Does anyone know a second language?

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1st English

2nd ASL

1st language: French (from Québec, Canada - Not France)

2nd language: English (hello, how do you do?)

3rd language: Spanish (working on getting better at speaking it)

Can understand Portuguese and a bit of Latin when written.

After I master Spanish, I want to learn German, Dari (Eastern Persian) and Arabic.

I've tried learning a couple of other languages, particularly Spanish. I took several classes in university, and a rather expensive small group intensive class later on. I could speak alright in class, but out of that environment, couldn't say much or understand much. Apparently in order to learn a language you need to be able to actually converse with people, for practice, which is hard to do when you don't know anyone or have a clue how to meet people and start conversations! The age-old aspie problem. Or maybe "social anxiety problem", since I'm not quite sure what my deal is.


I'm really interested in linguistics, though, and love learning about the sounds of language and the histories of how languages change. It's the communicating part that throws me.

Sorry for the size of this thing (if I could make it bigger I would), but 10 points to anyone who can read this, and/or say where in the world you'd find someone who speaks like this:

Phonetics?

"Well here is a story for you"... etc

Right?

French has first language, English has second and trying to learn German.

Other language I am interested in learning are all Scandinavian tongue, Russian, Japanese, what left of Celtic (So from the few that still speak one of the dialect in Ireland and Bretagne). Could be interested in some other east Europe tongue like Polish and Hungarian for example but got no idea how they sound.

I admit I tend to focus Northern Europe because I don't like heat and nothing much that interest me in the southern part of southern hemisphere that not in Commonwealth Oceania (so English speaking, so know already =p)

english is my first and i took spanish in high school (i just graduated in june so it wasn't that long ago). i know a little ASL (american sign language for those who don't know), mostly signs my parents remembered from their schools and stuff.

i have a whole list of languages i want to learn though....ASL (for real), Arabic, Japanese, German, Italian, mebby some French and Russian....yeah, i think that's about all of them....
i'm really good at picking up languages especially if i hear them a lot. i get a lot of Arabic at my church b/c there are some arabs there, and there's a course in ASL at the college i'm going to this fall so i want to sign up for that.

My first language is English although I primarily use baby cat/animal noises to communicate.
I've been teaching myself Japanese and have actually started to read due to my daily translation of my manga I got.
Am teaching myself German also-took it my final year in highschool unfortunatley, the teacher was amazing, she was the only one I could understand.

Want to learn French and Italian too-I have a copy of the Hobbit in French that i was starting to translate but I've been occupied with Japanese.

I also taught myself Gothic at one time but as no one had even heard of it and I couldn't find someone to answer my questions I gave up. I learned Sindarin (elvish) too.

Did French and German at school. Could probably remember enough to obtain a coffee/ meal/ theater ticket/directions to the nearest bookstore/public toilet/police station, were I to find myself in France or Germany.

I've been attempting to learn xwlshucid - Lushootseed, as it's usually Anglicized - the language of the Coast Salish Indians of Puget Sound. So far it's been a little difficult. I have a dictionary, but I couldn't find any other textbooks...they certainly exist, they're just a pain to get hold of, even in Seattle (someone told me I might have more luck in BC).

Anyway: here are some examples - I'll try and write this very roughly as pronounced, because while I have the Lushootseed phonetic font on my computer, I don't know how to use it here:

'I, d'sya'ya - Hello, my friends
Gwat kw'ad's'da? - What is your name?
Tul'al chud Dzi'dzalalich - I am from Seattle

Numbers from one to ten:
Ch'o
Sáli
*Lh'iuhw
Bo'os
Tsalats
Yalats
Ts'o'uhw
Takachi
Hwul
Olob

(*Note: The sound represented here by lh is made by positioning your tongue on the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth as if you're about to sound an L, then letting the air out through the sides of your mouth. The name of the local chief of the Duwamish was really Si'alh, with this sound at the end, but you can probably see why the city ended up named 'Seattle' instead. There's a lady from the Tulalip tribe who has a couple of basic instructional videos on Youtube, if anyone's really interested...)

I only speak English, but I am learning Spanish.

English and French.

Some German and Swedish, but they start to fade away due to lack of practice...

I was taught Latin in school but now I can only remember famous quotes/sayings and such... Latin grammar was a nightmare

I only speak English.
There had to be an international language and we won, so let everyone else learn English.

All international pilots and traffic controllers must speak English. Otherwise how could an Arab pilot land at a Japanese airport?

How could a Zulu negotiate with a Swede, or a Korean with a Russian?

So all you "foreign people" can learn English.

I don't need to bother.

I have a lot of difficulty understanding lately, being that it's been years since using it. But I used to be relatively fluent enough in French and Spanish.
I still use spanish somewhat often, but its mostly work related and limited.
But man, i think it's hearing problems i have, but even though i could get by if i had to visit a french or spanish speaking country, asking questions, i struggle really hard to understand and translate even very basic statements being spoken to me because i cant figure out wht they are saying, and its not really speed either, talking to fast, i just cant discern whats being said.
Typing back and forth is fine. Though this happens a lot with my first language, english, i find more and more lately i keep having to ask people to repeat themselves caue i didnt get what they said, i think i might be losing my hearing lol.

My naitve language is Dutch. My written English is almost as good as my written Dutch (including as many typeos ), but my accent is horrible. I learned French and German in school, too (plus Latin and some ancient Greek, but I forgot all of that), at the highest level one could choose, but forgot all my French. Since my boyfriend lives in Germany, I try to refresh my German (he is from the Netherlands so we speak Dutch).

Actually this is an important question.

So much of a culture is tied up in it's language. The "Frenchness" of French people. The "Germanness" of Germans the "Japaneseness of Japanese people.

But look at Europe. It is now the European Union but you might not understand a word of someone who was born 5 miles from you across a border.

And what about a developing country like New Guinea?

They have HUNDREDS of tribal languages. Languages that might only be spoken by a few hundred people of one little tribe.

Should we preserve those languages? How?

How many Irish or Scots or Welsh still speak their original Gaelic dialect? None unless they go to the trouble of learning it as an adult because there NO native Gaelic speakers any more.