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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 201 of 204 25 February 2013 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm 28 years old.
German: Native tongue. My family speaks exclusively German and so did the entire environment in which I grew up. My only contact with foreign languages was restrained to some friends who had an immigrant background (mainly Italian, Turkish, or Polish) or English music on the radio. English: I started learning English in grammar school when I was 11 years old. I already knew some phrases before, but it was only then that I started to learn the language systematically. I had nine years of English at school, but it really began to take roots when I started reading English books and watching English series and movies in the original. A three-week trip to America was my only journey to an English-speaking country, but I had many other opportunities to use my English. It's the language I know best besides German. Latin: My second foreign language at school was Latin. I started learning it when I was 13. I had Latin classes for four years and finally passed the Latin certificate (Latinum), which is required for studying many subjects at German universities. At the end of my studies, we were translating Caesar, Ovid, and Pliny, but as I have barely used my Latin ever since I've forgotten a lot of vocabulary and inflectional paradigms. I tried to translate excerpts from Virgil's Aeneid on my own, but I never got very far. French: French was my third foreign language at school. I started it when I was 15 and took it for 3,5 years. It's my second best foreign language, as I can read more or less fluently in French, but I haven't spoken it for about ten years. Understanding colloquial French presents me with some problems, too, because of extreme liaison and other phenomena in spoken French. I have been to France once and I got around quite well with my French in all tourist situations. Italian: Italian was my first self-taught language. When I was about 14, I bought a computer-based Italian course and worked it through. Afterwards, I was able to communicate in tourist situations and to understand written Italian very comfortably. I have been to Italy twice and always got along very well without having to use English. Lately, I noticed my Italian had become a bit rusty, so I want to brush it up again in the near future. Swedish: Swedish was kind of my second self-taught language. I bought a Langenscheidt crash course in Swedish when I was about 15, but never got very far with it. I then took two semesters of Swedish at university when I was 21. After that, I was able to understand and to communicate in Swedish quite comfortably. I have never used my Swedish in real life, but I have read some books and watched some movies in it. I have always dreamed about visiting Stockholm and Lake Mälaren and I would love to talk to Swedes in their native language. Icelandic: I started studying Icelandic in June 2011 and worked through Colloquial Icelandic. After that, I didn't really know what to do with that language, but then I discovered Viltu læra íslensku?, an educational TV programme for learning Icelandic, which helped me improve my understanding of the spoken language. In 2012, I started reading Old Norse sagas in the original, which is quite easy with a solid background in Modern Icelandic. Nevertheless, I have mainly passive skills, but I would like to go to Iceland some time and use the language in real life. Russian: I would say Russian is the language I learned best relying solely on self-teaching material. I started in May 2012, worked through a Langenscheidt and a Colloquial course and am now starting on native material. I'm quite good at grammar, but I need more vocabulary and a better understanding of real-life spoken Russian. I would love to go to Moscow and Saint Petersburg and to read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy in the original. Scottish Gaelic: I already dabbled in Gaelic in the summer of 2010, but I only really started studying it in November last year. I'm only aiming for passive understanding at the moment, but when I go to the Scottish Highlands and the Hebrides, it would be great to speak the indigenous language of this region. Other than that, I have dabbled in Spanish, Dutch, Faroese, Danish, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, and Old English and am now contemplating learning an Asian language such as Japanese or Mandarin. Edited by Josquin on 25 February 2013 at 6:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6041 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 202 of 204 26 February 2013 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
Bad spelling on my part I meant Euripides the tragedy Medea is one of his works 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5052 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 203 of 204 26 February 2013 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
I read your screen name as "darkrisperdal" for a second, probably because of that "Risperdal whisperdoll" poem... :)) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6041 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 204 of 204 01 March 2013 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
My username's a spelling error as well it was supposed to be darkwhisperdale :-) I think Note Spelling will be a future username for me :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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