Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Your Language(s) & Age?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
204 messages over 26 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 25 26 Next >>
Alvinho
Triglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 6030 days ago

828 posts - 832 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish

 
 Message 41 of 204
07 October 2008 at 3:52pm | IP Logged 
I'm about to turn 32 within a few weeks.....getting older....holy hell!

Well, I must confess my English could be better as well as Spanish, but there are things on these days which are stopping me from studying properly.

However, most people say both are still pretty good.

Portuguese - native language.


Edited by Alvinho on 07 October 2008 at 4:36pm

1 person has voted this message useful



JW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
youtube.com/user/egw
Joined 5918 days ago

1802 posts - 2011 votes 
22 sounds
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew
Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian

 
 Message 42 of 204
07 October 2008 at 4:14pm | IP Logged 
I’m 47

English – Native Language

German (since age 14), French (since age 17), Spanish (since age 24) – Basic Fluency. These are the most important languages to me. I definitely plan to bring these to Advanced Fluency.

Italian (since age 17) – pretty close to Basic Fluency, I just need to build my vocabulary a little.

Dutch (since age 19) – Advanced Intermediate. I need to build vocabulary. I also need a little better feel for the language. I really love Dutch.

Luxembourgish – I completed several on-line courses, including one at the A-2 level. I have decent passive skills (it’s really very similar to German and is in fact a dialect of German), but very limited active skills. I have only been studying it a short time.

Portuguese, Catalan, and Afrikaans – I’ve never formally studied these but I do have some passive skills, especially reading, due to the similarity of these languages to Spanish and Dutch, respectively.

My main problem is that I have had long periods of inactivity vis-à-vis languages. When I can maintain motivation and study and use my languages consistently, I make rapid progress. I’ve been doing very well for about the past 15 months (3 hours a day, every day plus two trips to Quebec). Hopefully I can keep up this regimen. This forum is a motivating factor.

1 person has voted this message useful



Felipe
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5826 days ago

451 posts - 501 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Italian, Dutch, Catalan

 
 Message 43 of 204
07 October 2008 at 4:40pm | IP Logged 
Age 29

English - Native language

Spanish - Since age 12

Portuguese - Since age 21

Italian - Started at age 27, studied for about 4 months on and off, left it for a little over a year, got back into it this year in May. Hopefully I can bring it up to at least basic fluency by the end of the year.

French - I'll be starting it next year.

Romanian - Studied it for a couple months, still at beginner level. I will study it again someday.

Catalan - I can understand a lot when reading, but haven't started studying it yet.

Dutch and German - Will be starting them in the near future.
1 person has voted this message useful



JW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
youtube.com/user/egw
Joined 5918 days ago

1802 posts - 2011 votes 
22 sounds
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew
Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian

 
 Message 44 of 204
07 October 2008 at 5:47pm | IP Logged 
Felipe wrote:
Dutch and German - Will be starting them in the near future.

I think it will be very fun for you to make a foray into the Germanic languages. For me Romance/Germanic languages are like a left brain/right brain type dichotomy. Two very different ways of thinking.

2 persons have voted this message useful



Frisco
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6652 days ago

380 posts - 398 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Norwegian, Italian, Turkish, Mandarin

 
 Message 45 of 204
07 October 2008 at 7:30pm | IP Logged 
I turned 26 in July.

English - Native
Spanish - Exposed to it since early childhood, but began formal study at 14.
Portuguese - Began at 20.
Chinese - Began at 21.
Italian - Began at 22.
Norwegian - Began at 22.
Turkish - Began at 24.

I should have a much higher level in all these languages, but years don't mean much when you don't study consistently.
1 person has voted this message useful



bela_lugosi
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Finland
Joined 6250 days ago

272 posts - 376 votes 
Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish
Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin

 
 Message 46 of 204
27 October 2008 at 8:24pm | IP Logged 
Nice topic! :) My path to becoming a polyglot:

Finnish - my native language.

English - near native. I started learning English when I was about 6 years old. Eventually I got better at it and at 16 I went to study at an international school, where my skills reached the near native level fluency. At a certain point English actually became my dominant language for a while, since I used it at school and with friends all the time. Nowadays I work as a freelance translator / English teacher.

Italian - advanced fluency. I live in Italy and I graduated in Italian Philology, so my knowledge of the language is excellent. The only thing that I regret is that I still have a slight foreign accent when I speak Italian, but probably it will become hardly noticeable within a few years. :) Many people think I'm a native speaker, from Northern Italy (since my hair is blonde).

German - basic fluency. My school offered German as a second foreign language (after English, of course) when I was 10. I wanted to study French, but no one else was interested in taking it, so I ended up taking German instead. My progress was rather slow for many years, but I finally reached basic fluency at 17-18. Now my German is a little rusty, due to lack of use..

Spanish - basic fluency. I know the language because I speak Italian, and eventually got interested in learning Spanish as well. So, I took an elementary course to learn the basic grammar and then just proceeded very quickly to expand my vocabulary. After about 6 months of rather active studying I had reached basic fluency. I understand virtually everything I hear and/or read, but speaking is a little bit more difficult for me, since I don't get many opportunities to use the language.

Swedish - basic fluency. Swedish is probably the only language in the whole world that I truly dislike; it's a compulsory school subject in Finland, which is why I was, along with all my friends, forced to study it for 6 years (age 13 - age 18). Anyway, even though I didn't like the language (I still think it sounds terrible), I learnt it much better than my mates. I can still hold a conversation in Swedish, although it's awfully rusty.

Russian - (low) intermediate. I started studying Russian on my own when I was about 14 years old. My Russian friends had a huge part in making me learn some basic vocabulary and the most common swearwords. I've studied the language on and off ever since, but only now have I set a real goal for the year to come: to bring my Russian to basic fluency! I love the language and the culture, so my motivation level is very high. Grammar is OK, but my vocabulary is unfortunately limited.

I'm still a beginner (A1-A2 level) in all the other languages that I know: Slovenian, Icelandic, Norwegian, French, Romanian, Portuguese and Estonian. I hope to learn at least Romanian and Hungarian within the next 5-10 years.. One thing is certain: I will NEVER stop learning new languages! 8)
1 person has voted this message useful



jazz4life89
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5850 days ago

12 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

 
 Message 47 of 204
01 November 2008 at 12:52am | IP Logged 
Im 27

English-native

Spanish (fluent) - Age 15/ Started in highschool, but I really began taking it seriously in college. I majored in it and got my masters in Spanish Literature.

French (intermediate level) - Age 23 / Took 2 french courses in grad school and then I began self study. Still studying but Ive come a long way.

Japanese, Korean, Chinese (madarin), Portuguese, Swahili, Wolof??? (will begin next year, 2009) - Age 27 / I plan to start one of the following languages in January, I just haven't decided which one.

Edited by jazz4life89 on 01 November 2008 at 12:54am

1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 204 messages over 26 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4 57 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3438 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.