Multilingualism

[Prometheus]

I am from the States but live in Germany now.....You DON'T want to learn German. It sucks. You have to deal with genders and the chaos that causes with word endings, articles and a host of other crap. English is a natural and healthly evolution of the German language.....To learn German is to regress.

Additionally, no hot babes are impressed with German. After all the years it takes to learn, YEARS, it is such a shitty, non-romantic language as to render all the time spend learning it as useless.

This is funny. First of all, yes, I most certainly want to learn German. That has been decided already, I'm 100% going to learn it after another six months or so of Italian. Italian is genderized as well - that doesn't frighten me.

Also, English is not an evolution of German. That's factually wrong - like calling us descendants of chimpanzees. In each case, the two simply evolved separately from a common ancestor. And English couldn't be seen as a "natural" evolution even if it was a descendant of German, because it was so heavily transformed by the French invasions a thousand years ago. It's still technically a Germanic language, but has more Romance than Germanic vocabulary. A very unique, hybrid, mutt of a language. "To learn German is to regress" is a really silly thing to say, like I'm going to forget English in the process or something.

Second paragraph is hilarious. I couldn't possibly care less if "hot babes are impressed". Aside from the fact that I'm practically married, it would just be pathetic anyway to learn a language just to impress women. Also super inefficient... there are far easier ways to boost your stock that way.

I enjoy learning. If it's hard and complex, that makes it more of a challenge and therefore more fun.

[Prometheus]

Fluent in Dutch, English and Spanish. Basics of French and German. Japanese and Latin are on my wish list.

Okay so apparently you are the best person on this site with which for me to have this conversation, yet you didn't read the OP. Just listing what you speak is boring, tell me a little more.

[Rolando]

This is funny. First of all, yes, I most certainly want to learn German. That has been decided already, I'm 100% going to learn it after another six months or so of Italian. Italian is genderized as well - that doesn't frighten me.

Also, English is not an evolution of German. That's factually wrong - like calling us descendants of chimpanzees. In each case, the two simply evolved separately from a common ancestor. And English couldn't be seen as a "natural" evolution even if it was a descendant of German, because it was so heavily transformed by the French invasions a thousand years ago. It's still technically a Germanic language, but has more Romance than Germanic vocabulary. A very unique, hybrid, mutt of a language. "To learn German is to regress" is a really silly thing to say, like I'm going to forget English in the process or something.

Second paragraph is hilarious. I couldn't possibly care less if "hot babes are impressed". Aside from the fact that I'm practically married, it would just be pathetic anyway to learn a language just to impress women. Also super inefficient... there are far easier ways to boost your stock that way.

I enjoy learning. If it's hard and complex, that makes it more of a challenge and therefore more fun.

Well then good for you. I don't wish to argue. Go for it, especially if you understand that it will be challenging.

I just don't like German.

[Prometheus]

Well then good for you. I don't wish to argue. Go for it, especially if you understand that it will be challenging.

I just don't like German.

That's more like it

[pastis]

@ROLANDO: wo arbeitest bzw wo lebst du denn in Deutschland? Ich m

[greymatter]

yes, of course there is value.

just like needing to know how to do math while already having a calculator. that is important.

but languages take a loooooooong ass time to learn. for me, i just need to communicate and get ideas across, and if there's a device that does that for me, then i'm fine with not knowing the language unless i have to deal with it everyday.

Languages tell a lot of things about the culture that created the language.

[Uncle Drew]

Okay so apparently you are the best person on this site with which for me to have this conversation, yet you didn't read the OP. Just listing what you speak is boring, tell me a little more.

What is there to say? European schools bro. Half these things are mandatory and/or are quite similar. Any person who grew up speaking Dutch knows at least some basics of German - no clue if it works vice versa though. Both languages are really ugly and uninteresting I should add. If you were to pick up another language, for the love of God, don't pick these. I think 2/3 of the Dutch population has no clue how their own language works.

As far as Spanish goes... I've lived in Madrid for quite a while. Went into the whole thing speaking just a few words. Just by having to use it each and every day, you pick up a little more each time. Practice >>> theory, always. At first I really struggled with both masculino y feminino and personal pronouns, but once you get the hang of it it's the easiest thing out there. Got to say, I actually prefer it now.

Satisfied now?

[Akrazotile]

I am from the States but live in Germany now.....You DON'T want to learn German. It sucks. You have to deal with genders and the chaos that causes with word endings, articles and a host of other crap. English is a natural and healthly evolution of the German language.....To learn German is to regress.

Additionally, no hot babes are impressed with German. After all the years it takes to learn, YEARS, it is such a shitty, non-romantic language as to render all the time spend learning it as useless.

You really dont HAVE to, especially as a non native speaker. People will understand you whether you use der die das correctly or not. I agree that to our english sensibilities it seems utterly pointless to give genders to non-biological objects and concepts. In the end just say “**** it, im not using em” and youre good. People will still understand you. And yeah, dont get bogged down/discouraged by den dem etc it’s really not important for foreigners.

Doesnt matter what a language sounds like tbh, for every additional language you know, humidity increaseth in the pantaloons of the chickenheads.

[Akrazotile]

Languages tell a lot of things about the culture that created the language.

Quite right, in fact I muse on this issue when recalling my cursory forrays into learning Chinese while living in LA, as described in my recently published memoir My Rise To The Top of the middle part of the bottom third IN HOLLYWOOD.



Available now on Amazon....

[Lebowsky]

Native speaker of Spanish and Catalan. Fluent in English, French and Portuguese, I can also speak Italian, although not as well as I'd like to. Living in the country is the best way to get to conversational level quickly, although you really need to study if you ever want to speak properly. I managed to get to every day conversation level in my time in Slovakia, but i never managed to speak close to decently. Same for Greek when i lived in Cyprus, although everyone speaks English there anyway, as opposed to Slovakia. Now I've been in Indonesia for two years and I'm intermediate level in Bahasa Indonesia. I started talking proper lessons twice a week about 4 months ago and it's really helping. Easy language, really flexible and free-flowing, but it gets confusing due to the huge number of synonims and different layers of formality in the language, in addition to how similar many words with totally different meanings are.
Slavic languages are my favourite overall. Difficult to learn and not that useful, but rewarding from an intellectual point of view nonetheless. It's also cool to see the similarities among languages: Slovak, Czech, Polish, Russian, Croatian, etc... Those same similarities can also get you in trouble quite easily, though lol.

[TheMan]

My native tongue is Spanish but I'm more fluent in English.

I was born into a Mexican family where Spanish was our main language but through all my learning years, I went to American schools and spoke in English everywhere but home, even with my Mexican American friends, it was exclusively English.

When my family moved from Chicago to MX in my late teens, I learned the hard way that my Spanish was very limited and I sucked at it. Through the years it has gotten much better, I'm now fluent in Spanish but people here can tell I'm not from here, they instantly say "you got an accent, where are you from?"

As mentioned before, I can listen to Italian and Portugese and make out what they say because of the close proximity between the three languages.

As a teen, I wanted to learn French, even bought a French/English book.

[Prometheus]

Native speaker of Spanish and Catalan. Fluent in English, French and Portuguese, I can also speak Italian, although not as well as I'd like to. Living in the country is the best way to get to conversational level quickly, although you really need to study if you ever want to speak properly. I managed to get to every day conversation level in my time in Slovakia, but i never managed to speak close to decently. Same for Greek when i lived in Cyprus, although everyone speaks English there anyway, as opposed to Slovakia. Now I've been in Indonesia for two years and I'm intermediate level in Bahasa Indonesia. I started talking proper lessons twice a week about 4 months ago and it's really helping. Easy language, really flexible and free-flowing, but it gets confusing due to the huge number of synonims and different layers of formality in the language, in addition to how similar many words with totally different meanings are.
Slavic languages are my favourite overall. Difficult to learn and not that useful, but rewarding from an intellectual point of view nonetheless. It's also cool to see the similarities among languages: Slovak, Czech, Polish, Russian, Croatian, etc... Those same similarities can also get you in trouble quite easily, though lol.

One thing I am very curious about...

Have you ever read a book or poem in its original language, and also a translated version? Translation is not always an exact science, and there may be cadences in a statement in one tongue which do not transfer to another. For instance, if something rhymes in English, it might not rhyme once you translate it. That's a tiny example, but I think you get what I mean.

Any experience with that?

[Lebowsky]

One thing I am very curious about...

Have you ever read a book or poem in its original language, and also a translated version? Translation is not always an exact science, and there may be cadences in a statement in one tongue which do not transfer to another. For instance, if something rhymes in English, it might not rhyme once you translate it. That's a tiny example, but I think you get what I mean.

Any experience with that?

Yes, and a lot gets lost in the translation. I used to read everything in its Spanish translation up until I was 18/20 years old. In some instances, because I didn't care to read in the original language (English), and in some others because I didn't quite have the required level of proficiency yet (French classics that I really like, Portuguese authors like Saramago, etc...).

As I grew older I started to realise that, no matter how good the translator, a translation is always to some extent someone else's interpretation of a text, so you're adding an extra layer of distortion between the author's artistic expression and your own comprehension of it. The first time this became very apparent was with The Lord Of The Rings, which was a challenging read in English back then. As you know, it's full of songs, quirks and beautiful and particularly English language. I found that a lot of the musicality, rhyme and overall folkloric feeling was either lost or severely altered in the Spanish version. From that moment onwards I've always read novels in the language they were written (for those languages I speak, that is). Poetry suffers the hardest when translated, as you rightfully pointed out. For other literary genres I don't really care, I will read it in the language I have more readily available at the time.

The hardest is still French classics. Reading a page of Proust in Spanish can already take a few minutes, let alone in its original French. Even French people have a hard time with it. I want to think he's quite the outlier, though.
I can't even fathom a non-native speaker being able to read Nietzsche in German.

[warriorfan]

Failed Spanish and got kicked out of the sign language class after school because I would make fun of the deaf teacher during class all the time. Yelling stuff out when she wasn’t looking because she was deaf and couldn’t hear. Me and my homies found it hilarious, others didn’t and I guess and I got snitched on. Looking back at it, it was pretty messed up.

[pauk]

Fluently:

Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Montenegrin (identical really, its a poor attempt at trying to hide it with a hint of dialect & some words/slang perhaps but really its all the same shit, 99.99% identical, like if you just learn any of these 4 "different" languages you will be able to completely understand eachother) hence a bit of Slovenian/Macedonian/Bulgarian aswell but definitely not fluently....

Danish/Swedish/Norwegian (they are actually almost identical especially Swedish & Norwegian, well, you definitely will understand eachother, its only the heavy dialect of Danish that requires some concentration, its very different dialect to Swedish/Norwegian and very ugly sounding imo, sounds arabic almost, lots of throat/choking/tongue... a Danish dude understands Swedish/Norwegian better than vice versa... but if you live/grow up here you can learn to understand it all)

English