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I've been attempting to learn Spanish for a few years now, what other languages would you like to speak?
I've been learning French the last three years. Three years ago all I had was 35 year old O level French 'C' grade. Now a fluent reader, but still long way off fluent speaker!
I quite fancy trying Arabic next, but don't have any spare time at the moment.
Been learning Swedish for a few years, started playing with finnish and Japanese but unsurprisingly they are cooking my brain. The Japanese alphabet is challenging.
French fine, English is still pretty good (thank you all), German pretty good, Spanish could be better. I should really spend more time watching Spanish TV but don't find their productions as inspiring as French and German. I need to like at least one TV channel to get into a language.
My grandad speaks Arabic and signs his name that way.
My wife was good with french.
I'm crap. Did German until standard grade (I can now count to 10 and tell you my name)
Learning French here, still at a basic level but enjoying it.
Did French to A level 35 years ago and never used it since - quite fancy using Duolingo on it to refresh my memory and keep the grey cells challenged
German gets pretty good after a week or two warm up.
According to various frenchies my french is really good, but TBH it is merely not as bad as most Brits.
Italian very meagre. Can generally get the key simple stuff.
Turkish nowhere near as good as it used to be, but then whaddaya expect after 48 years out of the country.
I absolutely love speaking foreign languages. Great fun.
I recall the waiter chatting up my missus in German in a pizza restaurant in Wales. When I asked for the bill in Italian he replied in German that he doesn't speak Italian as he was Turkish. So I switched to Turkish and asked for the bill again. That surprised him:-)
I recall the waiter chatting up my missus in German
That must have been quite something given how subtle German isn't. Chatting up in French is an art form but in German - Du bist sau geil, ich bin in dein Arshe verleibt, wilst'd mit mir... .
quite fancy using Duolingo on it to refresh my memory and keep the grey cells challenged
I'm using Duolingo and find it pretty good 👍 Have been doing about 30 mins/day for the past 8 months and quite happy with my progress!
Du bist sau geil
She wouldn't be happy.... apparently only proles say "geil"
I'm happy being a prole (and assumed your waiter would use prole language) . I used to embarass Madame by being far too familiar with people I shouldn't be familar with in French. I recently amused junior (but not Madame) when pulled over by the Gendarmes for an alcotest. In Spanish I've never got to grips with past tenses so just say en pasado or give a date/time then rabbit on in the present. People are generally pretty indulgent with anybody speaking a foreign language. Some Germans are irritating because they insist on continuing in English even when it's really obvious your German is better than their English. Conversations in which it's like predictive text and each time they pause I give them the word they are looking for in English in German.
I'm terrible with languages. I wish I spoke/understood Spanish better. I tried Duolingo and just never got on with it (having failed AS level Spanish in quite spectacular fashion).
I just don't have any aptitude for language at all and it's really embarrassing. Doesn't help that I didn't travel abroad at all as a kid so no chance to learn it "organically".
And now I rely on Google Translate which makes me even less willing/able to learn. I can pick up the basics after a week or so in Spain then I come home and immediately forget it all again.
I can kinda speak conversational level German, but my grammar is terrible.
I did it at GCSE, paid very little attention to it at A-level & then ended up getting a university work placement in Bavaria working for a plastic injection moulding company.
By the time I left, my German was pretty good but that's over 20 years ago and I'm slowly forgetting it all.
I worked for a German company for a while & was doing contract work at Airbus, but was only there for 4 months so didn't get much of a refreshed.
I now also work for a German company (there's a theme here!), but our company language is English so it's quite hard to practice.
I would quite like to learn French & Spanish. I struggled with French at school, but it would be useful for family camping trips & the like.
I keep meaning to give Duolingo a go.
If I can be bothered it will be Thai.
For the sake of using alphabet it will be one of these languages Norwegian, Swedish, German or Russian. No French because it is too far from my muscle memory, can't even pronounce the basic without sore throat.
P/s: Japanese will be easiest for me to pick up. Because many of their words are actually the same as our dialect.
I have some French and a bit of Italian.
I did my Erasmus year in Florence and used to be ok at it but since my return 30 years later I struggle a bit.
French is much better, mrs is French so you’d think I’d be fluent. But at home we speak English our girls are fluent, one is taking French law at uni which is not bad considering she learnt French at home.
I should sort that out really
How are you finding it kilo?
I had a mum who could speak fluently so we’d have “Irish” weeks at home where we weren’t allowed to speak in English. I was reasonably fluent but having spent 30+ years here, I struggle now.
You must find the pronunciations, and the séimhiú hard work? It’s a tough language to learn - quite a few rules, all the prepositional pronouns etc. so fair dues for giving it a go.
Go raibh maith agat!
The pronunciation and morphing of words is a real challenge but bits of grammar make sense based on the way English was used by my parents (if that makes sense). I suspect my father spoke it as a child up in the mountains of Kerry (his brother told me he never got on with it after the alphabet changed) but never used it in later life, my mother had very little if any. The real problem is trying to use it enough to identify my shortcomings but it’s a long game for me.
The few times I’ve used it in real life have been well received which was strangely very rewarding.
Do you never fancy rekindling your knowledge?
Do you never fancy rekindling your knowledge?
Yeah, I didn’t say. I’m listening to a bit of spoken word stuff and going back through some of the grammar. It’s as you say though - not having the opportunity to use it day to day means you’re just kind of talking to yourself all the time.
Where in Kerry was your dad from? Mum was lowlands between Tralee and Castleisland. She went to a an Irish language boarding school in Dingle courtesy of a county council scholarship, and went on to be a primary school teacher, hence the Irish fluency. We lost her at the end of 2022. Bless her, in her last weeks, she’d started talking in Irish again.
Where in Kerry was your dad from?
He was from Glencar, a townland called Keeas. I can just about recall it being alive with still four families living and farming up there but everyone is long gone from there now. We bought a house in the next valley west nearly twenty years ago so we are in the Iveragh Gaeltacht.
Sorry for your loss, my father passed around the same time.
Some Germans are irritating because they insist on continuing in English even when it’s really obvious your German is better than their English.
Ooh I love that game. Seems like you've met some stubborn people. In my experience most will switch pretty quickly. Or at least they did ten years ago.
I've got a 500+ day streak learning Italian on Duolingo. Prior to that I had Paul Noble's Italian audiobook for drives to and from work. I no longer have that commute though.
I recently tried Level 2 Italian on Pimsleur. Similar to Paul Noble, probably better.
Did German (and French) at school. Occasionally switch to German on Duolingo. Tried a bit of Romanian too (I have some colleagues there).
First thing I thought whilst reading through this thread is how great it is to see how many people are trying to learn another language. Doesn't matter how "good" you are, or which language. Keep on keeping on.
Been pretty good at German back in the day. I learnt French to O Level and toyed with Russian but couldn't handle the alphabet well enough. I spent most of the summer holidays from age 15 to leaving school, working or volunteering and later hitchhiking around Germany Austria and Switzerland.
I studied Modern Languages with Political Studies and the third year was spent on a semester in Pisa and a semester at Marburg Universities. I was fluent in German and worked on my accent so much that folk thought I was Dutch, Polish or bilingual. They certainly couldn't believe an English youth could speak such good German.
My Italian was ropey at best- I could get by, reading and writing it well enough to get my degree, but I could barely hold a conversation.
I've tried Swedish when I retired and loved it but ran out of steam when I got a new job. My current energies are put into learning more music theory so that I can teach the guys in my choir to read music. I'm pretty convinced the same part of your brain handles what is in effect simply another language.
I’ve been leaning into Duolingo while unable to work because of long covid. I’ve now got a 500+ day streak during which I’ve tried to improve my Irish literacy, completed the (short) Haitian Creole course, got back into French (having studied to A-level equivalent 25 years ago), and have done a smattering of Norwegian, Danish, German, Welsh and Japanese.
My French is now back at a level where I can watch French series on Netflix with subtitles in French and follow along, and I was pretty comfortable in shops and restaurants during a visit last summer.
I’m one of those folk that are pretty useless at languages, I did French at school and did a standard grade but just wasn’t interested (I blame the rubbish teachers) and didn’t really see the point other than for French camping holidays, which I had no interest in continuing with after escaping from parents.
I wish I could find more time to try to learn these days, I did have a Norwegian girlfriend in about 2010 and I did an evening course at Edinburgh uni, can still remember a few sentences but that’s about it, wish that hadn’t petered out as would’ve loved to have had the chance to move there.
Do occasionally start trying to listen to Michel Thomas Italian and get into it for a few lessons but then forget about it for 6 months before I remember about it again.
If I could choose to learn would like to do Norwegian again. Will need to wait a while to free up some time as work is giving me too much hassle at the moment, but yeah think this thread has peaked my interest again.
If anyone knows any evening language courses available in Leeds I’d love to maybe try that.
Seems like you’ve met some stubborn people
Or just very keen to use their English. Which I should understand as finding someone to talk to when you're learning isn't easy. Intercambio, finding someone who is learning your language to exchange with is an excellent way to learn. I noticed there was a notice board at the local university for intercambio, there's probably something on the Net these days. Arange a meeting in a neutral place such as a café then sit and chat.There are stats for the number of Erasmus babies, I'd like to bet there are a few intercambio babies too.
I’ve been learning Swedish for the last seven years and am about fluent now. Ok, I need Translate help with some words, but the competence is enough that I regularly mix up English and Swedish in conversations and can discuss ISO 9001 & 27001 in Swedish.
so, as a challenge (and so that I can keep my streak on Duolingo) I started learning Finnish. Wow. It hurts my head. Some words are similar to English, some to Swedish, the grammar is odd and the way the words are pronounced is difficult. The learning process is made harder by the lack of anyone I can practice with. I should have learned Russian or Chinese, they would have been more useful from a work point of view.
@willard
Finnish is mental, the way they have totally different meanings for words such as no, on and ja than any other language keeps confusing me.
Am sticking at it though
Have been Duolingo'ing for a bit over a year - did Japanese up to a trip there last October, felt like I wanted a change after that and switched to Arabic. Japanese was challenging, but I found Arabic rock-hard - when they started putting 2s and 3s into the written language (3 is sometimes a "ya' -type sound, sometimes something else, 2 seems to abbreviate the following vowel), I decided that was too hard for me and switched to French, been kind of boringly racing through that to get to new stuff so dabbling with Japanese on the side to keep things interesting. Getting halfway proficient in any of these will be a win for me! 🙂
There are stats for the number of Erasmus babies
Can't be very accurate stats!
I don't recall my two ever being logged as such 🙂
I took French at university (well, one semesters worth as beginner instead of Dynamics as part my Engineering degree😬) but I went to France about 4 months after finishing my course and found out how far that got me in the real world…
I tried to learn Spanish via Duolingo and Babbel… even got a years streak but I got fed up with learning how the cows made dinner and the horses cleaned up (that and the missing tense!). Babbel I never really gelled with (unfortunately). Annoyingly I could remember the french word before the spanish one despite the 30 year gap… But, yeah I’d still like to actually learn it.
That and Korean. The amount of K-drama I’ve watched I should actually be fluent by now…
¡Fighting!
Worked in France, Denmark and NL - result is fluent-ish French, good-ish Danish and zero Dutch. Now I'm trying to learn Spanish for travel purposes. Question for Duolingo users - do you use the free one or is the pay version worth it?
trying to get better at greek here. its the only place we ever want to go on holiday, so i try and speak a little with the locals. also got a greek facebook pal who i video call from time to time so he can try and get better at english, altho his english is waaaaay better than my greek. we'll visit him too this year as his wife has a place in lesvos where we're heading in july.
in the run up to each holiday i just go through the 'language transfer' course again to get in the zone.
My wife's part Dutch and most of her side of the family live there, I know a little German which is similar(ish) so I've always wanted to learn Dutch properly but haven't really got round to it yet beyond the odd few words/phrases.
Part of the trouble is: what's the point? Just for fun? Dutch is not really a widely spoken language and everyone in NL seems to speak good English anyway. Makes a lot more sense to learn French, also got French family, sometimes go on holiday there, much more useful in general... however it's much harder and, not least, my pronunciation is awful 🤣 Think stereotypical "English guy mangling French" and that's me!
Du bist sau geil, ich bin in dein Arshe verleibt, wilst’d mit mir… .
You charmer!
apparently only proles say “geil”
Ich bin geil.
Some Germans are irritating because they insist on continuing in English even when it’s really obvious your German is better than their English.
Yup.... Makes it hard to learn the language when everyone else wants to practice theirs.
A couple of years ago I had a physio who insisted on practicing her English. Had to explain to her it was more important for me to understand what I needed to do than it was for me to improve her English. Lovely girl and now good friends with her, but it was a bit awkward at first.
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Currently trying to learn Italian. Can understand the gist of things, but need to spend more time on grammar.
Oh, and the UK can still lead in Europe even if they're not in it....
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Question for Duolingo users – do you use the free one or is the pay version worth it?
I spent a few weeks on the free version but quite restrictive (due to the amount of mistakes I was making 🤣). The paid memberships seems good value IMO.
If anyone knows any evening language courses available in Leeds I’d love to maybe try that.
If you're willing to travel to Harrogate, Rossett school runs lots of language classes.
https://www.rossettadultlearning.co.uk/our-courses/#filter=.languages
The map posted above, is suspect that they only asked the Parigot to represent the rest of France. In my experiance, the French are quite happy for you to humiliate yourself trying to speak French.
Speak Irish in Ireland and you certainly get a reaction; two reactions depending on whether you speak it to someone who speaks it or someone who doesn’t.
It's great to see so many, learning such a wide range of languages, I'm using Duolingo and Memrise (I prefer Memrise) my biggest problem is that I wasn't taught grammar when I was at school in the 60/70s and I'm struggling with it in Spanish
I've been trying to learn 한국어 (Korean), partly to try to make sense of k-dramas, and partly so that I could make myself understood when I went over last year.
It is mind bogglingly complicated.
You have to learn a new script (한글; Hangul). They tell you it's super easy "it's just phonetic", "a smart person can learn it in an afternoon". It *was* phonetic in the 16th Century, not anymore. A smart person who already speaks Korean could learn it in a day, not a non-native speaker.
Then there are the politeness levels - a complete minefield. If you are not polite enough people will be offended even if you're a foreigner. But if you are *too* polite, they will also be offended. Some of the politeness levels are only used when speaking to the King or Emperor - he's dead now so no need to learn those ones. Koreans will ask each other their ages when they first meet in order to determine how they should talk to each other.
Word order is a bit confusing but not too bad - the verb goes at the end. But there are these things called "topic markers" where you use an ending to indicate "we're now talking about <topic>" and then you don't need to refer to it again. Useful but can be very confusing.
Pronunciation - just as mad as English, perhaps more so. Some rules only apply to words of Chinese origin, others only to words of Western origin (?).
I'm pretty sure I will never get past "totally useless" but it's quite entertaining finding all these language features - it's a language in huge flux, so you're watching it evolve in real-time.
Question for Duolingo users – do you use the free one or is the pay version worth it?
I think pay version is worth it - I really like how they gamify learning ("gotta keep my streak going! Gotta avoid relegation! Gotta win the league!"), I like the variety of languages and the different types of lessons. I do find it a little frustrating that it's quite rigidly structured (early lessons in Japanese focused on family and school - I have no interest in learning how to say "my younger sister is an elemntary school student", especially as I don't HAVE a younger sister), so I can't just jump ahead to something more interesting, and although it will give you tips about grammer and language, I don't know how to go back to review them. But on balance it's great - a twice-daily must. 🙂
Sometimes you can get some unpleasant surprises as your language skills improve. A friend has been visiting his English girfriend's family for a few years so his English has slowly improved to the point he has realised they are "une sacrée bande de fachos". 🙂
I use the paid duolingo, I have taken myself off the open charts thing though. Only use the streak feature currently ~1450 days).
I started on the league thing but quickly got annoyed when in the top league some users seemed to be on there 24 hours a day to get the scores they were achieving.
I also use rosetta stone, but need to reset my level as i am going over so much old stuff that i already covered.
Doubt I will ever be fluent in any of it, but am gradually topping up French, Swedish, finnish, Japanese and if i can be bothered Italian.
My french is pretty good, my spanish a bit rusty (I did a languages degree in french and spanish at bradford, albeit it's 30 years since graudation this year), I can muddle through in italian and portugese (and possibly have a stab at reading Romanian), I can get drunk and get into a fight in a couple of other languages like German.
In theory; French. I can read it, and understand it. Conversationally it all goes to shit though. I tried Duolingo (for Spanish) but the way it pesters you if you miss a day or so just winds me up.
French, a little bit of Spanish, little bit of Greek.
Oh and Russian. I lived and worked in Russia for 4 years.
Very hand for watching 70s and 80s cold war movies.....
Schoolboy French and German, some self-taught Spanish from years ago, then recently I've become obsessed with learning the language for wherever I'm going, so in recent years a bit of Greek, Turkish, Vietnamese, Arabic, and currently Dutch.
Arabic was the hardest by far, and didn't really help because almost everyone we met was a Berber. (Q: How do you tell if someone is a Berber? A: They tell you).
Vietnamese was the most rewarding.
I tend to forget almost as soon as the requirement passes.
but the way it pesters you if you miss a day or so just winds me up.
It also offers you the option to pay to repair your streak!
I’ve been using Duo since the start of COVID when I was ill in Ischgl for a few days with a mystery illness. So I started refreshing my schoolboy German.
I’m now on a 1440 day streak, which is the only gamification care about. I’ve mainly focused on Italian and Spanish which were both new languages for me. Although I’ve had to drop Italian because learning such similar languages is too confusing and Italian although lovely to speak is just way less useful than Spanish.
Last year I learned some Japanese when I visited there and found the tiny bit I learned very useful, and fascinating to tackle a language that is constructed so differently to European languages. I was particularly please to learn the word Eki one day and the next day be able to use it IRL to make sure I was on the right bus. And the Japanese are so positive about any attempt you make to use their language.
I’ve never paid for Duo, partly because of that annoying subscription advert they constantly play me, with the highly irritating American voice over. And partly because I’m mean.
Another fan of doulingo here. Doing French. Currently on a 750 day streak, Like Footflaps back up there ^ I did French to a low level (CSE Grade 2) a very long time ago and struggled due to the ****er that taught me. I always wanted to learn it and have travelled to France quite a lot when the kids were young. I also use the free version due to being tightfisted.
I know 2 different people who are learning Welsh. One of them has a caravan there and is on 1500 days of Duo. Neither of them are confident enough to actually use it in conversation. What's that all about??
I’m too dim and/or old to understand the game aspect - xp, hearts, gems - what’s that about? No - don’t tell me 😂
I’m too dim and/or old to understand the game aspect – xp, hearts, gems – what’s that about? No – don’t tell me 😂
Well, I'm gonna anyway. 🙂 You're placed in a weekly league with 29 random other folks and you get points for completing lessons - there are challenges that score more points, you can get 15- and 30-minute double point bonuses, and there's a 5 point bonus for an hour every Saturday morning. You're ranked by points earned with everyone else in the league and each Sunday night that week's league ends and you're either promoted, relegated or maintain your position in the same league. There's absolutely no prize or consequence beyond the messages in the app, you don't have to even look at the leagues/your pounts if you don't want to, but maintaining my streak and competing in the leagues keeps me motivated to practice and learn on a regular basis. 🙂
Gems - other than a safety net to "pay" with to keep your streak if you miss a day, I see no purpose to 'em.
You also get a weekly "friends quest" if you have followed and been followed by others on Duolingo. These are allocated on a Tuesday afternoon and finish on a Saturday evening and both your lessons contribute to completing them. They're challenges like "do 50 lessons" or "earn 1000 XP" and so on. It then also tracks a friends quest streak which resets if you don't finish a friends quest.
And there are also daily quests. Today mine are "Earn 10 XP", "Do 1 practice hub session", and "Score 90% or higher in 4 lessons". There's a monthly badge that you earn for completing enough of these daily quests. Completing a friends quest counts for five daily quests. I have done 16 of 50 so far this month to earn the "Bea's Jazz Jam" badge.
It's all silly stuff that provides achievable but meaningless short-term goals. However, learn French would be a rubbish daily motivation, and I would have to invent these kinds of personal challenges to stick at a daily routine to reach the longer-term goal.
Some Germans are irritating because they insist on continuing in English even when it’s really obvious your German is better than their English.
Did German at Uni. Gave up pursuing any serious use of it as even German bus drivers speak English to a good enough standard that I don't need to use German. Its fun on holidays but I'm not sure that's why my Dad funded me through Uni.
I speak Spanish all day to my wife, friends and colleagues - there are often days when the only English I've used was talking to the dog 🙂
I'm up to 62 days on Duolingo, learning German. It's quite entertaining, although the americanness of it can get irritating at times. I like the streak part, but couldn't care less about the rest of the gamification. And I haven't paid for it, either.
I enjoy duolingo and Netflix for Spanish,I tend to watch in the native language with English.
I live spain and unfortunately work in English all day but give it a few months and it’ll be beach and fiesta weather so I’ll be having plenty of random conversations and reading Spanish manga whilst soaking up the rays on the weekend.
I like duo as it does teach you reading and writing.
I can get by in French as long as no-one cares about my grammar. It's generally well received but I do mangel it somewhat.
I did two terms of Italian at night class in 2019/20 - needless to say I didn't use that in the end!
We spent a week in Germany last summer and I can honestly say I remembervery little except Ausfarht, which I thought was a massive place until I realised the signs on the autobahn meant Exit!
I had an over 1000 day streak on Duolingo for Welsh but dropped it after realising I had no confidence to use it and felt I wasn't progressing. My Taid was Welsh as a first language and could speak English, Urdu, Ghurkali and a smattering of various European languages. I still wish he'd taught me Welsh.
I've just taken it back up and am on 56 days, but still find it really hard and would have no real confidence speaking it even though my accent is pretty good.
Oh, and I'm level 2 in BSL from 25 years ago. I can remember some, and it's a language I love, but need way more practice.
I love languages and my Superhero power would be to understand and speak every language in the world fluently.