Any multilingual people out there? Anyone else love languages?

Heh drunkenese... :P Did you learn spanish/french in school? If not, where did you pick them up? Do you have any interest in developing your knowledge of those two languages? (heh or further developing your knowledge of the english language? :P) Do you ever get to use them? I use my french all the time - I'm in school for french studies and I work as a tour guide in the spring and take several trips to quebec city and montreal, so I get to use it then. I worry that I will lose them if I don't use them.

I do get a chance to use the odd word at work...I'm a Tilesetter...and I work with alot of spanish guys and italians...so I slip the odd word in here or there...as for french...I'm half french but I dont use the language...all I remember is what I learned in school...and..well..I've forgotten most of that..lol

Do you regret that you've lost some of that french? Especially since you are half french? I find friends of mine that only took french up until grade 9 regret not keeping up with it. I know that I would regret it if I lost it. I certainly wish that I had time to continue with Spanish since high school, but there just hasn't been any space. I am hoping that in my 5th (yes 5th.. stupid double major) year that I will have room to take at least one spanish course. And also, maybe I'll be able to use some of it on my trip next week (I leave tomorrow! Yay!).

japanese is a multi-level language. they have verb tenses that don't even exist in many other languages ;) and they have several words that designate the same person, object or place. like for example, you can refer to someone as 'you', 'him', 'her', 'it' etc in english, but in japanese multiply that by at least 6 ;) it depends on teh age of the person you are talking about, and your own age, what part of society you're in, stuff like that. the easiest way to explain it is if you picture yourself speaking with the queen of england, would you speak to her differently than you would speak to a 4 year old? most likely lol. so in japanese, there are actual WORDS that show these changes in speech (or writing). and learning spanish and italian at the same time seems easy until you actually try to do it ;) i was humiliated in my first italian class because the teacher asked me to say a word, but i used the spanish pronounciation and the prof was REALLY peeved that i could confuse the two languages ;)

I took french and spanish at the same time in high school, and even though I'd been takng french since I was about 6, I would still get confused. They are such similar languages - it's not so surprising. However, this sometimes worked to my advantage - if I was in Spanish class and didn't know a word for something, all I had to do was think of the word in French and add a Spanish-sounding ending to it, and I'd usually be right!! I've heard about the different levels of speech in Japanese, but don't know very much about it. The best comparison I can make is the formal "vous" in French or "usted" in spanish.. but multiplied times a lot. :P

I would LOVE to learn Japanese! It looks like it would be a very difficult language to learn though.. And I would love to beef up my spanish (and learn italian as well).. I went to Cuba this month and realized how little I actually remember. It's really a shame. I haven't had any space in my schedule to take any spanish classes, but I'd love to if I got a chance.

Wow that is impressive!!! I would love to be able to speak that many... Though I can speak English and French and I do know a bit of Spanish, I know nothing about Hindi and Punjabi.

Wow! Three languages... I hope to be fluent in at least three languages one day (I would consider myself fluent in two... english and french)... more if possible!

That's great, 4 languages! I don't really know anything about Indonesian... what type of language is it? Meaning, what sort of base, characters, etc...?

That sounds great to me!! Start with something easy... I already know how to count to six in japanese (the spelling is probably wrong): ich, nee, san, shi, go, rook... but then I don't know the rest... I'd like to know how to count to ten.. In French (very similar to spanish and italian): 1 - un (the "n" isn't pronounced, but it makes the "u" nasal... hard to explain... if I could type phonetics in here it would be much easier) 2 - deux 3 - trois (close to "trwa") 4 - quatre ("katr") 5 - cinq ("sank") 6 - six (pronounced similar to "cease") 7 - sept ("set") 8 - huit ("wheat") 9 - neuf (pretty much how it is spelled) 10 - dix ("deese") It's hard to convey the pronunciation without use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (which is only useful if you know it too...) but how's this for a start?

Now I just have to memorize it. :) So how is "roku" pronounced?

Ooh, that's a great start and thanks for the pronunciations as well ;) You've got the first 6 in Japanese down! I just wanted to add that 6 is roku, not rook :) 7 - shichi (usually the Japanese tend to cut off the very last vowel when they speak, so it would sound like sheech) 8 - hachi 9 - kyu (sounds like Q) 10 - ju

Good for you for teaching yourself english! That's quite an accomplishment. What is your first language?

Do you find that English is a very difficult language to learn? I've heard that it is one of the more difficult languages, but as it is my first language I can't really say. It's true that the rules in English often don't seem to make much sense and there are lots of irregularities, but that is all just second nature to me. Where did you learn english? Are you living somewhere that requires you to speak it? I find the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it, giving you no choice but to learn! I would be really interested in learning an asian language because that would be completely different than English, french or spanish - all latin based languages.