Who is Bilingual?

[Abelman]

That title certainly opens itself to dupe threads.

But, I'm wondering who here can speak two languages, and which was your first. And how many languages.

I am going to teach myself Spanish and any tips would be helpful. I am a native American English speaker, and I have previously only learned a handful of French words and became barely fluent in Ojibwe for about a week in college.

Lets have some Language Lessons!

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Je parle francais, un peu.

[CornField]

8. Same here

You'd think after having four years of French, I would have retained more. I can still read it fairly well and I can ask those most important questions, but that's about all that is left. I've been phoning my French-Canadian friend and forcing myself to use it more.

[Ellen Forradalom]

17. Join us in the Groupe Francophone!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=274

Your French doesn't need to be perfect, just give it the old college try!

[kedrys]

25. Si je peux me permettre...

L'invitation s'addresse à tous les intéressés?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. Oui, tout le monde

Je ne parle qu'un peu de français, mais on est tres gentil.

[kedrys]

52. Merci, je visiterai un de ces jours! :) n/t

[ohiosmith]

2. Does English and profanity count?

[Ellen Forradalom]

20. You mean 'Army Creole'

Two nouns, two adjectives, one verb, one adverb, all from the same root.

[kedrys]

3. Moi

French. It was an accident. :)

[TlalocW]

4. I'm somewhat fluent in Spanish

Have a degree in it, and I used to be way better. If you don't use it, you lose it. The two best things you can do is study the verb tenses - maybe take a class from a community college - and then find a native speaker who's willing to sit down and have conversations with you. The vocabulary will soon follow.

TlalocW

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

5. Ich spreche Deutsch .

English is my mother language , I learned German while living in Germany for 3 1/2 years :)

The tip I would give you is to totally immerse yourself into everything Spanish language related . Once you get a bit of the language down , make a point of listening to or watching for example news broadcasts in Spanish to pick of some of the flow of the speech . Thats what I did .

[pk_du]

6. Does English and Gibberish count? n/t

[GRLMGC]

7. hablo espanol

Unfortunately i don't know how to get the accent over the n but anyway, yeah, I speak Spanish. My mom taught me how to write in Spanish first and I learned to write in English at school. That was one of the best thing's she's ever done for me.

[RagingInMiami]

9. Fluent in English and Spanish

I was born and raised in Miami and my mother was born in Colombia.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

10. Tri

Portuguese, English, Spanish.

[da_chimperor]

11. Ich kann ein bischen Deutch sprechen

aber ich kann viel mehr verstehen als sprechen order schreiben. Die Deutsche sprache ist nicht einfach. :( Hopefully kellanved will come by and correct my grammar . . .

I also know quite a bit of dutch and can speak it pretty well when i'm drunk. So i'm working on being tri-lingual by taking german and picking up dutch, but i'm not there yet. :D

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

21. Ich habe alles dass Sie geschreiben haben , verstanden :)

[da_chimperor]

26. Super! n/t

[KDLarsen]

12. I'm tri-lingual (to some extent)

Danish is my native language, I write & speak english just about fluent (albeit with one mother of an accent) & I can understand most german.

And of course, I know enough French to get through a night out in France (Trois grand biere merci) :D

[da_chimperor]

19. I know an inappropriate phrase in danish, pity I have no idea how to write

it. x(

[nine23]

13. L'anglais et Français. English first.

[Book Lover]

14. English and Italian

I can also read (in declining order of proficiency) Latin, French, Ancient Greek, and a smidgen of Egyptian heiroglyphs. I used to know a few words of Elvish, too, but high school was a long time ago...

[Gryffindor_Bookworm]

15. Only if you count Latin.

And I'm tri-lingual if you count ASL.

[Abelman]

18. I think we can count Latin

What's ASL? American Sign Language? 'Cause that counts.

[Angry Girl]

34. Sona si Latine loqueris.

[McKenzie]

16. Doric and English

well, Doric isn't actually a language, it's a Scots dialect from Aberdeen. However, it's incomprehensible to anyone from outwith the area and is officially recognised as a foreign language by the Inland Revenue in Aberdeen.

I speak it fluently.

DORIC - INGLUSH

Ayye aye- Hello

Fit like?- How are you?

Foo ye deein?- How are you doing?

Nae bad- Not bad

Chavvin awa- So So

Far ye fae?- Where are you from?

Fit's yer name?- What's your name?

Fit ye deein in Aiberdeen?- What are you doing in Aberdeen?

Foo aul are ye?- How old are you?

Dinnae ken- Don't know

[Ellen Forradalom]

22. English, French, Hungarian

in decreasing order of fluency. Mikimouse and I are the Notorious Hungarian Threadjackers of DU.

I'm learning Hebrew right now, too.

[JimmyJazz]

23. I speak Russian

but this board doesn't have a cyrillic alphabet and I don't like to spell Russian phonetically.

[Angry Girl]

29. Vot kniga.

Yeah, it looks horrible in the Roman alphabet....

[JimmyJazz]

33. Here's a book?

:hi:

[Angry Girl]

36. I thought it was better than "durak"....

And I have no idea how I would spell "good" in non-Cyrillic....

[JimmyJazz]

41. harasho? ochen harasho? now you know why I don't

like to do this. :)

[Behind the Aegis]

24. multilingual

I speak English fluently, used to be fluent (still can speak well, need practice) in Spanish, know some French, Italian, Portuguese, very little German, can read Greek and Hebrew, some Russian. I also know tidbits in various other languages!

[Angry Girl]

27. Fluent in French, can get by in a few others

English came first but all my schooling (in Europe and Japan) was done in French until college, when I returned to the States.

Passable in German, although I haven't used it in a while. And my grammar sucks. That came in early childhood from German grandparents as well as taking German in school.

Some Italian and Spanish. I tend to mix the two up after I haven't used them in a while but the Mexicans here in Arizona understand, even if they have a good laugh occasionally. I did take some Italian in school as well. French is a great background for learning any of the Romance languages.

And, finally, totally useless unless I were a contestant in the Amazing Race, I can still read Russian but most of the time don't know what the hell I'm saying.... But perhaps this is true for my English as well....

My advice for learning languages is to grab a movie in the language you want to learn. Hopefully it will have subtitles so you know what's going on the first time or find a friend who's fluent.

Now just play that movie over and over and over again, even when you're not paying attention. Your brain will become familiar with the different sounds and certain words will come up over and over again. You'll find yourself dreaming in the language before long!

Go to the library and borrow videotapes and DVDs. And don't expect decent translations in the subtitles. When they translate, they are hampered by idioms as well as the timing of the actors's speech. So it's rarely accurate.

If you're learning Spanish, their soaps are great learning tools because it's usually pretty damn obvious what's going on. The only thing that might be annoying with their soaps is the loud sobbing and hysterical bawling many of the women stars seem to favor.....

damnit lookit the bloody time would you.... darn discussion forums....

[Abelman]

28. Just thought I'd say

Your avatar is cool.

[Angry Girl]

32. Tu es gentil!

Merci!

[Left Is Write]

30. I wish.

I studied Spanish for seven years, but in the last twenty years have not had enough opportunity for practical application. I imagine if I were immersed in a Spanish-speaking culture, it wouldn't take long to pick it up again, but for now, there's no way I could be considered bilingual. I only remember enough to passably get by.

[CO Liberal]

31. English & Pig Latin

:-)

I used to know some Church Latin, but the Catholic Church did away with Latin masses almost 40 eyars ago.

My late father was bilingual - English and Lithuanian. In fact, he was born in the Lithuanian section of Philadephia, and didn't learn to speak English until he started school. Bu the time I came around, he spoke with no accent, and was able to talk to my grandparents in fluent Lithuanian while they were still alive.

My Cuban foster brother was bilingual English and Spanish, and after seeing my father talking with his mother he decided that if he ever had kids, they would also be bilingual - and his daughters are bilingual as well.

[LiberalEsto]

35. Estonian

I was born in the US, but spoke only Estonian until kindergarten, then learned English just from going to school and copying my classmates(this was in the 1950s, before ESOL). My immigrant parents were fluent in Estonian, English, German and Russian, and knew that I would pick up English by total school immersion at age 5, and they were right.

My parents didn't let me speak English at home, and sent me to Estonian school every other Saturday. I'm still pretty fluent and managed okay visiting my Estonian cousins in 2003.

I spoke a little German as a child, and struggled through three years of high school German, as well as five years of French at my elementary school. Can barely say 3 or 4 words in either language.

FYI, Estonia is one of the 3 Baltic states that regained their freedom from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The language is close to Finnish.

[bettyellen]

37. OJe papi, todo eso es tuyo? Hola flaka! Tirame un weso!

pardon the spelling, but i didn't learn these in a classroom!

Hey Daddy, is that all yours?
Hello skinny, throw me a bone!

[u4ic]

38. English

and Jibberish. In fact, I think I'm more fluent in the latter.:P

[Squeech]

39. Learning Portuguese (slowly)

Every year or so I get to spend three weeks in Brazil. Each time I go my Portuguese gets noticeably better. I don't practice enough between trips, but I try to read Portuguese books and magazines, and I'm always alert for bilingual puns.

Mrs. Squeech learned (before I was in the picture) by conversing with a *lot* of Brazilians and by watching Globo (Brazilian television) on videotape, and by translating Caetano Veloso song lyrics.

[qnr]

40. ho dimenticato il mio italiano

But I do still speak all sorts of wierd codes I learned in regards to communications and computing... does that count?

[Kellanved]

42. well

English and German
forgot a lot of Latin
a little Italian, French, Spanish and Dutch (I wouldn't starve, but maybe get lynched).

[Merrick]

43. A recommendation

Buy a novel written in Spanish along with its English translation, and read them side by side. Get a Spanish/English dictionary as well for the words you have trouble matching up. This way you'll learn conjugation, sentence structure, vocabulary etc. all at once while reading a story, and the further you get, the faster it'll go. I was doing this with Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" until my books got ruined this weekend by a G.D. leaky roof that my rental management company better pay for... but I digress.

best way to learn IMO.

[leftofthedial]

44. does cunnilingual count?

[qnr]

45. I like watching DVDs with French or Spanish audio and English

subtitles some times. Don't know if that will really help or not.

[Deja Q]

46. Well, James Bond isn't. He's only a cunning linguist.

:evilgrin: :puke:

[Amaya]

47. sortir la poubelle

:)

[LynzM]

48. English, ASL, French, German

In order of learning them. In terms of retention, German much outpaces the other two, having lived there for 9 months. French is passable but not good, anymore, sadly.

Suggestions... comic books, children's books (to start), internet radio (www.mikesradioworld.com --> the Europe section is great!), TV, magazines, movies, local college exchange students who'd go out for bilingual coffee with you. Whatever you can do to expose yourself to the language, even while you're not paying attention, will help! There are lots of DVDs that will teach you (Muzzy is a good one, check eBay for deals...) if you want to spend the money for that.

Have fun! und viel Spass!

[Miami Liberal]

49. English and Spanish

my advice to you is watch Spanish language tv, even the cheesy novelas, you will learn it in time.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

50. My strongest foreign language is Japanese, but

I grew up with German-speaking relatives and have also studied French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese, as well as little bits of other languages.

I agree with the suggestion of keeping up with a language by renting videos and reading comic books and popular novels.

In Japan, the comic books are the one place where spoken Japanese is written out verbatim, including slang and sloppy pronunciation. But during my student year, I also watched a lot of TV on the recommendation of my American professors. It was a fine excuse to be a tatami potato and also taught me a lot about behavioral culture.