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Who here speaks more than one language?

ValkyrieRaven88 said:
I always wanted to learn Norwegian. My great-grandparents were from Norway, but unfortunately the language wasn't carried down through the family. I think one of my uncles speaks a little bit of it.
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I'm half norwegian, but don't know the language either. The most I can do is mutter one line that is printed on a norwegian flag t-shirt I have, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet." I know what it means, but nobody else does (except Baddie), and I can pretend it means anything I want. Mwahahaha.
 
tundra, i wanna say that you've certainly been missed! :) Good to have you back.

I speak a couple of languages - crap Mandarin, standard fare Cantonese (my staple language, actually), Malay and English.

If I'm given a chance to learn, I'd go for either French or Spanish, Japanese and most importantly, get my freaking Mandarin up to par and make bloody sure I can *read* it!

ds
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
Thanks so much! I'm from the USA. My great-grandmother immigrated here in the early 1900's and went to the Dakotas. I gather that the climate is similar to Norway; I've never been to either place. My grandfather was bilingual, but he didn't teach my father and uncle Norwegian. I believe my uncle learned it later, since he is a linguist. But I live more in the central part of America, because my father moved here due to his job. My mother is from this area and is German/Native American.

I actually have a lot of nationalities in my blood--Dutch, French, English, Irish--from other parts of the family, but I identify most with Norwegian because my surname is Norwegian, and it's the most interesting.
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May I ask what your surname is?
 
English was my first with some french thrown in from my elders, I learned a little spanish and french in school and I'm taking german classes now.
 
Baddie said:
If you wanna learn some Norwegian I can help you out!

Jeg heter = My name is
Jeg bor i USA = I live in the USA.
Jeg elsker deg = I love you.
En, to, tre, fire, fem, seks, syv, åtte, ni, ti = one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
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Puh! And still the Scandinavians I met insisted that learning Icelandic was as hard for them as it was for me, when so many words are so very similar.
 
lies said:
Puh! And still the Scandinavians I met insisted that learning Icelandic was as hard for them as it was for me, when so many words are so very similar.
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There are similar words, sure, but there are also a lot of words in Icelandic - essentially the same language that the vikings spoke - that have long since disappeared from other Scandinavian languages and been replaced by or fused with Latin, French, German or English words. Rather than using loanwords, the Icelanders have made up their own words for modern things - the Icelandic word for "electricity" translates as "amber power", now is that beautiful or what? The grammar is also much more complicated. Basically, a Swede or Norwegian with no prior knowledge has about as much of a chance to understand Icelandic as an Englishman has of understanding Beowulf.

But at least it's easier than Finnish.

Oh, and I don't speak either. I do speak Swedish and English, obviously, as well as German and a little bit of Spanish. Also I understand Norwegian and Danish and can usually make heads or tails out of a French text.
 
beer good said:
There are similar words, sure, but there are also a lot of words in Icelandic - essentially the same language that the vikings spoke - that have long since disappeared from other Scandinavian languages and been replaced by or fused with Latin, French, German or English words. Rather than using loanwords, the Icelanders have made up their own words for modern things - the Icelandic word for "electricity" translates as "amber power", now is that beautiful or what? The grammar is also much more complicated. Basically, a Swede or Norwegian with no prior knowledge has about as much of a chance to understand Icelandic as an Englishman has of understanding Beowulf.
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I know. What I meant was that the basics of Icelandic are much easier to learn for Scandinavians, because a lot of things are still the same... Like the stuff Baddie taught ValkyrieRaven88... The roots are basically still the same, whereas that's not always the case anymore in other Germanic languages and definitely not the case any more in Romance languages...
 
Baddie said:
May I ask what your surname is?
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I prefer not to give it out over the Internet. I'm not trying to be rude or snobby, and it's not that I mistrust people on this site. It's just that a friend of mine gave out personal information on the Internet to someone who broke into her house. Even my Internet buddies who I'm really close to don't know what my real name is.

You're probably not missing anything not hearing my surname, though. I've heard it's despairingly common in Norway. But it's hard to get around with here, because it has a "j" in it that is pronounced as a "y." When Americans see the "j"--and it's in an odd place for English--they always mispronounce it. I should be used to it by now, but I still wince everytime they do it.
 
TUNDRA! waving excitedly to "see" you! oh, and you missed the open door. i posted about it but you weren't here! ;)

and you didn't post latin! you know latin don't you?

i know a tiny bit of spanish, a fair amount of a dialect of french (but not quite the standard french you hear in most areas of france) due to family being from a certain area with a little difference in the language. i am learning latin along with my daughter.
 
Cool! I'm actually studying a bit of Romanian history right now so I picked a couple words up. It looks like a very interesting and pretty language.

I also am rather fond of a Romanian pop song called "Dragostea Din Tei", despite my friends calling me a dork.
 
Fantasy Moon said:
I'm learning German at the moment. It seems simple at times, but at other times I wonder if I'll ever understand.
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I'm finding that too, some things are very easy to understand and other things not so much.

I'm always put on the spot, too. When we are out and about or at family dinners (my hubby has family here but he never learned german and the younger ones speak a little english but not much or not the needed things) everyone looks at me to translate as I'm the one taking the classes.
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
Cool! I'm actually studying a bit of Romanian history right now so I picked a couple words up. It looks like a very interesting and pretty language.

I also am rather fond of a Romanian pop song called "Dragostea Din Tei", despite my friends calling me a dork.
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Oh that's cool :D Romanian sounds really nice but its grammar is horrible especially cause we have extra stuff compared to the english one :rolleyes:

Haha yes i have noticed a lot of people really like that song. Not a big fan here...never really did like it much. Buuuut it's mostly because of the words because they make no real sense to me :p
 
LOL. I was wondering if it translated badly. I just think it's catchy, and pop songs are a lot less annoying when you don't understand the words for some reason. I don't know if you know over there, but it's only known of here because of the Numa Numa video. Here's the link. It's quite amusing, but they don't perform the whole song.

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/numanuma.html

On another note, I was rather surprised that Romanian didn't look very much like the other Latin-based languages I'm more used to seeing. Like, I can understand a bit of Italian and Portuguese because I learned Spanish, but I had more trouble picking up on Romanian words that I've seen. Still, it seems very pretty.
 
ValkyrieRaven88 said:
LOL. I was wondering if it translated badly. I just think it's catchy, and pop songs are a lot less annoying when you don't understand the words for some reason. I don't know if you know over there, but it's only known of here because of the Numa Numa video. Here's the link. It's quite amusing, but they don't perform the whole song.

http://www.newgrounds.com/collection/numanuma.html

On another note, I was rather surprised that Romanian didn't look very much like the other Latin-based languages I'm more used to seeing. Like, I can understand a bit of Italian and Portuguese because I learned Spanish, but I had more trouble picking up on Romanian words that I've seen. Still, it seems very pretty.
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Yes i knew the Numa Numa vid...hillarious :D But i guess the song did have international succes mostly cause the tune is catchy. I don't like the song but you could still hear me when it came out humming it :p

Romanian doesn't have much in common with Italian/Portuguese/Spanish. A lot with French though. I can't remember the grammar much, just some small stuff (French i mean) but a lot of our words are almost the same. Romanian sounds nice...but so many who try and learn it tend to give up fast cause it has to many rules :confused:

And on topic of this thread i forgot to say i am also doing a german beginners module now (will be done in the second week of january).

:D
 
I speak English, Hebrew, Spanish and Russian.

But so far I can only read in English and Hebrew ;)

I think it's really important to know more than one language, it opens you up to so many different things....
 
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