Are You Bilingual? How Did you Learn?

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I'm trilingual (sort of), I'm better speaking than writing
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I'm motherlanguage portughese, started to learn english at 11 and italian at 14, I'm also abble to understand french but I'm totaly analfabet! spanishis easy to understand but, for whom thtt speaks portughese and italian is a bit messy, you end speaking every language BUT spanish!

Getting a full immersion course is the best way to learn and improve vocabulary, also the best way to star speaking w/o be shy.

xoxo

 
I only speak english....I am trying to learn anishinabi which is my native american language. My dad and sister can speak it but I was adopted by an english speaking family...so I only know a word here and there. Kebutch means brat LOL

 
I was born in san diego, california and i'm a latina so my first language was spanish. but my parenst quite understoood that english was a necessary language if you live in the united states (btw both my parenst only speak spanish)..ok anyways i was placed in bilingual classes as soon as i started school. one cool thing is that in 8th grade i learned some french and even latin, but now its just a memory bc honestly i cant remember a thing! lol but i'll tell you something positive, when i met my husband he only spoke english. however, i wanted him to learn to speak some spanish because it was hard to be there all the time to translate when he spoke to my spanish speaking family. so i encouraged him to watch spanish shows, cartoons even hahaha, and i also would speak it to him and then translate, then he got into it and would ask me "how do u say this? and this? an this?" now, i can assure you he can get a job in mexico if he had to lol..the trick is you have to keep practicing it, surround yourself by people speaking it and talkkkk!

well g'luck, and atleast give it a try, it'll be a good experince!
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I`m Brazilian, so my first language is Portuguese. I learned english in school, and after that I took classes on a language school. I can understand spanish, but can`t really talk.

 
French is my mothertongue and I have learnt english by speaking to people on the internet. It only took a few months to learn. I can understand some spanish too.

 
I was born and raised in california but my parents forced me to learn how to read/speak/write in japanese. I hated it growing up because that meant more additional work on top of what I had from my regular school. But here I am so thankful for what my parents did. I was able to get jobs and great opportunities because of my parents.

 
Originally Posted by Karren /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had 10 years of spanish in 2nd through 12th grades and I learnt enough to get around Spain and Mexico.... And order un quarto de libre con queso (quarter pounder with cheese) at Mc Donald's in Madrid... lol hahahahahahhaa, that cracked me up! I speak English and Bosnian. I spoke German too, but when we left in '97 and came here there was no one my age I could speak it with. DARN IT!!! What a waste of a whole language!
 
I can fumble my way through Italian- my grandmother speaks it and I took a semester of it in college.

 
I am Scottish, legally British, but when I first went down to England I found that my accent was impenetrable to some.

I have two Scottish dialects on my tongue in addition to French from School and German from my SO, plus the hefty Bavarian dialect which, like is rather more difficult than any language. (Books with the words a few and far between in any local language).

~Samm

 
I would love to be able to speak other languages!

I studied the Greek language for a story I was writing a couple years ago, but don't remember any of it - except symbols you use in math
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I started learning Spanish a couple years ago, too, but I was doing at home by the use of videos and both the videos and the video player are so old sometimes there is not sound or it goes or fuzzy, so that's ol hold.

I wanted to learn French when I was a kid and tried to teach myself, but that didn't work.

I am thinking of taking up a course in Greek and French, and will eventually (hopefully) get DVDs so that I can finish learning Spanish. If I can get these three under my belt I would love to learn more languages as there is something amazing about speaking and listening to other languages!
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Heyhey, I speak fluently Finnish, Swedish, English and I've been studying Spanish for two years now, so yet a beginner with that one. Finnish is my native language and I started studying English at the age of nine and Swedish at the age of thirteen.( I'm seventeen now) I absolutely love languages even though the process of learning a new language is long and frustrating. So I'm sorry to tell you that it does take years and years to learn one. There's no easy way there, though the fastest way is of course to go to a place where you'll hear the language all the time around you and where you will have to use it. I spent last summer in Italy living in an Italian family and I can tell you that very soon i started to 'get the language' with what l mean that l learned words very quickly and i always knew what the others were talking about which was amazing since didn't speak Italian and I wasn't there to learn it either, though my studies in Spanish may have helped a bit.

Aaanyway, to make the learing faster listen to music, read book, watch series in that specific language, it has helped me a lot with English and Spanish. Even though it can be hard work, it's extremely rewarding.

All the best for you!
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thanks Desar! that's a crazy amount of languages right there that you speak! very impressive!

 
heh well dunno about that, Finland is a bilingual country due to our close history with Sweden so we have mandatory Swedish at school, which most students absolutely hate. I can speak the language but for what? For nothing. I'm not going to need it since l'm moving abroad, wouldn't need it here either though (only 5% of the population use that as their main language). So I master a language for nothing heh.

But when I enter uni I'm going to start studying Arabic and after that nooo new languages.

So anyway, where are you going?

 
Originally Posted by purplejasmine /img/forum/go_quote.gif im fluent in both english and japanese
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i studied french for 2 yrs, but my french sucks... sigh That's funny because it's sort of the opposite for me. I'm fluent in english and french(though admittedly I understand french better than I speak it) and i studied japanese for 2 yrs but my japanese sucks...

You can learn a language quite quickly if you use it regularly. Try to find an italian message board or forum and let the people there know you're trying to learn... or alternatively when you're in italy explain that you don't really know the language but you're trying to learn. You might be surprised how much people will help you.
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thanks for the tips ladies
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I'll be heading off to Italy in very late July! eek! it's creeping up a lot quicker than I'd like!

 
well..in speak polish, but... it's quite obvious:pPP i speak english and i know german a bit( i can write and understand a lot of things).I have spent about 9 months in England, so it helped me to improve a bit my spoken language and i have learnt it at school (but not very intensive
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The BEST (not easiest, not cheapest) way to learn a foreign language is to take a basic correspondence course (online, face-to-face tutor, class, software, books...whatever WORKS for you) and then visit a country where the language you want to know is spoken. Then immerse yourself.

Speak to the locals (don't worry, they won't make fun of you...much. Unless you're in Paris, but you know that of course). Find out who speaks your Native language (probably English?) and then ask questions, eg, How do you say...?, What does this mean...?, etc.

Join a message board where people are learning foreign languages. Try Babbel: http://www.babbel.com. It's fantastic for practicing ANY foreign language. And best: it's free.

 
thanks GP, I'm checking out that link now
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I don't think I'll really know how much (or how little! LOL) I've absorbed until I arrive!

 
Norwegian is my first language, but I'm okay at English too. I know SOME French too, but it's not good enough. If could I choose one other language it would be Spanish. Urdu and Arabian would also be tight to know..

What's really cool is if you're a foreigner in a non "English country." A lot of people knows Dutch, Arabian AND English. Same with with Farsi, Norwegian and English.

 

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