah see boh : Thank you

That's it for my Russian :D

I know some Spanish words and phrases but have forgotten sentence structure and conjugation of verbs long ago. Other than that, just English.
 
LastLegionary said:
You are forgetting Afrikaans.... from South Africa. My grandmother was from that country. The spelling is simliar, grammar is similar, and pronunciation is also simliar. Most people haven't heard about that language though, so I usually tell them dutch :) Otherwise they go, "huh?" and then I need to explain it all. I can really write Afrikaans fairly fluently, but converting to Dutch is a little problem for me. You guys have too many "i"s, "j"s, and "z"s.

Verstaan jy wat ek nou sê? Hierdie is korrekte Afrikaans. Jy behoort dit te kan verstaan as jy stadig oor dit lees! Ek kan Nederlands verstaan as ek dit stadig lees, en ek kan dit ook verstaan as iemand dit praat.

:)
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I know the South African dialect :D
I've met South African people quite some times, my dad has some collegues from over there.
It really funny to talk to them, because you can understand what they say, only sometimes they use absolutely different words than you are used to :)

Reading is a lot more difficult, I can tell. I really have to read really careful, or read it out loud to understand!
BTW ~ I didn't notice that there are so many "i" and "j" in our language :)



And greenfreak ~ I know that Russian is quite hard to learn :)
I've tried it once, but couldn't get really far without any help. It's really funny to learn a language which doesn't use the same alfabet or symbols as we do :)
I know a few words, but unfortunately that's all... I can read it though. I just don't understand what I'm reading then :D
I've met some people from there a few times, collegues from my dad.
It's really fun talking to them, because you understand what they tell you, and it looks a little bit like dutch, only it IS a lot different :)

Reading South African is a lot harder for me than listening to it :)
 
Janimal said:
higashi - east. Yes, I've heard (seen really) you mention that your av means "east".

Most important of all... "sake kudasai" - SAKE PLEASE!
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Yup, that's me ... Ms. East :D

How 'bout, "beeru kudasai" :D
 
Only English (barely fluent at speaking though) and French, I would like to learn Japanese or German (and Elvish, if there was a speaking language for it and not just writing ones :D)
 
Fluent in English, naturally. I read and write French so-so. With a dictionary to look words up, I could translate fairly well. I don't speak it so good, and trying to follow other people speaking it is next to impossible. Perhaps if I went over to France and had to do it...

I also took a crash course in Ancient Greek while I was working on my MA in Philosophy. The department head gave us two semesters worth crammed into one summer. I did well enough in the class, but I didn't use it enough afterwards to retain it. I dropped out of the program after the following semester, and haven't had much occasion for doing Greek translations since then. One day I would like to pick it back up.
 
i also speak phreaking fluently. it's a dialect, really.

some examples:

"that beer is inphreakingcredible!"
"I can't bephreakinglieve what I just did"
"Did you know that board costs twophreakinghundred ninetyphreakingnine dollars?"
 
English and French. I used to be able to swear in german, russian, and arabic, but have lost it over the years.
 
Ardsgaine said:
I also took a crash course in Ancient Greek while I was working on my MA in Philosophy. The department head gave us two semesters worth crammed into one summer. I did well enough in the class, but I didn't use it enough afterwards to retain it. I dropped out of the program after the following semester, and haven't had much occasion for doing Greek translations since then. One day I would like to pick it back up.
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I'm speaking Modern Greek on a day to day basis!

Pain in the arse to learn, but once you get your head around the grammar it gets easier.

Pronunciation of Ancient is completely different to Modern though.

Speak English fluently. Irish, German, French and a bit of Japanese, not so well.

Can swear eloquently in Spanish, and say "Hoe haatet?" in Dutch...
 
I have had a few years of Ancient Greek in Highschool too. Really fun to learn! But quite useless in Greece today :D

I've also did a couple of years of Latin, which is really great to learn too!

Oh, and I thought you meant "How are you" in Dutch?

That's "Hoe gaat het?" :)
 
Shadowfax said:
I have had a few years of Ancient Greek in Highschool too. Really fun to learn! But quite useless in Greece today
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It would've been useful for me if I had continued in the Masters program. I was very interested in ancient Greek Philosophy, and being able to translate from the original comes in pretty handy. I went as far as to purchase a few texts in Greek (Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, and a couple of Plato's dialogues), but I never got good enough to make any headway with them. :(
 
I've translated large pieces of the original Odyssee....that's a real pain in the ass, I can tell :eek:

That's been a few years now, and I have forgotten most of my knowledge concerning Ancient Greek :(
 
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