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This reminds me of a joke:

What does it mean if you're tri-lingual?
You speak three languages

What does it mean if you're bi-lingual?
You speak two languages

What does it mean if you're mono-lingual?
You're an American

To me German is just one harsh, ugly, evil sounding language.

I took a class for it in high school, along with French and Spanish.

It just seems to have a certain "tude" to it that I didn't like - regardless of who spoke it.

Kind of like that snotty and stuffy English that some in Europe have, just an attitude about it or something...

I get called snotty where I live because I do not speak the butchered version of English in the local accent people here are used to.

But seriously, you sound like a guy who got burned because you were holding a large portfolio of Deutsche Bank stocks.

Languages spoken:
English
Japanese
French

Next on the list:
Korean (Grammar is the same as Japanese and so are many words)
Russian (Intonation / stress / masculine and feminine are difficult though)

No desire to learn any languages other than those for now. Maybe German someday.

Learning to read / write / speak Japanese gives a lot of advantages in the Asian language area because the Kanji mean the same things in China and many of the readings are similar or the same. Korea also uses the same Chinese characters. Unfortunately Japanese is useless almost anywhere except Japan and certain tourist areas in big cities.

I had 1,5 years of Russian classes after my trip to Moscow, but it's all evaporated now. Would like to restart that. Yes, also because of the babes.

Arabian would be second, because I like the culture, food and history of many of those places.

I hated languages at school, school in general actually, but I ended up with a French 'Pen pal' and we got on pretty well. He visited me in England a couple of times and I visited him in France a couple of times and I found that I was actually starting to pick up French. Unfortunatley, we gradually lost touch as we both left our respective homes to become students - This was the late 80s, so no modern communications technology to easily message each other.

My French declined to a very basic level, and I always thought it was a missed opportunity. I kept meaning to take it up again, but never could find the time or organise anything; Until two years ago. I moved back to my home town after 25 years away and found that I had a lot of free time, and so decided to finally start learning French again. I got some self study stuff and booked a private tutor. It's been a very enjoyable and interesting experience, but best of all my sister decided to try and find my old French pen friend on Facebook - and succeeded. After nearly 30 years we met each other again when I visited him and his family in Northern France in July and it was great catching up with everyone - especially as I can now actually speak directly to his mother instead of miming and going through a translator as I had to back then.

Learning French has been one of the best things I've done. I've met some great people and been on some fantastic holidays - I just got back from a language course in Montpellier a couple of weeks ago, and it was brilliant.

I'd recommend learning a language to anyone who can find any time for it.

Thanks for sharing that wonderful story Ant!

I had 3 years of high school Spanish at the honors level. That was my only formal language training. Surprisingly I can still speak it relatively well, I think because here in the US there are so many opportunities to practice it. I also go to Mexico at least once a year so even moreso.

I was seeing someone from Belgium many many years ago and was then inspired to learn French. I never had any formal training in it and I got my feet wet when I went to visit her in Belgium. Since then, I've used it several times on trips to France and Belgium, and my company has a division in France so I speak with them once in a while. But I was starting to lose it, so I got Rosetta Stone in French in 2015 and have been brushing up with it ever since. I hear and speak it almost everyday now, so it's been helpful.

I took 2 years of Latin in junior high, and finished the 2 years Cum Laude so I was not bad at all at Latin---then. It also means that I'm the only one laughing my butt of in "Life of Brian" in the vandalism scene, or more scared than others watching "The Exorcist." But if anything it helped me understand declinations and why/when to use them, which was very instrumental in helping me learn...

...Polish. My wife is born and raised Polish so that is my other current study. My in-laws don't speak English at all, or hardly do, and so when I'm in Poland visiting them I am totally immersed in the language and so I am picking up on it, especially since I took Latin. I also got Rosetta Stone for this, and I can practice with my wife "on demand" haha.

Tagalog is supposed to be my native language, but even though my parents spoke to each other in it, they spoke to us mostly in English. So I never really picked it up, but can recognize words, phrases, and expressions. I picked up Rosetta Stone on this also because I feel stupid that I can't speak my "own" language and I have my mom and cousins and aunts and uncles to practice with and hey, maybe even someone on SimHQ (That's right, I'm looking at you, ICE!)

I'd like to learn Japanese, maybe my mom can teach me since she is mostly fluent from living in Okinawa for 9+ years. Arabic might be good too. When I was in Saudi Arabia I picked up a few things here and there, but other than that it was all out of a phrase book. German would also be fun. I just don't know how much time I have to learn it all. I was very inspired to learn languages at a young age because I was in awe as to how many languages Indiana Jones could speak, and how helpful it would be--especially German, haha.

v6,
boNes

Wow bones. I wish I was as well-travelled as you are! It must be nice.

It's a bug my wife and I have and can't shake...but really we should be using the money on our house!!!

v6,
boNes

If you're never there, why bother?



The Jedi Master

That's a good point. I'll have to try it out on my wife!

v6,
boNes

I am hopeless at languages, I have been here in Belgium for around 10 years and can barely hold a conversation in Flemmish, word order is my big bug bear, at least it gives the family a laugh when I try and speak

I can read Dutch/Flemmish quite well but writing it is very difficult.

Many years ago, in the early 1990s I did start to learn Japanese from a Japanese student that was over studying at the college where I was studying too, he was giving lessons to help augment his student income, I can still speak a few words but most of it has gone now with lack of practice.

How different is Walloon from French? Just curious since I know about half of Belgium speaks it instead of Flemish.

No, about 1/3 speak French which is almost exactly the same as French French, Vlaams/Dutch is the language of the majority of the people, almost half of the Flemish people also speak French and over half also speak English, German is also one of the official languages too but I think it is less than 0.5%

Very few Waloons speak Vlaams/Dutch or any other language.

My wife speaks fluently in Limburgish Dutch, French, English and German, with a bit of Spanish and Latin too. When she is in the England they do ask which part of Scotland she is from

Language is very complicated in Belgium, each region has it's own dialect, my wife is from Hechtel-Eksel in Limburg, and I can understand her and her friends when they are talking together, my daughter-in-law from about 2 villages away I cannot understand her at all, it's like listening to a different language.

Same as if we go over the Maas river into the German and Dutch Limburg areas, when my wife speaks in dialect they understand her.

Limburg was a small state that lay on the borders with Germany Holland and later Belgium

Some light reading ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg

This should have more accurate figures than my rough ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium

Thanks for that fascinating post Alicatt!

It does really amaze me that even in this 24/7 tv and internet age that we live in that there are still some isolated geographic areas that have managed to retain their distinctive dialect/accent.

Moving from just north of Glasgow up to Wick in Scotland was a bit of a language shock too, yes they spoke English but they also had their own dialect which is based on Norwegian (Norsk), all the towns villages and hamlets there have names of Viking origin, the main town is called Wick which just means a bay or inlet, then the next biggest town is Thurso called after Thor, then you have Lybster, Mybster, Thuster, Haster and so on with "Ster" meaning a farmstead.

There are also a lot of common words between the Flemish and what is spoken in the far north of Scotland, it was quite surprising, even some of the sayings are very close.

Russian - for mostly romantic and nostalgic notions that stem from growing up in the cold war era and also from me falling in love with ballet. Yes, ballet has its origins mostly in France, but its wholehearted adoption by Russia has always been a source of fascination to me.

I�d like to get a proper grip of Spanish. Then I�d like to re-learn Arabic. I was in Tobruk for nearly three years as a kid. Dad was working there, took the family..Mum, sis, me, and Dad (and dog)
We lived in Tobruk town, properly enmeshed in the Arab culture. AFter a year or so I was speaking fluent street arabic. My mates were Arab, I was one of them. Bare feet, tatty shorts etc. "El ibn dottoori" the doctors son.
That was over 40 years ago though ( I was in Libya when Gaddaffi took over) Forgotten 99% of it now. I�d like to re.capture some of it.

Yeah, Spanish, then Arabic.

No real difference. Some words are different, numbers 70 to 79 and 90 to 99 are said in "old french" or "real french" (depending of the point of view) by belgians, and some pronunciations can be different too. But we understand each other perfectly.