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Your Language(s) & Age?

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JW
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
youtube.com/user/egw
Joined 5881 days ago

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

 
 Message 89 of 204
12 December 2008 at 11:23am | IP Logged 
dizzycloud wrote:
Hype wrote:

I speak English fluently, I'm currently trying to pick up a Scottish accent.

May I ask why you're trying to pick up a Scottish accent??? :S That seems bizarre to me..I understand that it's one of the hardest varieties of English to understand (to most English natives) so it'd be easier to understand other English accents, but English pronunciation is hard enough alone without trying to make life harder for yourself! Sometimes the natives have trouble understanding the Scots, so I can't imagine a foreigner with a Scottish accent will make many people able to understand you as well? I'm not attacking you by saying this, it's just my 2 cents!
I agree. A very slight Scottish accent can be pleasing but the full brogue is extremely difficult for most native English speakers to understand.

1 person has voted this message useful



Hype
Triglot
Newbie
Norway
Joined 5586 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes
Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Swedish
Studies: French

 
 Message 90 of 204
13 December 2008 at 7:42am | IP Logged 
dizzycloud wrote:

Welcome to the forum :) :)
May I ask why you're trying to pick up a Scottish accent??? :S That seems bizarre to me..I understand that it's one of the hardest varieties of English to understand (to most English natives) so it'd be easier to understand other English accents, but English pronunciation is hard enough alone without trying to make life harder for yourself! Sometimes the natives have trouble understanding the Scots, so I can't imagine a foreigner with a Scottish accent will make many people able to understand you as well? I'm not attacking you by saying this, it's just my 2 cents!


Cheers
It's just my way of giving myself something to work on I guess. I've always been somewhat amused yet impressed by Scottish accents. I'm not saying I want to speak like they do in Glasgow. But I just want a Scottish twist to my accent, I don't want to sound all Norwegian. And I totally agree with you about what you've said, those I've told that I want a Scottish accent has actually frowned at the idea as well(except for my English teacher). And I've seriously been working on it, I've been listening to BBC Scotland a lot, I've sometimes recorded myself so that I'll spot my mistakes, I also talk a lot of English so I don't think people will get a hard time understanding me.

Edited by Hype on 13 December 2008 at 7:45am

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dizzycloud
Triglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 6357 days ago

88 posts - 109 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 91 of 204
13 December 2008 at 9:57am | IP Logged 
Hype wrote:
dizzycloud wrote:

Welcome to the forum :) :)
May I ask why you're trying to pick up a Scottish accent??? :S That seems bizarre to me..I understand that it's one of the hardest varieties of English to understand (to most English natives) so it'd be easier to understand other English accents, but English pronunciation is hard enough alone without trying to make life harder for yourself! Sometimes the natives have trouble understanding the Scots, so I can't imagine a foreigner with a Scottish accent will make many people able to understand you as well? I'm not attacking you by saying this, it's just my 2 cents!


Cheers
It's just my way of giving myself something to work on I guess. I've always been somewhat amused yet impressed by Scottish accents. I'm not saying I want to speak like they do in Glasgow. But I just want a Scottish twist to my accent, I don't want to sound all Norwegian. And I totally agree with you about what you've said, those I've told that I want a Scottish accent has actually frowned at the idea as well(except for my English teacher). And I've seriously been working on it, I've been listening to BBC Scotland a lot, I've sometimes recorded myself so that I'll spot my mistakes, I also talk a lot of English so I don't think people will get a hard time understanding me.


Fair enough, at least if you listen to BBC Scotland you won't have problems understanding them as much as other foreigners perhaps!
1 person has voted this message useful



Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5793 days ago

1457 posts - 1759 votes 
5 sounds

 
 Message 92 of 204
13 December 2008 at 10:06am | IP Logged 
dizzycloud wrote:
Hype wrote:
dizzycloud wrote:

Welcome to the forum :) :)
May I ask why you're trying to pick up a Scottish accent??? :S That seems bizarre to me..I understand that it's one of the hardest varieties of English to understand (to most English natives) so it'd be easier to understand other English accents, but English pronunciation is hard enough alone without trying to make life harder for yourself! Sometimes the natives have trouble understanding the Scots, so I can't imagine a foreigner with a Scottish accent will make many people able to understand you as well? I'm not attacking you by saying this, it's just my 2 cents!


Cheers
It's just my way of giving myself something to work on I guess. I've always been somewhat amused yet impressed by Scottish accents. I'm not saying I want to speak like they do in Glasgow. But I just want a Scottish twist to my accent, I don't want to sound all Norwegian. And I totally agree with you about what you've said, those I've told that I want a Scottish accent has actually frowned at the idea as well(except for my English teacher). And I've seriously been working on it, I've been listening to BBC Scotland a lot, I've sometimes recorded myself so that I'll spot my mistakes, I also talk a lot of English so I don't think people will get a hard time understanding me.


Fair enough, at least if you listen to BBC Scotland you won't have problems understanding them as much as other foreigners perhaps!


It is reassuring to know that even native speakers sometimes find it difficult. I've never had much exposure to the Scottish accent (actually none, save for Trainspotting) and now all of a sudden I find myself in the deep. BBC Scotland is the key..



Edited by Sennin on 13 December 2008 at 10:08am

1 person has voted this message useful



SamD
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6418 days ago

823 posts - 987 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian

 
 Message 94 of 204
18 December 2008 at 11:40am | IP Logged 
I'm 48 years old.

English: native speaker.

French: My grade school taught it. I picked up a bit there and went on to do some on my own, and then took it in high school and college. It's still my strongest non-native language.

Spanish: It was a very popular language when I was in high school, and it seemed very practical. I took three years of it in high school.

German: When I was in graduate school, I heard that if I wanted to go on for my doctorate, I would need reading knowledge of both French and German. Because I worked for the university, I was able to get a discount on the classes. I never went on to get my doctorate, but I have traveled in Europe and used German and don't regreat learning it.

Italian: The area where I live has lots of Italian-Americans, and a local organization offered inexpensive Italian lessons. I kept it up on my own. After having studied French and Spanish, Italian was not too difficult.

Portuguese: I have some penfriends in Brazil, and I've tried learning Portuguese on my own. My biggest problem is that I find myself lapsing into Spanish.

Norwegian: It's another language I'm trying on my own.
1 person has voted this message useful



Lindsay19
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5580 days ago

183 posts - 214 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC1
Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic

 
 Message 95 of 204
18 December 2008 at 3:12pm | IP Logged 
I'm 19.

English is my native language.

I started learning German at the age of 16 (a little below fluency level), and when I have the money, I'd like to move to Düsseldorf.

I started teaching myself Swedish a few months ago (since my studies with this are on and off, I haven't gotten too far).
1 person has voted this message useful



sarasvati
Newbie
Russian Federation
Joined 6444 days ago

9 posts - 13 votes
Studies: Breton

 
 Message 96 of 204
21 December 2008 at 11:38am | IP Logged 
I'm 18.
my native language is German.
-I started learning English at age 11 in school (but i was exposed to it since age 4 through friends from the us, a lot of traveling to English speaking countries and an English class my parents made me take when i was like 7) + just spent a year studying in the US.
- I started learning French when I was 13. Now I can read and understand it pretty well, but talking can still be difficult...
- started with Spanish at age 15. and actually i think I'm more advanced than in French by now- funny
-started with Hindi about two years ago. I'm doing alright. I'm now trying to read newspapers now and with my dictionary i can get the gist..=) needs a lot of work though
-took an interest in Italian about a year after i started learning Spanish, and found it quite easy to understand (easier) books, as it's so similiar to French and Spanish.
-now I've just started with Russian, so far I've mastered the cyrillic alphabet and that#s about it ;)

and I studied Hebrew and Tamil for some time, didn't have the time and motivation to go into it deeper though ,a nd now I've pretty much forgotten everything.



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