Foreign Languages

[Princess of Hearts]

I am learning French, Spanish and German using the Visual Input, total immersion techniques.    I watch French in Action, Destinos for Spanish, and Fokus Deutsch for German.  I am using Assimil/Pimsleur/MichelThomas for Italian.

[amanda barber]

I can read German but fail miserably at speaking it.
Luckily NO ONE wants to hear German with a heavy downeast New England accent.

not too bad at Canadian french (french words, english grammar spoken at extremely high speed) 

[cadeliara@yahoo.com]

I can read German but fail miserably at speaking it.
Luckily NO ONE wants to hear German with a heavy downeast New England accent.

not too bad at Canadian french (french words, english grammar spoken at extremely high speed) 

I DO!!!!

LOL.

Having spent half my life in Europe (including most of grade and some of highschool there) learning two foreign languages was mandatory, so aside from English I am also fluent in Hungarian, conversational German, some Spanish and some Japanese.
I usually pick up languages fairly quickly.

[~RoadToTrista~]

Well I've grown around Thai speakers but I can't speak it for some reason. I can tell you the one word that's associated with virtually everything that has to do with water. NOM! >.< And yes, to you girls out there seeking surgery from Supporn or Chettawut, you will need it to ask where the bathroom is.

[Dinky_Di]

Lol.... I think you mean naam.   Bathroom is hoong naam.

[justmeinoz]

I have had a couple of semesters of Mandarin, but have lost almost all of it due to lack of opportunity to use it where I lived previously.

This year though I have enrolled in a short night-school course in basic French, and will be starting a Diploma of Language in French next year at Uni.  It is basically one Major out of the BA. I am enjoying going back to study, and can't wait to get my teeth into it properly over the next three years.

Karen.

[Dinky_Di]

I have had a couple of semesters of Mandarin, but have lost almost all of it due to lack of opportunity to use it where I lived previously.

This year though I have enrolled in a short night-school course in basic French, and will be starting a Diploma of Language in French next year at Uni.  It is basically one Major out of the BA. I am enjoying going back to study, and can't wait to get my teeth into it properly over the next three years.

Karen.

I have been learning Thai for just over 12 months and really enjoy it.  If I could do it as a course through uni in Sydney I would enrol but unfortunately it is only done through ANU in Canberra to my knowledge.

[justmeinoz]

Can you do it Distance Ed, via Skype?

[mimpi]

Apart from English I can speak very good Italian having worked in Italy for over 20 years, never studied it so more writing isn't great formal letters wise. Also have a little French and understand both spoken and written well. Can't understand much Spanish and Portuguese although I can read about 90% and get along there with speaking Italian with a few words thrown in.

Tried to learn Indonesian for about a year but gave up, it may be the national language but at home very few speak it (was once married to an Indonesian). Was also married to an Arabic speaker but we always communicated in Italian and I never learnt it although I can recite the necessary religious stuff from memory. Arabs are only 18% of Muslims world wide and the vast majority of Muslims cannot read Arabic.

Have to say I enjoy speaking in Italian and my personality changes for the better when speaking it. My accent is heavily regional and try as I might I end up saying "Hoca-Hola" for Coca-Cola etc which makes people laugh.

[mimpi]

Btw, not sure if this is still the case but afaik there are free Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) classes at Indonesian Consulates in most countries. Some kind of government initiative that is possibly still running.

[~RoadToTrista~]

Lol.... I think you mean naam.   Bathroom is hoong naam.

I was mostly worrying about phonetics.

[Dinky_Di]

I was mostly worrying about phonetics.

I understand, a majority of Thai words are near impossible to put into English phonetics as they loose there correct pronounciation.