[fugazifan]

im surprised at the amount of people here that said that they can kind of speak hebrew. lo ra bichlal

i am fluent in english and hebrew, but im not usually very articulate.
i took like a semseter of german, so i can understand a few sentences, but i basically dont know it at all.

[joe11121]

English, and a lot of French.

[Death & the Maiden]

I learnt German at school for four years, but I had to give it up. I'm not fluent in it, but I could get by, and probably pick up a lot, if I was to ever go to Germany.
I also want to learn Japanese. I've taught myself some words and phrases, but I've decided I'll wait until I've done my HSC to learn more.

[greedrex]

Originally Posted by ploesj

oui bien sür, c'est la deuxième langue officiel en belgique... j'ai eu des classes depuis huit ans, et maintenant je suis toujours capable d'avoir une conversation pas trop compliqué. je pense que je fais assez de fautes, mais je peux dire la plupart des choses.

ha super je vais ressortir le thread sur la France. On va bien rigoler.

[_slavo_]

as well as nefeli did, I used to be really good in German, I even did my final exam at highschool in German ("Ich habe die Abitur in Deutscher Sprache abgelegen") but I've forgotten almost all of it since then. My head's going void.
I also used to learn Spanish at the University, but it was just 2 years so I didn't learn much.
Other than that, Slovakian is my native tongue.
I speak Czech fluently (those two languages are more similiar that you could imagine) and can handle Polish.
I know a bit of Hungarian too (although I'm not too proud of it).

[phoenix]

english and that's it. Tiny bits of a few other languages. I can understand far more written french than I can through spoken, but I think that is more to do with frequenting forums where a large portion of the members are french and speak in a mixture of english and french(which I miss a lot here and I wish more of you frenchies/other languages would start threads for yr own language). I understand most of what ploesj wrote ( french is second language in belgium, had classes for 8 years, can speak well most of the time if its not too complicated.. and I don't understand the last part), but I think if she spoke it I would understand a lot less.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by ploesj

it really seems to depend on where you are born: people living in a country that speaks a language known in the whole world won't easily learn a second one.

absolutely. If I had actively learned all the languages I was given opportunity to learn throughout my childhood/adolesence, I could theoretically be speaking fluently in english, indonesian, arabic, japanese, chinese-mandarin, spanish, and french. Instead, because I've never HAD to learn, it's all just tid bits.

[ploesj]

Originally Posted by phoenix

absolutely. If I had actively learned all the languages I was given opportunity to learn throughout my childhood/adolesence, I could theoretically be speaking fluently in english, indonesian, arabic, japanese, chinese-mandarin, spanish, and french. Instead, because I've never HAD to learn, it's all just tid bits.

ouch that's bad. i would like to get better at spanish, the only lessons i had were one-hour classes once a week for two years... it's not a hard language to learn and you quickly understand it, but actively using it is another thing.

i learnt most of my english just from using it and talking to people. got fed up with english in school when we skipped the chapters on shakespeare sonnets and a clockwork orange in order to get the chapters on supermarkets and kangaroos finished. (the average age of the students was 18 at that time)

i would start threads in flemish but barely anyone here speaks it i'm afraid :P

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by ploesj

ouch that's bad. i would like to get better at spanish, the only lessons i had were one-hour classes once a week for two years... it's not a hard language to learn and you quickly understand it, but actively using it is another thing.

i learnt most of my english just from using it and talking to people. got fed up with english in school when we skipped the chapters on shakespeare sonnets and a clockwork orange in order to get the chapters on supermarkets and kangaroos finished. (the average age of the students was 18 at that time)

i would start threads in flemish but barely anyone here speaks it i'm afraid :P

yeh exactly. If you have the opportunity to use your language/improve it, learning is so much easier. A positive of living in Europe, I think. A negative of living on an isolated island

Is flemish an area-diaelct of dutch? The dutchies were the second biggest alt to english language at the placebo/slash/teenglamgoth forums I used to frequent. The threads were always EPIC.(and mostly about black nail varnish and homoerotic picture posts)

[Lurker]

Only English for me, and tiny bits of French ad German from school but that's been almost completely wiped from my memory. Language education in the UK is fucking dire.

[ploesj]

Originally Posted by phoenix

yeh exactly. If you have the opportunity to use your language/improve it, learning is so much easier. A positive of living in Europe, I think. A negative of living on an isolated island

Is flemish an area-diaelct of dutch? The dutchies were the second biggest alt to english language at the placebo/slash/teenglamgoth forums I used to frequent. The threads were always EPIC.(and mostly about black nail varnish and homoerotic picture posts)

flemish is officially the same as dutch, the grammar is exactly the same, but the pronunciation is very different, as is some of the vocabulary.

there are many different dialects in flanders too, and they all sound quite different. in fact, if i go to the sea (about an hour and a half away by train) i find it hard to understand the people living there. all dialects have their own specific pronunciation and vocabulary (for an example, there are about 200 or more dialect wors for 'butterfly' in flanders)

the main difference between dutch and flemish is that dutch sounds a lot louder and harder. flemish has a lot more foreign sounds in it, which makes it easier for us to pronounce other languages without an accent that is too obvious. most flemish people can pronounce both english and french without too many problems.

[phoenix]

that's cool. Thanks ploesj

[Derek]

i'd love to learn japanese but i have no idea where to start.

i did french in school for 7 years but i'm horrible at it and can only understand very basic french.

[EVOLghost]

English and Spanish...that's it.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by jennthebenn

Spanish I would say I have a better than average proficiency with. It helps.

claro que helps!

[Gerrystumbaugh]

english....bits of spanish

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by Gerrystumbaugh

english....

not on this board though?

[Kannibal]

besides my own language can speak and read in english and finnish, can understand and read some russian, and tiny bit of german.

during university had to learn latin for a year but... i cheated.