D2's Fun Friday Five, Foreign Language Edition

[greybeta]

[Poll #1418034]

Comments

[bleakwinters.livejournal.com]

I speak Romanian, English, German, mediocre French and beginner Swedish. For a new language, Russian, Japanese and Hebrew.

For a nice language-related story: in my Swedish course this year, everyone but me was German (the teacher doesn't count) and for the first few weeks no one suspected a thing. I was both amused and o_O at someone not figuring out my terrible accent (I roll my 'r', apparently a no-no in German).

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Well, if I ever travel to Europe, I know who I'm asking to be my translator! =)

[tammy-moore.livejournal.com]

I speak English and a wee bit of French/Latin that I remember from school. I'm taking Irish lessons.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

So, besides the accent, what are the main differences between English and Irish?

[tammy-moore.livejournal.com]

Mostly the words :D Well, except for the ones where they didn't originally have a word and then you toss in the English.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

You left off the "one and a half" option for those of us who understand a language we can't speak well. :)

Also, I'd love to learn Hebrew.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

My suggestion would be to round up. =)

[0living-dreams0.livejournal.com]

I said American just for kicks. The "correct" answer is monolingual though.

My ASL (American Sign Language) teacher once told us that she was on a date with a deaf man and they went to Mazzio's for dinner. She turned to him to sign "I'm hungry, are you?" and instead signed "I'm horny, are you?". Turns out, the sign for "hungry" is almost the same as "horny". The difference is, you move your hand back and forth to sign "horny" and keep it still for "hungry". Needless to say, they didn't go out again =P

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

Yeah, coffee and making out are uncomfortably (hilariously) close, too. Another fun mistake is understanding that when one person meets one person, the sign is holding a finger up on each hand and showing them meeting. One person meeting two people is similarly shown, two fingers up on one hand. Two people meeting two people? Not the obvious sign - that's f***ing.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

That makes me wonder how you sign "faux pas" in ASL...

[esper3k.livejournal.com]

I speak Mandarin Chinese and a smattering of Spanish from when I was in school (I didn't count myself as actually speaking Spanish).

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I hear Mandarin Chinese is in high demand these days! =)

[das_hydra]

Although I am not fluent, I know plenty of words/phrases in Spanish and French.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

What kind of words/phrases?

[das_hydra]

Oh lord. Um, basic stuff. Greetings based on times of the day, introductions, some colours, some food items, some household items, things about cities. It's all basic.

I say "por favor" and "no habla espanol" a lot. French stuff is limited to words like "oui" and "merci" and other stuff that's been passed along though the family.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

I said two languages, because I have moderate fluency in English (heh), theoretically know French (like 13 years of study including being over there, but it is quite rusty), about a semester of Spanish, and a smattering of other languages. Mostly "restaurant dialects", which for me is the most useful subgenre within a language.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, being able to order in a restaurant is an awesome ability when you're traveling abroad. =)

[kidsis.livejournal.com]

I'd love to learn Hebrew and ASL....

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

You'd probably have to go to a seminary school of some kind if you wanted to learn Hebrew over here...

[kidsis.livejournal.com]

Eh, not really. There's someone at one of the Jewish Temples that teaches Hebrew.

"Better learn English"

[lishablog.livejournal.com]

First off, I'm American. So my answer to the monolingual thing was tongue in cheek. :)

My language story:
Before I moved to Israel the first time, I was talking on IRC to another software developer who lives in Israel. We were chatting in Portuguese. I was saying that I needed to work on my Hebrew, because I basically only knew how to sound out things in the Siddur, but couldn't really carry on a conversation so much back then.

The guy I was talking to said, "Don't worry about learning Hebrew. You'd better learn English. That's the language you need if you want to work in anything high tech here."

Re: "Better learn English"

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I often feel like I'm still learning English...

Re: "Better learn English"

[lishablog.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, hopefully you are. I certainly am. If I stop learning my native tongue then all the other ones will be for naught! :)

[cynicalcleric.livejournal.com]

I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, but my knowledge of Spanish is very sketchy and I would not claim to speak or read the language.

I took 2 years of French in middle school (they didn't offer Spanish) and did well at it, but didn't take a 3rd year because I didn't think I would ever use French.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only thing is that a lot of graduate studies that I would want to do require reading knowledge of a language...and that takes a lot of effort.

[cynicalcleric.livejournal.com]

I really hope to avoid that if I go for a history BA or masters. I mostly care about American history anyway, so I don't exactly need to read much in the original foreign langauge.