So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Because it only took Viking-Sensei three years (and the approaching end of Errant Story) to come up with a better name for "General Discussions"
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What language(s) do you speak?

English
20
45%
French
5
11%
Spanish
3
7%
Italian
0
No votes
German
4
9%
Japanese
3
7%
Arabic
0
No votes
Classical Languages (I understand some Latin or Greek)
4
9%
Other (Please specify when you post)
5
11%
 
Total votes: 44

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Imp-Chan
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So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Imp-Chan »

Something struck me when I was reading through that thread about the linguistic origins in Errant Story. We all seem to be a remarkably multi-lingual bunch! Maybe it's just because a relatively high percentage of our readers live in the EU, or maybe it's because so many of us seem to be exceptionally geeky, or maybe it's something else... but we have a lot of linguistic backgrounds mixed up here, and so I'm curious as to just what our community background really is.

Thus, a poll! Tell us what your first language is, and why/how you learned whatever else you speak. Tell us how conversant you are (or consider yourself to be). Tell us how you FEEL about language. My curiosity will not be denied!

^-^'

Note: If you feel you could travel to the country where the language is spoken, and you could survive with whatever language skills you've already got and no translator, or if you feel you could watch a movie entirely in the other language with no subtitles and get at least a passing idea of what's going on, then check that language as one you speak, and clarify how well you speak it in your post.
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mindstalk
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by mindstalk »

I can't claim to be fluent in anything besides English, right now. I learned Latin well enough to translate Catullus and Horace, though with a lot of looking things up -- my mother had me skip from Latin I to Latin IV. I've dabbled in studying Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese, but it's all pretty minimal. Oh, and I forgot all the Latin due to disuse. :(
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Slamlander
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Slamlander »

Of mother tongues, I have two. They are Dutch and English. For the rest and directly from my CV;

English: American educated, native fluency at all levels (converse, read, and write) and multiple dialects.
Dutch: Able to converse at native fluency (first language), literate (converse, read, and write).
German: Have had at least 3 years of classroom instruction plus 2.5 years living in Germany. Limited fluency, (converse, read, and write).
French: Have had at least 2 years of classroom instruction and currently residing in French-speaking area (Nyon, CH).
Spanish: Have had at least 2 years of classroom instruction and some practical experience in a Spanish-speaking area (Los Angeles, CA, US).

It usually surprises people to find out that English is my second language and that I am not as good in Dutch as I am in English. I learned Dutch first and never even heard English until I was 6-7 years old.

PS. Oh and that's just the ones that I formally acknowlege. I have had exposure to Malaysian/Indonesian,Japanese and Chinese as well, from my days at TEC (Tokyo Electric Company). Only they are long unused and shot through with rust.
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Forrest
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Forrest »

I marked English and the Classical option, but while I am a native and quite literate English speaker/reader/writer, I must severely qualify the Classical part.

I've studied a small amount of Spanish; I took one year in high school and another year in junior college. I also live in an area with a good deal of Spanish around me (southern California). So I've got a rudimentary grasp of Spanish with a rather limited vocabulary, and I'm comfortable speaking it around people who don't really speak much Spanish at all, though I'm generally not comfortable speaking it around fluent speakers for fear of sounding like an idiot. But I can order in Spanish at Taco Bell well enough to make sure my weird orders are right (e.g. un chalupa con solamente frijoles, queso, y salsa queso de nachos, y nada mas), and I can confusingly explain to people who ask me if I do speak it that "hablo Español solamente un poquito, no muy mucho". Both of which I probably just butchered. But damnit... now I wish I could go back and check Spanish on my poll response, cause I do speak it a little bit.

Anyway... In middle school I studied an even smaller amount of Latin, and this spurred a lifelong amateur interest in etymology and comparative linguistics, which has left me able to roughly translate words or short phrases from most Romance languages (and a number of Germanic ones) after a moment's thought. The above bit about Spanish ties in here in that English-Spanish comparisons were at the root of this, and my vocabulary in those two languages are all that enable me to perform this back-of-the-envelope etymological translations. Getting a degree in philosophy also helped there a lot, what with all the specialized fields of study, schools of thought, technical concepts and so forth being named after Greek and Latin words. I'm definitely not fluent in any of these classical languages, but e.g. when I first saw a preview for "The Golden Compass" (having never heard of the books before), my interest was sparked mostly by the term "alethiometer", my immediate thought being "a truth meter, you say? Interesting..."

I think I must have understood more Latin back when I was studying it than I do now, because I recently found a sketch book of mine from that era and in it was written "Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes", which I couldn't understand today, but which Google results translate as "if you can read this, you are overeducated."

Oh also, I can sing a couple songs in Arabic and Ladino (the latter being a descendent of Medieval Spanish as passed down by Jewish exiles from Spain in the 5th century or thereabouts), but for the most part I have no idea what it is that I'm saying when I do so.
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BandMan2K
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by BandMan2K »

American English and I still fuck up on shit. I get smatterings of words and maybe phrases for a few languages but not enough to do anything other than look like a complete git. Tried to learn Spanish in high school but hated the pathetic language & the teacher. If I could, I would learn Japanese but I'd murder that too.
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Viking-Sensei »

You leave my mother's tongue out of this!

(rereads post title)

Oh... wait... nevermind.

No, I'm a fluent American English speaker, however through various medium I've absorbed unhealthy amounts of 'Britlandian English' too and can carry on a conversation with nominal translations required. I also speak "Gas Station Spanish", in that I now know hundreds of words and phrases when it comes to the buying and selling of gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and prepaid cell minutes. I also know how to say "I'm calling the INS" in three different languages, however have only had cause to use it in one of them.

In addition to that, while I can't speak Japanese, my constant watching of subtitled anime over the last 15 years has left me with a basic comprehension, although all attempts I've made at actually learning the language officially have met with disaster. I also know a handful of words in my native tongue, Norwegian, although most of them can't be said in front of polite company.
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Cassanne
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Cassanne »

My mother tongue is dutch (so I could have secret conversations with slamlander, yay ;) ).
I'm fluent in english, both spoken and written, though perhaps not exactly on an (educated) native level.
I can hold conversations with Germans, but mainly bcause our languages are similar enough that we can understand eachother anyways. My german grammar is horrible though, even though I've had three years of it in school.
I did take some classes in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese once, which means I can read simple texts. In Spanish I could order food ;)
I actually took French on my high school exams, but I've almost completely forgotten all of it. I can read it ok, and kind of follow a film without subtitles, but would be too embarrassed to try and speak or write any.
With a dictionary I can make some sense of classis greece and latin. (Also passed my Latin exams once upon a time, hehe.)

I am fascinated by the fact that only 12/30 responders have checked english on that list...
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by zanntos »

English as my primary, currently studying Japanese though i'd hardly consider myself much beyond a starter level, maybe 2 or 3 steps beyond "fanboi-ese" since i can read the phonetics and about 3-400 of the Kanji though it's rusted a bit since i've been focusing on spoke/verbal at the moment. Also i favor subbed Anime so i can generally get the jist of what's going on even if i'm not looking at the text, be the specifics not so much, but enough to tell when the subs are particularly craptastic.

I GUESS i could have checked other if you want to count the half dozen computer languages i know :p

EDIT: @ Cassanne, since you can check multiple boxes up there the 13/30+ for english just means that the probably 13 of us that have filled it out happen to also check something else in our "know it" boxes, so it does indeed look like the lot of us have more just english as our background with language.
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Qylvard »

Swedish as native language, fluent (learner's) English as second.
I have studied French and Spanish, but forgotten a lot though not enough to not survive in respective country (it would probably come back to me somewhat) or be very lost watching a film. Shorter texts would probably work too. I've picked up enough German to do the same for that.
Faking Norwegian or Danish is also possible as they are just beyond the definition of seperate languages from Swedish. Prefably written Danish (the sound like they've the mouth full of food) and spoken Norwegian. (Leaving only Dutch in the most closely related language group. I would probably be able to make sense of a lot of secret conversations...)
Also cuss, say "hi", "I love you" and "thanks" and count to six in Finnish.

I like languages a lot. If my plan A for the future (becoming a musician and make a living out of it) fails i'll probably become some sort of linguist. I'm studying English at university level at the moment (phonetics is especially fun), and is thinking of taking up Spanish and French again, and maybe German. Possibly Russian too. A new alphabet would be an interesting challange.
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Re: So... what's YOUR mother tongue?

Post by Graybeard »

English, with enough fluency in French to not only survive in France but not embarrass myself too badly in the process, although it's not as good as it was a long time ago. Also some German and a tiny bit of Spanish. My attempts to learn Russian didn't turn out well.

I'm gratified that not only did Impy not list Visual Basic or C++ as options for the poll, nobody else has mentioned them either. Am I gonna regret raising the subject?
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