What foreign languages do (or did) you study by yourself?

[j u d i t h]

or in a course outside school?

Some of you answered that question allready in my threat about school-languages

Here are my answers:

1) Swedish - I started to study Swedish when I was about 8 years old because I loved the books of Astrid Lindgren and wanted to speak her language - my best friend and I used that language as our secret language ). Due to that early start, I'm really fluent today

2) Danish - Another one of my favourite languages. Started studying Danish some years later than Swedish, in my late teens, and now I'm attending a Danish-conversational-course, which is much fun!

3) Norwegian - I was working for a Norwegian company for three years and spoke to many Norwegians each day (in person or by phone). In the beginning I spoke Swedish to them and they Norwegian to me, which worked all right, if they didn't speak too fast . Now I understand it very well, and when I speak to a Norwegian, I use some kind of language which I use to call "Scandinavian", which is Swedish mixed with lots of Norwegian expressions!

4) Finnish - ah..... that's a tough one! I'm attending a course - just for fun, just one lesson once a week - my Finnish is still very poor, but it's fun to be in that course!

Well, I think that's all. How about you???

[Beaumont]

I stayed three years in Laos, so I learned some Lao while I was there (only speaking, not writing). Then I went to Thailand and decided to begin by learning written Thai, because I knew it would be more useful than written Lao, and I was also fed up with trying to get used to all the transcription systems.

Lao and Thai are close language, even if the alphabet is different, but for a beginner the differences can be confusing. The funny thing is that here in Bangkok, my best friend is a Thai girl and we communicate in our own language, which is made of Thai (because she is Thai), Lao (because I knew some Lao before), Issan (because her parents came from this Northern region where the language is very close to Lao, so she knows some of it) and English (because she sometimes knows some English words). We sort of built our own language, and basically, we are the only one who can understand each other when we use it

Of course, when I speak normal Thai, there are Lao words coming out of my mouth (I just can't help it), and the Thai always laugh, because they are not used to foreigners speaking a Northern dialect...

[Guest]

1) I learned english through watching TV, that in a way is self-study :))) (Bad concequence is that now I have an american accent which I'm trying to get rid of.)

2) I've attended spanish course for three years, and it ended two years ago. I haven't spoken it, heard it, or wrote it since then, except on the rare occasions when I was talked into it by bambino, so now it is (as I already stated) a bit rusted. I can still communicate well, though. I plan on refreshing my grammar and vocabulary this summer. (Now that I have a three-months school break :)))

3) I was learning Japanese for a year, and didn't learn much I'm affraid. I learned to write most of the hiragana & katakana, use some basic expressions, and that's all. I find sound of Japanese neat and sweet, and it's grammar one of the easiest in the world (which cannot be said for the vocabulary, and its common vs. polite words).

4) September 2002 is when I started with solo-singing classes, and since most of the arias are in Italian, I was obliged to start learning it. Here I haven't got any learning technique, I just go through the book and repeat like an idiot. :roll: I can read and understand any text in Italian but, when speaking, I constantly mix it with Spanish, which is BAD.

5) NORWEGIAN. My favourite. :) I'm still fresh on this territory, but I'm looking forward to the day I will be able to say: I know this!!! I fell in love with Norwegian and Norway through music and mythology. Since there are no Norwegian courses (except for the one whose price is equal to my mother's monthly salary), I rely on those rare movies and cartoons on the national television, free e-mail courses, downloaded sound-clips and, above all, my friend, who was so kind to mail me a course-book, and who I consult by SMS whenever I encounter problems. :DDD (

I have more languages in plan, hehehe... :)

[Nykkjen]

Last one was by me... I forgot to sign

[Soleil]

Well, I'll say French is my native language, English my "mother tongue"... So basically I learnt both at the same time, my mother being Us-American, my father French and having been raised in French-speaking countries.

Then when I was 10, I decided to learn Spanish. Started with 2nd year Mexican-Spanish in school in California, then went on with first year Spanish-Spanish in France, then went to Spain a few times, one of them being a full year. Went on praticing while working in Venezuela and in Argentina.

When at University, I had the opportunity to learn Brazilian-Portuguese, so went along with that. Ended up working 3 years in Brazil and going back for Carnivals (lots of fun!).

More or less started learning Italian. I'm not totally lost when in Italy!

Basically, all "easy-to-learn" latin languages.

When I started thinking about learning German, then I realized things can become very difficult! So stopped there!

I really envy you guys, who speak Sandinavian languages, Russian, Arabic, etc.

[bambino]

Well soleil...i don't really think that Russian is difficult-maybe not for me because my language is in the same group of languages as Russian is
but then, what would you say for Croatian grammar:

-13 tenses
-7 cases (which are used in noun, pronoun, some numbers and in adjective declensions)
-for each word we have plenty of same words ( i wanted to say that in Latin, but as you see i've forgot it )
-very difficult rules to palatalize...
-4 accents so we have 16 kinds of vowels pronunciation( but in alphabet we have officially only 5)
-25 consonants which of them are: č ć ž đ š dž nj lj
-3 main dialects in Croatia which are veeeerrrrrry dificult for me to understand ( you can aswell say that we use 3 languages in Croatia)
-3 sexes and each has its own declension in singular and in plural for nouns, pronouns, numbers and adjectivs
-hundrends of irregulars nouns and adjectivs
-in plenty of words we change the root while we're writing it for example:
izpisati-->ispisati; dječak-->dječački; cvijet-->cvjetni....

Well...i hope you understand now how difficult for us is to live and attend school here....Croatian is very very rich and the most melodical slavic language.....

[Soleil]

I only remember learning one word in I gues it was one of the Croatian languages you're talking about: sladolei (have absolutely no idea of the spelling), meaning ice cream... That could get me around all the countries, couldn't it?!!!

I did study 3 years of Latin, and the day I told the teacher I was stopping, she said I was right because I would get no-where! Basically, she did teach me all the French (and Latin, of course) grammar I know, and when she asked me what a latin word meant, I would think of the languages I knew and deduce the answer... The opposite of the chronological order of appearance!

Not sure I'm clear. I'll give you an example. She would ask what "arena" means. And I would figure that in Spanish, "arena" is sand" so I would answer "sand"... She didn't like that!

Anyway, if I didn't make thru Latin, forget about trying Croatian!!!

But I am happy to hear that there are many exceptions in Croatian languages, because I always hear that French is THE language of exceptions! We even say: "This is the exception that confirms the rule!"

[Bernadette]

Judith, I answered you before, an I forgot latin. Excuse me Latinus.

[bambino]

Soleil, very good the spelling is QUITE good, onlz it is "SLADOLED" and not sladolei. Literally it means "slad"-something sweet and "led"-->ice

Where did you hear it, and have you been to Croatia?

[Esenthiel]

Ich lerne Deutsch von ein Buch. I've also learned a little bit of Esperanto from a book, and a little bit of French from a study book printed in the 1840s.

[didine]

4) Finnish - ah..... that's a tough one! I'm attending a course - just for fun, just one lesson once a week - my Finnish is still very poor, but it's fun to be in that course!

Onpas se hyvä ja mielenkiintoinen valinta! Suomihan on erittäin kaunis kieli!!!

[Soleil]

Soleil, very good the spelling is QUITE good, onlz it is "SLADOLED" and not sladolei. Literally it means "slad"-something sweet and "led"-->ice

Where did you hear it, and have you been to Croatia?

Thank you! I'm quite proud, because I haven't used it in ages! I went to your country when I was 3 or 4 years old, unfortunately don't remember anything else from my trip! At the time, my parents took me around southern Europe, and my only real need was ice cream!!!

Talk about kids' memory...

[bambino]

You know what people.........................i'm verrrry impressed of the knowledge of west europeans....you learn so many languages, that's quite impressive, coz when i was younger just few students liked to study slavic or baltic languages, now when we're entering to EU, you have started to learn them aswell....

That's all folks, you're excellent!!!!!!!!!!!