A knack for languages?

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I am currently studying Spanish and I love it. I have a 4.0, so it must be easy for me....Yes, languages are easy, I just wish math was easy.



Tallgirl.

I spent 5 weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia with a daily tutor because I could not spend 2 years in a classroom learning it in college. So I went and became proficient enough to test out of the language requirement. Now I can read and understand the language but speaking it is another story. It the whole case thing that gets me.

My husband is a fab language person. He speaks German, Russian, Polish and of course English.

I guess I'm not that great, all I've learnt in another language I've pretty much forgotten. Like I knew some Italian, Indonesian and Polish, now I can barely remember any of it. I guess it's because I stopped practising and it got stored away somewhere. My mum and some of my family still speak Polish but it's never spoken unless talking to a relative who's in Poland.

I've always had a predisposition towards languages. I myself was a hyperlexic child (reading at the age of two), and I love grammar/spelling/vocabulary, so I have the English part down pretty well. From the point I started school (1st grade) through 4th grade, my private school tried to instill bits of extremely basic French and Spanish into us. I always received "Excellents" and A's in foreign languages. Then from 5th grade through 8th grade, I took Spanish. Again, I continued to receive A's. Now I'm in my third year of high school French, and I love it! My average for all three years has consistently been mid-to-high A's (95-98+) and I intend to study it next semester as well as next year and most likely in college, perhaps as my second major. I aspire to be a polyglot someday, so I might work on Spanish some more, Latin definitely, and maybe German or something else.

La sera numero uno. Muy interesante. Buenos dias. Hasta manana.

Of course they have a word for autism, it is 自閉 (self-enclosed), pronounced as jihei (じへい) in Japanese. Same phrase for Chinese, check out Chinese and Japanese sources in this google search: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%E8%87%AA%E9%96%89

Well, I was born as a Cantonese (a kind of spoken Chinese commonly heard in the US in fact) speaker, and have learnt and spoken English since an early age (like 2/3?) so I've got almost native quality when speaking English. My Mandarin (the "supposed" national language in China, which is gaining currency in the US. This is the language which the Modern Standard Written Chinese is based on.) was fine but more than a few people quibble over my accent (they sneeze at Cantonese inability over retroflex sounds anyway). I've learnt French but I quit since I could hardly butcher the grammar. I'm learning Japanese now, and hopefully got a bit more luck on it.

Oh, and you can see my stand over this Chinese curious linguistic situation in that short paragraph.

Have you heard of Daniel Tammet (not his real name)? - he's brilliant at it I believe because he has no censor circuits in his brain telling that something is not right about what he's learning: If you've got this voice in your head arguing with what is presented to it, then you will never take it in. This is the true meaning of ignorance. If you're open and honest rather than conceited and arrogant, you act as a conduit that draws in knowledge like water, rather than a tap that says"hang on a minute I'm not sure if I want that amount of water coming in my direction, if any at all".

I for my part have created a system for teaching English that I cannot get anyone interested in enough to publish, even though I'm sure it would help eradicate Illiteracy because it is so simple (based on sound rather than spelling or meaning, though those are included in a logical progression as children pick up sounds first, then meaning and lastly the wrtitten form - just as a civilisation does in order to grow). Anyway I'm hoping to turn it into an E-Book as the internet means I don't have to have a middleman between me and my ideas (yet) - trouble is contrary to opinion not all Aspies are technically brilliant when it comes to computers.

Me encanta aprendiendo muchas idiomas; sé también la lengua rusa una poquita. Estudié español por cinco años, y la lengua rusa durante mi primero año. No estudio español en más de ocho meses.

Muchísimas grácias a la persona quien ha demonstrado el uso del los acentos y tildes.

Nou, als we dan in vreemde talen gaan spreken, doe ik even mee hoor . En er zijn genoeg Nederlanders / Belgen op de lijst dat ik er vrij zeker van ben dat iemand dit voor jullie gaat vertalen. Zo niet doe ik het dan zelf wel over een paar uren / dagen. Niet dat het zo spannend is .

I adore languages, though I am only fluent in two (can read and understand a few others, however, including French and Spanish). I have an immense collection of language-self study books at home. Sadly, I seem to lack the motivation to stick with a schedule for working through said books. But languages have been a lifelong obsession for me. I often miss the point of multilanguage things (TV programs, events, ....) because I get caught up in the language itself instead of focusing on the content.

Like Aly, I hope someday to be a polyglot (guess I'm a duoglot now ). Does anyone have any foolproof methods for sticking to a study plan without the threat of examinations?

Well I'm quite pleased that I managed to get the gist of the Spanish written on the first page (I've not read the posts after that.) I'm doing A Level German at the moment, and learned French up to and for GCSE. I got an A* in both, but I'm not brilliant at either. I'm much better at getting the gist from written foreign languages than from spoken. I find that some vocabulary just will not stick in my mind, no matter how hard I try, whereas other vocab will instantly click. I find that the word order for German comes far more naturally than for French (even though in the perfect tense German is completely different to English, but French is pretty much the same - I find myself wanting to write in English using the German word order - oops!) and I just much prefer the language for some reason. I like learning about the cases (der die das die den die das die dem der dem den des der des der ) and just much prefer it. However my vocabulary isn't huge - that's my problem for any foreign language.

By the way, I do apologise if I've already posted in this thread. I remember posting in a languages thread but I can't remember whether it was this or a different one

I see I'm not the only one! People tell me it's amazing that I taught myself Danish. I learned French in school but studied outside school on my own. I have also dabbled in other languages - took German in high school, and can pretty much read it, but my accent is horrid; it's just too gutteral. I know a bit of Japanese, and can read the other Scandinavian languages. Sometimes I pick up on Icelandic. I can sometimes pick up on a few words of Dutch. Spanish I read fairly well as well.
One of my former teachers actually grew up speaking Spanish, and when she went into a rant, she started speaking Spanish! The people taking Spanish didn't understand a word she said, but from my prior knowledge of French, I picked up on it! The teacher told me it was because of the similarities of French and Spanish. I was just surprised that the students taking Spanish couldn't understand ANY of it!

Okay, I'll stop rambling now.

Wow! All of these people that love languages and I never really cared for foreign language. In high school learned some french. I did not like the language partially because I wanted to learn spanish and partially because I was learning it right after 9/11 and the anti-french sentiment was very high at the time. I would spend most of my time in french class either making fun of the french or talking about how I wanted to learn spanish. I might have been able to be good at French had I applied myself but I never felt a strong desire to learn French. I dropped my French because my schedule became too packed for it, I wanted to take some higher level math and science courses, also the teacher was going to make us go to museums for a grade and I hate going to outside events simply for a class.

I love languages, and have been trying to learn Japanese, though I've been slack lately and gotten somewhat rusty.

Lii niteincha rru pa. sildidi fas vin aat dava lias i'iee a niteinche. ty vin sh'tesh kadreilia niteinsa vin pa kin invache dava i faskadi teda soni vin aat rin. lo raseji ksii.

I dare anyone to translate that

I speak English, very well.

I took Spanish in 9th and 10th grade. I take Latin now (11th grade), and I'm planning on taking Latin II over the summer and Latin III next school year. When I get to college, I'm going to take a whole bunch of random languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, etc. I'm really good at learning foreign languages and it's become a hobby of mine.

I love Latin. It's one of my favorite subjects and I'm quite good at it. I'm going into my third year and am planning to take all four possible years of it in high school.

Jekyll: Latin II is HARD. I'm not sure if it's possible to take it in a summer. If you can do that, more power to you, but they cram a LOT of stuff in in second-year Latin. By the end of Latin II, if you have the requisite vocabulary you can read any Latin text.

On the other hand, I really hate Spanish. I find it boring, annoying, and I'm going to stop after this year.

I'm planning to start learning Italian soon as well, which I'm pretty excited about.