Job Discussion Forums

Kaysera103 · Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Canada

I spent 10 weeks in Costa Rica, taught myself some Spanish before I went and picked it up pretty quick while there, but when I returned home to a town with many French speakers right across the river from Quebec I had the same problem. I was fairly fluent in French having done some years in immersion in school, but I could only nod for fear of answering in Espanol.

zhamr · Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 128 Location: Darwin, Australia

English (mother tongue) & Chinese (普通话）

It took a good two years to develop a high level of fluency in spoken Chinese. Literacy in the traditional and simplified scripts is something of a life-long pursuit.

dagi · Joined: 01 Jan 2004 Posts: 425

I was raised bilingual so I speak German and Dutch fluently. As I grew up in Germany, Dutch always came second and I consider German to be my first language.
At school I learned English, started at age 11 and continued classes until I was 21. Travelled a bit and as practice makes perfect I am on a near-native level now.
Because I have a crush on Afrikaans I have a good reading comprehension but cannot speak Afrikaans and as I never ever listened to someone talking Afrikaans I have no real idea what it sounds. But I do read entire books in Afrikaans.

some waygug-in · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Posts: 339

I'm not sure I would call myself fluently bi-lingual, but I can speak enough Spanish to get by in most situations, can read Spanish newspapers and understand about half. (I think) I lived in Mexico for a year and a half, as well as visited there several times afterward.

I studied French for 2 years in university, and though I don't speak much French at all, I can understand enough written French to get by if need be.

Now, I am studying Korean...........aigo (that means Oh my ...) what a task that is! I never in my wildest dreams thought something could be so difficult! (and I hear it is simple compaired to Japanese)

I can sure see why Koreans have such a hard time learning English. Their language and thought processes are so completely alien to me.
And I did use the word "alien" as in someone from another planet because I really do feel like that some days.

3 years in Korea and my Spanish is still way better than my Korean, I think my French might even be better than my Korean! Laughing

yaramaz · Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2005 9:23 pm Post subject:

Dagi,

If you speak dutch, Afrikaans shouldn't be a problem. Afrikaans has been referred to (condescendingly) by Dutch and Flemish folk as kindergarten dutch, or kiddie dutch. I lived with an Afrikaner for three years and spent a lot of time in SA, picking up a lot of the lingo along the way. When I returned to Europe I discovered that I understood a lot more Dutch and Flemish than I had realised. I think the main difference is that Afrikaans is slightly softer and less phlegmy than Dutch (to my ears anyway) and a bit less sing songy.

tot siens!

Very Happy

guru · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Posts: 156 Location: Indonesia

Indonesian and English. I speak English at School and Indonesian at home.

deezy · Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 1:45 pm Post subject:

Native English speaker
German and French pretty good
farsi : used to be fluent, but if you don't use it you lose it (and I think I lost it)
survival Chinese but improving.

guangho · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Posts: 476 Location: in transit

sheepgirl · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 15 Location: Quebec Canada

English is my first language but I did my schooling in french and consider myself fluent in both. (Francais Quebequois - les francais de France disent que c'est pas la meme chose!) I'm learning Arabic, and having difficulties because I'm learning by myself from cd-roms and books so I can't ask questions of a native speaker. I always ask people whose first language isn't English (especially boyfriends/cute guys met in bars while backpacking) to tell me how to say basic words in their language (usually the word "sheep") so I know maybe 12 words in Shona, 6 in Nyanja, 2 in Fulani (mbali is sheep and gynako is shepherd), 1 of Slovak, etc...
When I was backpacking around Europe I knew about 12 words of spanish - but I was staying with a family in catalunya where they don't speak spanish anyways! By the time I left Spain I could speak enough spanish to find a room in a hostel, ask for directions, turn down propositions, etc... Then I went to Italy and found it so similar to french that I could easily find a room in a hostel, ask for directions, turn down propositions, etc... Then I went to Switzerland and couldn't understand a word even though I was there for a couple of weeks - partly because I was moving between different 'cantons', so they spoke a different version of swiss-german, and partly because German was so different from any of my other languages. I never did pick it up enough to converse. I have some funny stories of miscommunication though... Good days don't make good stories. Sara

stillnosheep · Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 2068 Location: eslcafe

Dear sara,

Why "sheepgirl"?

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

sheepgirl · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 15 Location: Quebec Canada

guty · Joined: 10 Apr 2003 Posts: 365 Location: on holiday

sns,
why the sheep question?

demet · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 13

hi just reading the topic and thought I would take part in the pole. I am bilingual in English and Turkish

niko60 · Joined: 07 Jan 2005 Posts: 36

Fluent English, and Greek. Conversant French, and Spanish.