Language practice threads [new: Korean]

[dalahäst]

As first languages, English and Spanish. I can also speak some Portuguese. I can understand (and therefore read and write) lots of other languages, like French, some Romanian, some Dutch, some Russian, a smattering of Greek, and Swedish. Finally, there are languages I can read and write without knowing the meaning of anything, like Tamil and Korean. I don't know if being able to read and write even if you don't understand it counts as literacy, but by the strictest definition possible (i.e., reading and writing only, hence lit-) I'm literate in those as well.

[Alpha Omicron]

I don't know if being able to read and write even if you don't understand it counts as literacy, but by the strictest definition possible (i.e., reading and writing only, hence lit-) I'm literate in those as well.

I would say you're literate in their writing systems/orthographies, but not in the languages themselves. I'm like this with Greek, Cyrillic, and a few other scripts.

[dalahäst]

Can I be 0.5 speakers for the purpose of counting, in the same way that the average American household can have 0.8 of a child?

[Alpha Omicron]

Can I be 0.5 speakers for the purpose of counting, in the same way that the average American household can have 0.8 of a child?

No.

[okuryo]

I'm new to the forums.
I speak Hebrew as a native language, but also English fluently.
Apart from that, I would say I'm at intermediate level in Italian, Spanish and Russian.
I have some knowledge of French, German and Japanese.

[ZLVT]

שלום חבר

Yet another reminder that I sorely need to take up hebrew again. I think we have threads for all those. lucky you.

[Lizabeff]

Hey
I speak English (obviously) and Welsh.
I recently moved to England from Wales, and as my sister and I are the only two people in my immediate family who speak Welsh, and we don't get along too well, my ability is failing. So a Welsh thread would be good.
Also I am in the process of learning Quenyan, so once I get a bit more advanced I would appreciate one of those threads too.

[Alpha Omicron]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that Tolkienian languages have lexicons too small to actually talk about anything?

[ZLVT]

well, the quenya lexicon is abotu 2,000 words, and why ~300 is the minimum for communication, a lot of the words are devoted to elvish concepts and are thus not useful. see http://www.rialian.com/quenya-english.htm and http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/wordlists.htm


I played with welsh a bit and i'd be interested in practicing it, I know a welsh guy at uni so that could come in handy. Though every second word that comes out of his mouth is comraech

[kingofdreams]

hello there my languages are my shame as for some reason I can never keep a comprehensive grasp on more than three at a time (and even them is iffy), I am troubled by the predictable and unyielding nature of my limitations.
anyway at a given moment I speak a combination of English, Latin, Scots Gaelic, French, Dutch and as of last semester a smattering of Ancient Greek which I shall nurture like a badly stunted tree. Dutch was my first language and Gaelic my second (due to my fathers and grandfathers mutual disdain to each other) but they seemed to have mostly cancelled each other out. I have recently taken courses at Sabhal Mor Astaig, yes my spelling is wrong but I DONT CARE AHAHHAHHAHHA, and am hoping to relearn Dutch from my dad when in the role of the prodigal son (who everyone thinks is a flippin idiot) return to the old plantation in the spring.

[Schoenere Tage]

I speak fluent American English as a first language (w00t), but I'm a fervent learner of the German language. I'm actually going to college to have a major in German language. I wouldn't say that I'm fluent, but I'm more than just advanced.

I also took French in high school (only to French 3 because there weren't enough people for a class one year), but I still enjoy speaking it and wouldn't mind conversing in it and possibly learning further.

Other than that, I have little skill at Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, but am willing to learn more. Also I have a friend who speaks fluent Bosnian, and I wouldn't mind learning some of that! (I hate it when I can't understand what she writes, haha.)

[v0x]

كسي زبان دري (فارسي) را ميفهمد؟

I speak American English as my native tongue, and I'm relatively fluent in Dari (the Afghan version of Persian Farsi). It's been a while since I took any official classes for it though and some practice would be great, so feel free to PM me.

[Vo2max]

Does anyone speak Welsh here?

Ie. Hoffet ti ddysgu typyn bach? Oes thread cymraeg? Is there already a Welsh thread - any interest in starting one?

[Lizabeff]

Ia, os t'isho. Dwi'di symud o Cymru tua 10 mis 'nol, felly dwi'm yn gallu'r siawns i siarad Cymraeg ddim mwy.

[hydrophonic]

One vote for a Bulgarian practice thread!

Of course, they don't teach Bulgarian in school here, and the Bulgarians aren't known for taking slashdotters for mates, and if one did, there wouldn't be much time for posting, as the laptop is usually not invited to bed ....

But, on the chance that someone else is such an outlier, an xkcd thread на български език ще е много чудесен.

[section-8]

I'm not sure many people speak this (or plan to learn it), but I know Bahasa Indonesia, and through that, Tagalog (Filipino).

I speak bahasa Indo as well as well as Korean.

[Bobber]

I speak bahasa Indo as well as well as Korean.

Must...fix...broken...sentence...

[section-8]

I speak bahasa Indo as well as well as Korean.

Must...fix...broken...sentence...

Oh damn it. I blame the tiny netbook and dry contacts dry contacts!

[lollercoaster]

Hey
I speak English (obviously) and Welsh.
I recently moved to England from Wales, and as my sister and I are the only two people in my immediate family who speak Welsh, and we don't get along too well, my ability is failing. So a Welsh thread would be good.
Also I am in the process of learning Quenyan, so once I get a bit more advanced I would appreciate one of those threads too.

Cool! Dwi'n siarad rhai Cymraeg (I hope that's right)

I'm seconding a Welsh thread as well.

[fennecfanatic]

I made a Lojban practice thread. I'm hoping some more competent jbobau will appear there to help new learners. .ui ^^

[Pierrot]

안녕하세요. Is there anyone who knows how to speak Korean?

[jinzougen]

안영!

한국어를 이 년동안 배우고있습니다. 연습하고 싶습니다.

As you can see my Korean is pretty bad but I would very much like to practice with someone. I'm staring my third year of study next year, I took a year off this year to focus on my Masters' Qualifying Exams. I also need to fix the Ubuntu SCIM input method stuff so it's not so cumbersome to type...

Anyway yeah, if you'd like to practice Korean then so would I!

[Pierrot]

I made a Korean practice thread for those who are interested. You can find it here

[gmalivuk]

I stuck the Lojban and Korean links in the original post. Are there any other practice threads that folks have created since Hungarian and Urdu that they'd like linked there?

[Aufinder]

I'm not sure many people speak this (or plan to learn it), but I know Bahasa Indonesia, and through that, Tagalog (Filipino).

I speak bahasa Indo as well as well as Korean.

I speak Bahasa Indonesia as well.

Edit: And I've just started learning Javanese/Basa Jawa... though I'd be surprised if anyone here can help with that. :S

[Zoan]

I'm sort of new to the forum, but I've recently discovered my love of languages (not just programming, I mean). My mother tongue is English (American), but I am avidly learning Mandarin Chinese (Traditional, maybe I'll learn simplified later). I take French in school, but as some of you might know, learning a language in high school is somewhat of a lost cause. It is in my case, at least. But seeing as my family traces back to Wales (and Scotland too!), I'd love to learn Welsh. If a Welsh thread started up, I'd definitely pick it up and practice it here.

[Herennious]

My fluent spoken languages (languages I've grown up using) are: West Frisian (Frysk), Dutch and English.
My perfectly understood but not well spoken (learned at school and during holidays) languages are: French and German.
My somewhat understood and spoken (I can ask for a specific ice cream, without whipped cream etc.) languages are: Spanish, Italian and Czech.

I can make a language practice thread for Frisian if someone is interested. Frisian is a language way older than Dutch and has had a big influence on English. It also has a whole lot of really long vowels, which makes it nearly impossible to pronounce for non-natives (especially Dutch, since they THINK they are doing it right).

For more information visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_language

Nice starter;
Wyt (Frisian for white)
Wiid (Frisian for wide)
Wiet (Frisian for whet)

To the average Dutch person these words al sound like wiet, which is dutch for marihuana. A Frisian can hear a difference between the pronunciation of these words.

[ZLVT]

well I don't know if a practice thread would help as very few ppl learn frysk but if you're happy to teach I'd love to see a thread happen. I've wanted to get into frisian for a while but alas so few resources

[TheMelancholyJaques]

Oo! Ancient Greek? I'm just revisiting some of my work on it having done a GCSE several four years ago, and I'm hoping to go to a summer school to study some more! (My idea of a holiday )

Deutsch kenne ich auch, obwohl ich schon gesehen habe, dass ein Thema drüber gibt.

Et linguam latinam quoque cognosco. Cambridge Latin Course canis est.

[Sean of the Dead]

Eus Kernewegoryon omma?

[gurfunklebunker]

I can only speak English. But, I would absolutely love to learn hrvatski (Croatian). I know the alphabet and a few words, but that is really all since my father didn't want to teach me when I was younger. ):

[RabidDracoMukluk]

I've been taking Spanish for quite a few years now, and am fairly competent -- I can pretty much understand things, as long as it's not too colloquial, and I can make myself understood

I just started taking Armenian, and would love to have someone to practice with... Although I doubt there are many Armenian speakers here.

[vaguelyhumanoid]

It probably won't get many posts, but a general Northwest Coast and/or a general Caucasian thread would be nice.

[semicharmed]

I'd love one for Ukrainian, but I have a feeling I might be the only one. I got Intermediate-mid on my LPI, but I'm definitely better at writing/reading with a dictionary than speaking off the top of my head.

[Monika]

It probably won't get many posts, but a general Northwest Coast and/or a general Caucasian thread would be nice.

Northwest Cost of which continent?

[noregsson]

Native: Norwegian (While I grew up with nynorsk, I have to admit my spelling is horrible these days, and my grammar not much better.)
"Fluent": English
Basic: German
Learning: Japanese (just started)

[turret]

Do dialects count, because if they do, you can add pretty much all North African dialects of Arabic up there. Some, especially Moroccan and Algerian, are totally different from proper Arabic, and are in fact mainly based off French and Berber. Oh, that reminds me, I can speak Berber too (specifically Tachelhit from southwest Morocco). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shilha_language

[PicNick]

I speak English as a mother tongue, and I also speak Filipino/Tagalog fluently. (That makes two! d^_^b)

I'm also learning Spanish, Cebuano/Bisaya, Korean, and French, (in order of fluency, which isn't much to begin with) and I'm interested in learning Latin and many other languages.

[Dantez]

I speak Czech (native language), and I also can use English, although I'm not as good in it as I could be.

[bakadeshi]

Well, might as well chip in: I've got fluency in speaking American English (duh?), Mandarin Chinese (mother tongue), Spanish, French (although quickly forgetting), Swahili (useless outside of 1, the US Navy or 2, outside of East Africa), and am learning Kigogo (a tribal language in Tanzania)