A general community for asking and answering questions about other countries and cultures.
Please state which country you're answering for when you answer a post.
American with only one language under my belt.
I used to be somewhat passable with American Sign Language, and keep meaning to get back into it. I wish others knew even a little bit, so when I’m feeling nonverbal I could just sign as much.
I’m teaching myself Norwegian via apps and books, but I have no one to talk to. :(
All of them. Although the only one that I'm actively trying to learn is Japanese.
another one for the trying to learn japanese - my problem is i start and then stop. rinse & repeat so i never get very far 🤣
I also had this problem. Eventually I realized there isn't a time limit and if it takes me 10 years to become fluent, I'll still be fluent at the end.
Using that logic, I stopped trying to cram lessons like I'm studying for finals again and just do like 10 minutes a day. And if I miss a day or two then thats fine.
Maurugoto has free Japanese online self study courses for beginners. It has helped me commit to actually learning Japanese and I'm currently somewhere in between N4 and N5.
thank you all very much - we'll check out the resources and recommit to doing this!
Well, I'd like to "speak" the two that I've tried to learn well enough to get near fluency first. Spanish is kinda meh from me, I sound like a five year old at best. My signing (hence the "" around speak) is maybe a tiny fraction better, by vocabulary, but my arthritis has killed my ability to use it.
English is my first language, American version, southern dialect (if you consider it distinct enough to merit that term).
If my brain could pick up languages easier, I would pick up gaelic/erse first. One side of my family is heavily irish, and I love the sound of it.
After that, I'd go for Japanese because I love the sound of it and I'd love to be able to watch my favorite Kurosawa films without subtitles or dubbing.
Back over to Europe for German because the other side of my family runs heavy to German ancestors.
I have a list in my head of this general question tbh. It goes on a while.
But, realistically, without a magic wand, it won't happen. I took years of spanish in high school and college, dated a Mexican girl during part of high school, then a very lovely lady from Columbia later on. So I had access to native speakers over time, but never could really "click" into fluency. Since then I've lost a bunch of the grammar and vocabulary I used to have. The chances of me actually learning any other language now approaches zero since I don't have the advantages I had then.
I've always envied folks that pick up languages relatively easy
Does music count? I don't have much trouble with languages, but music theory has always been Greek to me.
Arabic would be interesting. Or Italian. Finnish is pretty. It has a nice rhythm.
I'm in the US and speak German and Spanish. I can understand a little Romanian.
I'm a German native speaker and also speak English. I learned Spanish in school but never used it afterwards and therefore have forgotten a lot. So I'd like to be able to speak Spanish again. Knowing Arabic and Mandarin would also be quite cool.
Spanish and Mandarin. But since we're playing Fairy Tale, I'd pick all of them. They are all so beautiful sounding in their own unique way. And they are extremely fascinating when you think about it.
I'm trying to learn Russian, and I wish I were already fluent lol
Russian is hard! (I'm sure you already know that.) What language(s) do you already know?
Just English. I've tried to learn Spanish repeatedly and it didn't stick, so I decided to do something completely different. My girlfriend speaks Russian fluently, so it seemed like a logical language to try. It's not as hard as I was expecting, honestly.
Spanish and German
Arabic speaker currently learning Japanese (N2). I wish I could speak Japanese because god this language sucks.
Pitkä ja kivinen tie. 😁
I'm Finnish and besides the school English and Swedish I've been learning a tiny bit of Italian, Spanish, Latin, and enough Russian and Greek to be able to read names and other little things, slowly.
Japanese I can't get any sort of grip on. So maybe something like that. A completely alien language. No! A properly alien language. Klingon. Or Sindarin. Or Lojban. I'm going to go with Lojban. That might not be totally alien, but it might be the language I'd like totally fluency in just to know what it's like.
My family's language, Gujarati. I'm a third gen immigrant (UK/US) and for Reasons, I didn't get taught the language as a kid. It's not one of those languages you find on Duolingo or at the community college or anything either. It's a real bummer not being able to connect with your elders.
In the meanwhile, I studied Chinese in college and Spanish in high school, both in the US. I know (or knew, at one point) just enough to get myself around while traveling.
I would've taken Spanish more seriously in high school if I knew I'd end up living on the west coast as an adult. Besides being better able to communicate with people whose first language is Spanish it would also open up so many movies and novels that aren't translated or subtitled. Arabic would also be cool to learn.
I used to be quite conversationally fluent in Japanese and Portuguese. Now it's difficult for me to remember either. When I hear it, I can understand a lot, but not like before. I would love to be able to speak those again. I speak English, French, and Hungarian now, but I wish my French was better... When you don't use it, you lose it...
First gen American here, Russian and English are my primary languages and learning German. I wish I'd taken Spanish lessons more seriously so I could actually hold a conversation in Spanish. Also wish I could understand/use ASL.
I minored in Japanese as an undergraduate. I kept studying it during grad school, where I got both a Masters and PhD in Linguistics.
I still really wish I could read Japanese. Conversationally I'm OK. But literacy as a non-native takes extra commitment.
Machine code. You know, zeros and ones. With total fluency
As an American, I'd begin with Spanish considering how many others speak it.
Then Norwegian. Language of my ancestors and living extended family. Although all my relatives speak English just fine.
German and Japanese, though of late, Malay as well. The first two because many interesting tech articles are in those two languages (watching anime unsubbed in the latter would be a nice bonus too), and Malay because it'd be helpful for work and volunteering.