languages

Hi All

Am interested to know how many people speak multiple languages. Generally speakig have found that people from Europe speak far more languages generally than North Amerca and the rest of the world.

Just quizzy

Sebongela

In order of the most recent/effectiveness:

• Italian
• Spanish
• French
• Japanese

Studied over the course of many years.  I live in England.

HI ChrisM108

Wow, I have the same list, but skip the Japanese and add German. Never realized I was so passionate about languages. Should have studied languages at university. Well, nothing like the present. I am really keen to learn a Scandinavian language, will keep for another day. Italian and German keeps me very occupied. Have a German pen friend and hope to be able to write some German soon. Her English is excellent, thank goodness

Ciao

Sharon

Here's the thing: I don't think university turns out the best linguists.  Languages are a thing of the soul - it's all about communicating with humanity.  I also studied Old English (wrongly labeled Anglo Saxon), and the alphabet is very close to Icelandic, so there's a random ‘Scandinavian’ language for you?!  I also studied Latin, which gives a ‘first hand’ insight into the mindset of the Roman classics.  As I say, it's all about humanity - past and present.

Try this for an insight as to why I still love the rhythm of Old English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wl-OZ3breE  There are better videos with translation, but this guy - a Norwegian - had the soul of the language in his rendition.  

A presto

Chris

Hi ChrisM108

I hear you about university. I did a degree that gave me good insight and taught me very few life skills at the end of the day, found it boring and frustrating. If if I had studied languages at least it is something I would have felt passionate about. But at the end of the day immersion and humanity is what gives us insight and a real feeling for the language. My Portuguese even though not spoken grammatically correctly, I get the finer nuances, jokes, slang etc. Something I would never have learnt at school. Was chatting to an Italian guy awhile ago and he was explaining some slang. You have to live the language to pick that up. 

I live and dream that I will get that one day

Sharon