Bilingual?

[Blades]

I'm trilingual in Armenian, Russian, and 'Murican but it doesn't matter because I live in America.

[Crystalpepsifan]

That Russian is gonna come in handy pretty soon.

[Yharnamresident]

Dutch is also interesting, but I've never met a Dutch person who couldn't speak fluent English, same with Swedes, so I never had that much motivation to learn them. Lazy, I know, but that's just how it is.

I wouldn't recommend learning Dutch for communication purposes, but more so for literature and movies. I assume the bilingual rates in the Netherlands and Belgium are around 85% or so.

I'm trilingual in Armenian, Russian, and 'Murican but it doesn't matter because I live in America.

Thats a strange combo, would you be willing to explain how that came to be?

[Blades]

Thats a strange combo, would you be willing to explain how that came to be?

Well I'm Armenian, and almost everyone in Armenia speaks Russian as well because of our good relations. We moved to the States when I was a year old, so I also speak English.

[Yharnamresident]

Oh cool. And its also cool that each of those languages use their own scripts.

[Blades]

I've always wanted to learn German but I'm too old to learn languages.

[j_factor]

I only really speak English. US education and culture don't encourage bilingualism if English is your first language. I know small amounts of Spanish, French, and Japanese, but not enough to have a real conversation. I took French in high school and Japanese in college but didn't get very far in either case. The Spanish comes from just growing up and living in California.

My mom's side of the family is from Scotland and my grandfather was very Scottish. If it's counted as a language, I understand Scots well but I can't really speak it back. Scots dictionaries tend to just give definitions of Scots words in English rather than translating both ways.

[Jeckidy]

Here's my collection of DS edutainment software for foreign languages:


The one with the stylus is Bimoji Training, which is meant to help native Japanese learn how to accurately write kanji, and grades your performance and skills after every test. It's not a dictionary to look up their meaning, it's more of a calligraphy simulator.

The one with the black cover and books on it is Kanji Sonomama DS. This is an actual kanji dictionary that was not only intended to help Japanese learn their kanji better, but also to help them learn English by giving side-by-side examples and definitions. Unique, culturally specific words that don't have a precise English meaning can be looked up in native Japanese definitions, but won't have an English definition. There are also a bunch of extras included like an advice book and a series of quizzies. My highest score on the first quiz, which is "What is the native kanji for this country?" is 1:11.

The two Korean ones with the spikey haired guy are also about kanji, but from the Korean perspective. In Korean, they call the writing hanja. The games are based on an educational animated series in Korea called Mabeob Cheonjamun. Mabeob means 'magic', and 'Cheonjamun' is a traditional poem which teaches the 1000 basic kanji in the same way English uses "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." I haven't opened the second one, as it is still sealed, but I have played a bit of the first and it's more of an educational RPG where you go on quests and do various trials to learn hanja. Boss battles like having to write the hanja for 'fire' to roast a wild boar are some of the challenges you get, as well as mini-games that can be practiced in a separate mode.

The Touch Dictionary is just an electronic dictionary much like Kanji Sonomama, but a bit more bare bones. It's hangul-only, no hanja, except for definitions given. It has Korean to English, English to Korean, Japanese to Korean, Korean to Japanese, and definitions for native Korean speakers.

These games are infinitely more interesting and well made than that horrid 'My [insertlanguagehere] Coach' series on DS that actually came out in the US, and was a massive sham. I didn't learn anything from it, and I never got past the trite whack-a-mole minigames in My Japanese Coach. Avoid that and all the rest at any cost.

[Allard]

Native Russian and I enjoy the delusion that I'm fairly fluent at English (even as I indulge said delusion by writing in the most pompous and prickish way possible).

[Da_Shocker]

I only really speak English. US education and culture don't encourage bilingualism if English is your first language. I know small amounts of Spanish, French, and Japanese, but not enough to have a real conversation. I took French in high school and Japanese in college but didn't get very far in either case. The Spanish comes from just growing up and living in California.

My mom's side of the family is from Scotland and my grandfather was very Scottish. If it's counted as a language, I understand Scots well but I can't really speak it back. Scots dictionaries tend to just give definitions of Scots words in English rather than translating both ways.

I thought that was just in the south. I sadly don'y speak any other languages would love to learn Japanesecand Spanish though.

[cyburg]

English is my main language and the one i learned first. I also know french. I might learn Italian or Spanish soon though.

[Nightwolf]

Spanish and "engrish"... But ey, now living in UK, hopefully I can learn proper English someday!!!

[bultje112]

I'm fluent at dutch and english and my german is close to fluent. I also understand frisian, but I don't plan on ever speaking that. I also understand and speak a little spanish.

german looks a lot like dutch, so it was easy. it's grammar is really hard though (although not as hard as dutch), which is why I'm not fluent. my girlfriend is actually a german teacher, so she is fluent.

I want to learn japanese and also afrikaans. the latter should be pretty easy since it's basically dutch as well.

[bultje112]

Greek, English and Afrikaans. The latter is basically a bastardized version of the Dutch language.

I could say I understand afrikaans 100% as well. I was in morocco not too long ago and met some older people from the west-kaap who I fully understood and who fully understood my dutch. I think it is easier for afrikaners to understand dutch than vice versa though, because it is indeed a bastardized, simplified dutch. Although I love the sound of afrikaans.

[Yharnamresident]

I'm fluent at dutch and english and my german is close to fluent. I also understand frisian, but I don't plan on ever speaking that. I also understand and speak a little spanish.

german looks a lot like dutch, so it was easy. it's grammar is really hard though (although not as hard as dutch), which is why I'm not fluent. my girlfriend is actually a german teacher, so she is fluent.

I want to learn japanese and also afrikaans. the latter should be pretty easy since it's basically dutch as well.

Full respect. I live in Canada but my ancestry is completely Germanic, so by default its my favourite language family.


Yea Frisian is the language that was brought from Northern Germany to England in the 7th century, its basically the brother of English.