Anyone speak other languages?

[Jaymzflood]

Im currently learning Italian with podcasts on my iPhone,

Anyone else learning or know another others?

Oh, and I now know more Italian than I do Welsh....Its because I dont know ANY welsh! lol

 

[AndyJDickson]

did a bit of french in my youth (madatory in school) and have being dabbling in maderin but to be honest its taking all my brain power to learn english

 

[Chiseller]

Does hillbilly an pikey count ?

 

[nunzionuk]

I know some french and german, but not enough to get by without help.

Want to learn Swedish which is my plan for this year.

 

[Jaan]

I know English!

I can also understand a lot of Finnish, but it's similar to Estonian.

 

[Jaymzflood]

if you have an iPod/iPhone/iPad, log onto itunes, and have a look for "My daily phrase" and choose the desired language. Its amazing and you learn 5 minutes everyday rather than 30 minutes a week! Much more effective and just focuses on the start of a conversation first. Brilliant. And if you want to learn italian (which i reccoment the tutor Mark is excellent, scottish fella) its awesome

 

[John Fenna]

I used to be fluent in French (I lived in Belgium for 10 years) and have smatterings of other languages (mainly swearing and ordering booze type stuff) as well as at one time understanding a fair bit of Afrikaans...

 

[Biker]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced.

The other day I couldn't remember the word "Organic", knew the word for it in French but for the life of me that word wouldn't come to the fore. Gave up in the end blagged something else using another word.

I can get by in French but living here does help keep it going and having the Michel Thomas CD's has given me a good grounding in the language. He also does a course in Italian too.

 

[Opal]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced.

The other day I couldn't remember the word "Organic", knew the word for it in French but for the life of me that word wouldn't come to the fore. Gave up in the end blagged something else using another word.

I can get by in French but living here does help keep it going and having the Michel Thomas CD's has given me a good grounding in the language. He also does a course in Italian too.

That's it innit? having someone to talk to, I get by with smatterings of Greek and Spanish on holidays and have language discs and books` to help but there's nothing like a human to help you along.

 

[John Fenna]

That's it innit? having someone to talk to, I get by with smatterings of Greek and Spanish on holidays and have language discs and books` to help but there's nothing like a human to help you along.

So t
rue!
Without practice and contact with native speakers of a language I find that now my language skills are very "rusty"....

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced.

The other day I couldn't remember the word "Organic", knew the word for it in French but for the life of me that word wouldn't come to the fore. Gave up in the end blagged something else using another word.

I can get by in French but living here does help keep it going and having the Michel Thomas CD's has given me a good grounding in the language. He also does a course in Italian too.

How true !, ...........I've had the Bio/organic lapse too....
I often have to edit my posts as upon re-reading them afterwards I find that I have used a French word or expression which would be uncomprehensible to anyone not speaking French ......

 

[HeltorChasca]

Shona is mine. Although once fluent and as a 2nd language I would struggle to catch up unless I heard/spoke it every day. Sadly I can't use it much down her in Somerset.........hc

 

[blacktimberwolf]

So t
rue!
Without practice and contact with native speakers of a language I find that now my language skills are very "rusty"....

Same for most things, if you don't use it, you loose it

 

[born2roam]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced......

I suspected that for a while.... though it doesn't explain others who speak over 6 languages fluently....

But yes, local help, practice, practice, practice and the NEED helps a lot. Most English speakers have a lot less NEED to learn another language. Dutch, Danish, Swedish... yeah heck who else speaks it but the Dutch, Danish, Swedish and maybe there neighbors.

In Holland, I learned [at school], besides Dutch, German, French and English. My French is almost non existent now. I picked up Spanish in Guatemala, got quite good at it and when I tried to learn (Brazilian) Portuguese I just couldn't get my mind to it.

But I always try and learn some more words, wether it is Swedish (my last challenge), Thai, Malay/Indonesian....

Might try out the iTunes thingymagit...

Grtz Johan

 

[udamiano]

not to bad in German, can usually get by. got the Drinks ordering down to a fine art

 

[Jaymzflood]

I was reading a blog recently about a guy who was wanting to up his spanish skills, he was english and lived in spain. So for a month he swore to himself he was only going to use the spanish he knew and not speak a word of english and not even 'think' in english. By the end of that month he was more or less fluent in Spanish and he wrote an ebook explaining how to do it, it was an awesome read and inspired me to do italian. but id like to find an italian friend or other learner so we can regularly chat and continue learning.

 

[boatman]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced.

The other day I couldn't remember the word "Organic", knew the word for it in French but for the life of me that word wouldn't come to the fore. Gave up in the end blagged something else using another word.

I can get by in French but living here does help keep it going and having the Michel Thomas CD's has given me a good grounding in the language. He also does a course in Italian too.

What evidence that you "fill" the brain up? Its the recall that might be having problems not the storage and is why we had soldier's Hindi and indeed probably our modern version of English anyway. "Cuppa char?" but not, as Bush said, that the French do not have a word for entrepreneur

 

[Elines]

Word of warning to others tempted to learn another language. Your brain has a place reserved for it called the language centre. It has limited amount of space in there. Thus anything new you add to it such as another language something gets replaced/overwritten so expect your ability to remember English words to be great reduced.

.......................................

When you get to a certain age I think you'll find that anything new edges out all the stuff that is already there!

So t
rue!
Without practice and contact with native speakers of a language I find that now my language skills are very "rusty"....

For about 18 months now I have been speaking for an hour every week on skype with an Italian bloke (Maurizio) - who is now a good friend - with half an hour all in Italian and half an hour all in English. I think that this weekly contact is just about the next best thing to living there or living with a native speaker. I spend about an hour before our conversazione preparing generally for what I want to say and how I will say it - but don't use a prepared script. The benefits of this continual practice really showed when I last went to Italy a few months ago. I felt more comfortable there than I ever have before.

I got in touch with him via this site - Conversation Exchange - it is free.

However ..... you need a basic knowledge of the language before you can do this - I had been learning Italian on and off for about 7 or 8 years (but not been to any classes for over 4 years) when I first used the site. It is good way of practicing and improving but NOT for initial learning. It is a place to have a conversation so don't expect lessons.

On the plus side ..... there are a lot more Italians who want to learn English than there are English wanting to learn Italian so you shouldn't have a problem finding someone suitable. I say 'suitable' because I could have chosen from several young Italian women but decided against them because - in all honesty - I didn't think I would have enough in common with them to carry on conversations long term. (I don't like shopping for shoes).

As I say, Maurizio is now a good friend and because of Conversation Exchange, I have stayed with him and his family and he is due to come over and stay with mine

I'd also strongly support the Michel Thomas CDs. Even after 4 years of evening classes I still learned a tremendous amount from them. The Spanish and German ones are also very good (but not tried out the French ones) and have now forgotten most of the Spanish and German as I used them to prepare for holiday so not used those languages for several years.

I got the CDs out of the library and copied them. I used to listen to them in the car on the way to work and so used time that would otherwise be wasted. I suppose these days you would copy them on to your phone/MP3 player etc

 

[xylaria]

Im currently learning Italian with podcasts on my iPhone,

Anyone else learning or know another others?

Oh, and I now know more Italian than I do Welsh....Its because I dont know ANY welsh! lol

Ymuno a'r clwb!!!
dw i'n dsygu cymreag, dylwn i fod wedi ceiso dsygu Eidal!

[join the club!!! i am learning welsh, i should of tried to learn italian]

welsh is a very difficult language, I rekon if I can crack it I could learn any other european language.

 

[Biker]

What evidence that you "fill" the brain up? Its the recall that might be having problems not the storage and is why we had soldier's Hindi and indeed probably our modern version of English anyway. "Cuppa char?" but not, as Bush said, that the French do not have a word for entrepreneur

No evidence to speak of, just learning new stuff shoves other stuff the older less used out my ears as Elines said. Maybe I should have put a "" after that paragraph.

As for those who can speak 6 languages I'm guessing they were born with a bigger hard drive and more RAM

Good luikc on those learning. Good idea using skype as a way of keeping it retained.

When I say living over here helps I can go days without meeting another Frenchman, but when I came over here I had just "hello" , "please" and "thank you" in French. So I consider myself not naturally academic wise but I managed to learn a bit over the years. The next few months will see my take a lot bigger steps in learning more about this language.