Languages

Although I only speak English fluently, I love learning phrases in different languages.

I think that English is a fairly ugly language and I love learning new ones, however, I don't learn usual ones like French and Spanish. I'm kind of in the middle of learning, Japanese, Russian and Lithuanian.

Japanese is such a fun language to speak, it's bouncy and has such enjoyable inflictions. Sounds geeky but I really do love it. Especially 'watashi no hoberkurafto wa unagi de ippai des' which means 'my hovercraft is full of eels'. They have such a great way of talking and it's not as formal as everyone thinks. The only problem is the lettering. I've learned hirigana which is a method of writting syllable by syllable but it is often only used for names and colloquial writing. I am learning katakana which is more common but beside these two alphabets there is kanji which is seen when a word is represented by one symbol, not syllabically. Of course, there is romanji which is English lettering but it is only used for names and companies.

Russia is incredibly challenging. The pronounciations contain several syllables the English don't use and the alphabet is a lot different. The english alphabet derives from latin (alpha-beta) but the Russian letterign system does not and includes different symbols. What's really confusing is when they use 'r' to mean 'g'. The language itself is challenging but by no means unenjoyable. I love words such as 'spasiba' which means thank you and 'dolce nemonogr' which means just a little. However, words like 'hsur' (meaning good) are incredibly difficult to pronounce as the 'h' is just a breathy 'huh' sound and the R is rolled so it's more like 'huhshurrrrrr'. Fun language though and it's so useful when people annoy you because you are justified to threaten them with 'kolkolkol' which is like the Russian version of the gestapo only three hundred times more violent.

Lithuanian is a pretty language but again, the alphabet is slightly different, containing accents and inflictions that aren't used in English lettering. It's a really sweet language though and sentences such as 'Sveiki, taip sekasi?' (Hi friend, how are you?) are simple to pronounce. I'm still learning as I've said before but the language is really simple from what I've gathered and although not often spoken, it's very enjoyable to learn.

Does anyone else enjoy languages and if so, what languages are you learning?

Spanish is my mother tongue. English is my second language. I took Mandarin Chinese since 2nd grade while learning English and I still brush up on that. I started taking French my freshman year of high school and am pretty fluent now. And the current language I am learning is Japanese. Next will be Finnish. Oh, I took German for eight weeks, but that was a total fail. I transferred back to Chinese as I found that easier.

Wow that's certainly a lot....I know a few websites that might be helpful for your Japanese if you'd like them.

^___________^ I'd appreciate it tons. I'm learning it through Rosetta Stone now and it's pretty effective, but it never hurts to learn other ways.

I used to speak French but I've forgotten most of it now. Which is a bummer seeing as I did it for ten years or so. I never really got on with learning languages though

http://www.digitaldialects.com/Japanese.htm

This is a really good one for vocabulary!

I did French for three years and can't remember anything other than 'je ma pelle' and 'je nai pas palle francais' haha

I don't think that you should really call our mother tongue 'ugly' Soph, it's not that ugly.

And think about it, we have such amazing words in it, like bubble and bobble and wibble and wobble.

And when you actually come to think of it, English isn't English. It's a huge hybrid of words from all over the world. We've stolen so many words from other countries like 'mayor', and 'prince' from the French (though this isn't surprising seeing as we had a French King on our throne for several years) and even taking words from the originial Britons (Celts) with words like 'crag' etc.

(yeah i know that those are only a few small suggestions but i can't remember any more atm - this is what a Lit and Lang course teaches you xD)

And it's really only when you look back through the history and see what English used to be like, what Old English really is (it's unbelievably hard to read) and derived from North West Germany with a heavy influence of religion around the the time of 1066, if you want an example of Old English look up the original ballad of Beowulf, from Scandanavian folklore i think. Then came Middle English (which is commonly mistaken for Old English) which is Chaucer. The first person to write in English with his 'Canterubury Tales' which again, if you look at the copies of the original version of the stories are very difficult to read but you can see where some of today's word started out.

Then came Shakespeare and several other writers in the sixteenth century and it goes on from there.

So I don't really see how anyone could think the English language as 'ugly' so shush =P

You know what i'm like with languages, i know a few words in Japanese my favourite being 'Teme' = bastard ^.^ mostly learned from teh many anime's i've watched over the years.

I learned Spanish for four years and can quite clearly remeber how to count up to twenty...and how to say thank you...but not much else. I used to know a few Italian phrases and a few Latin phrases for a story that never went anywhere and I can remember a few things from French, my favourite being 'je deteste la francais' but my favourite language is the language of my country.

Welsh.

Rwy'n dwli ar Cymraeg!

Dont' get to use it much but it's still epic to confuse people with it xDD

Fy enw i yw Sophie a fy hoff dafodiaith i yw Cymraeg! How did I forget Cymraeg?!?!?!

Welsh is my mother tongue! Mother land. Mother Russia. Become one with Mother Ru- NO! Don't use the term mother tongue, Sophie. Ok!

I love how much you know about the english language and although Iagree that selected words such as Bubble, Discombobulate and Fishfinger are amazing words. The mojority of the lanugage is so confused with other language that we have no definitive flow. Um, try to think of how french flows, and how italian is all bouncy and cute and how russia is all husky and purred. Then think of how enlgish has so many different textures and sounds that it doesn't have a definable flow. But the accents certainly help to hide that. English is a sexy accent at least.

Also, new game!
The most important word you will ever know in:
Welsh: twpsen (idiot)
French: je deteste le Francais (i hate the french)
Spanish: Mi casa tu casa (my house is your house)
Italian: PASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (pasta)
German: Ich bin ein Kinderschänder (I am a child molester ((lol a friend of mine taught me this)))
Lithuanian: Atsiprasau, duok man. (excuse me, give me that)
Russian: Станьте 1 с матушки-России (become one with mother russia)
Japanese: Damate teme (stop it, bastard)

And I can't think of any others I know. Lol you guys can play too, just put your one personal favourites and add more if you can.

Soph...the spanish is wrnog. It should be Mi casa es su casa =PP

((i did learn something from psanish after all! yay!))

Oh pshhhhhhhh
I couldn't think of anything! ...and you can't blame me! I didn't take Spanish seriously!

Lol how could you with Mr. Hall?

"Right class um right um well today um we're going to um um start with um number um right -twitch- um so we'll just listen um to the tape um -twitch-"

You forgot *runs fingers over edge of paper as though folding it* -twitch-

how could I forget that?

*is a bad person - has now started learning Polish too*

Why am I addicted to languages!?!?!?!? ебать!! (means fuck in Soviet) I'm a language kurwa!!!! (kurwa meaning whore in Polish)

HELP ME!