Lets see. In my years of schooling I took: French (once in 6th grade then a 1 year course compressed into 4 months in 2013...don't ask.) Spanish (two years in high school, though I wish I paid more attention considering what I'm getting into now) German (one semester) Arabic (one year)
I made the poll like it is based of 3 schools in my area, I had no idea so many different languages were studied!
I can confirm there are at least 28 countries represented here on EMC. I have a long running thread (since February) about what countries are represented on EMC. I don't want to hijack your thread but I can pm you a link if you'd like.
I took french from middle school to senior year of high school, and I can guarantee with absolute certainly that I know what "fromage" is
I was in France and the weird yogurty chocolate milk was labelled Fromage fraise or something like that, if I recall correctly.
Im currently taking sign language. And I'm planning on taking it for the next few years in high school
I've been learning Spanish for 7 years and I really enjoy it Also I'm gonna learn sign language and learn braille on my own
I swear in Swedish pretty often. I have no idea why. I don't even know Swedish, I have no intention of learning it, and I have never attempted to learn it. It all started when I began trying to swear in German whenever I stubbed my toe or something, but I just ended up instinctively yelling out the f word in Swedish. Last time I did this I was 13 and was probably trying to imitate PewDiePie. It's so... weird.
Foreign languages? English. You missed that on the poll I know it's not foreign for you, but it is to me (was anyway). The best part about learning another language, in my opinion, is that at a given point you can actually use it to learn more about it. With that I'm referring to knowing a language well enough to recognize words which you don't know and solely judging on context being able to make an educated guess on what the meaning would be. If you can understand and laugh about language jokes in a foreign language you're really starting to get the hang of it. I know Dutch (duh, native), English (decent in speaking/reading&writing), German (decent in speaking and reading (reading with some effort) but I have severe issues with writing). I know some very basic French words, can read some but that's where it ends. And since a good 8 or so years I've also started to somewhat study Japanese. But my German is a funny story in itself... If you got kids and if you want them to learn a foreign language: put them in front of a TV with an interesting show which is broadcasted in said foreign language. And continue that for a few years. It works, I consider myself living proof When I was a little dipper we had 2 TV channels: "Nederland 1" and "Nederland 2" (Dutch TV). However, my father had also set up a pretty large antenna which allowed us to watch the German stations (ARD & ZDF) as well. And when the weather was good enough we could even get WDR. We all know Sesame Street, right? It's a classic, started in the good ole US of A and has seen many native adaptations. My parents always thought very poorly about the Dutch version of Sesame street ("Sesamstraat") so instead of feeding me that I got to watch Sesamstraße, the German version of Sesame street. And as a little kid I liked what I saw. I ended up watching a lot of German television in my youth. As a result I had little problems whenever we were on vacation in Germany. According to my parents I even managed to get myself lost during a vacation (not too much, a little out of the camping site), walked up to someone (who happened to be the owner / caretaker of said camping site) and I asked them in decent enough German where "the camping site was" (while being 20 or so meters away from it, what a goof). With decent I mean they knew exactly what I was asking, where I needed to go so they told me to get lost Naah: they told me that I was being silly because the camping site was "right over there", after which I apparently thanked them and told them that I was being stupid. How did my parents know? Because after the owner said their goodbyes to me he didn't let me out of his sight and made sure that I got back to the caravan safely, after which he informed my parents who were very happy. He even complimented me on my German. Yah... And then school happened I got the worst scores in German ever, it drove my teacher nearly insane and the moment I could I dropped it and focussed on English instead. The problem: German is a decently difficult language which has many verbs. And when doing tests I messed them all up. But what drove my teacher completely mad was the fact that whenever he asked me something (a test, but I didn't know) verbally I got it right. I even got the stuff right which most of the class failed at. The cause was very simple: I pretty much knew the right structures and the right words, but I was clueless about the theory. I knew because I spend 5 or so years watching German television, so I easily recognized sentences and such and knew how to form them. But I was clueless on the theory behind it. Oh well.... Right now Germany, and Berlin in particular, is my favourite vacation spot. And I still rely on what I learned in my youth, with the major difference that I'm now also aware of that. The first day I'm in Germany I always struggle a little bit, but after that I soon realize that I should just let it go (stop thinking about it) and yeah.. no problems. But in all fairness: it also helps that a lot of Germans are very friendly, welcoming and awesome people. I was alone on my first vacations in Germany and always spend some time in the hotel bar. Not so much for the drinks, but most for the chatter (and the free newspaper, but I never said that ). Never underestimate bar chatter, it can be the best. If you like "city vacations" and you truly want to learn more about said city? Go into a bar, have a coffee and start listening and talking. I met some of my best German friends this way (and still keep in touch with 2 of them on a regular basis, long live the Internet!). Uh oh... and another rant.. Excuses, zal niet weer gebeuren Verzeihung.. Apologies But seriously folks... If you like city vacations then I can recommend Berlin. A very warm and nice city. Sure, it's not perfect, it also has its "weird" areas. But in general.. Back to Minecraft
My second language is Spanish. Im Hispanic/Latina Most of my family is from Spain and/or Puerto Rico. On both sides my parents were the first to be born in the States so Spanish is the first language to most of my family. I do not speak it perfectly but I can understand it almost perfectly I'm still "eh" at it but can read, write and speak it pretty well. One of the high schools I went to was founded by a Turkish man and most of the staff was Turkish so there was a Turkish club I went to after school for fun since my best friend there was Turkish The next year they actually made it a class so I took it for credits (and also because I loved the language) If you know Spanish it's actually not that hard to learn Turkish since some of the letters sound the same I can read, write and speak it but not fluently. If I went to Turkey I could def get around asking questions when needed or make small talk but prob couldn't hold a whole convo haha. My best friend who was Turkish was born in Russia and lived there until they had to leave so she was fluent in Russian and taught me some. I can't hold a conversation but I like to think I say the words correctly I could read it but probably can't tell you what I just read lol I want to perfect my Spanish eventually and learn more Turkish and Russian and hopefully also learn some Italian, French, German and Mandarin or any other language really I Iove learning
I shall bump this. So, as it turns out, this was a lie. Not a total lie - I'd simply forgotten a lot of it. After speaking to a Puerto Rican and Venezuelan and reawakening some of my knowledge, I've discovered I can speak it on a conversational level. It's not perfect but I'm far more fluent in it than I am in German (as in, I know more words - although the words I know in German I know the meaning of as soon as I see them, but I also can't grasp proper German grammar (but I can with Spanish)). It just tires me out when I try to use it.
