Second Language?

Can you speak or write in another language?

  • Total voters
    54
Juliacoolo said:
It's possible that it's one of those duel meaning words. My old French teacher said that was am, and another said have. Most people I know say am, as I think that is the more modern term for it. It seems like foreign languages have a lot of words like that.
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I guess, but so far, 3/4 of my french teachers say I have, so i'll go with that. Ima look for a french-english dictionary :D
 
red blastoise said:
Pokequaza said:
Whaa?! Why does everyone want to learn German? D:
Last year I quit my German classes, just because... well I couldn't stand the language. But with Dutch as my first language, German isn't that hard :)
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Because german sounds really commanding if you put effort into the accent.
I still take german classes, and I can't quit because I'm in 2nd year :p
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Haha true I know. I'm good at the accents ; ) Although it's also a bit exaggerated. Since the only German most people hear is in the movies about the WW2... so yeah, which makes it kinda obvious when most people link it to ''commanding''.
 
sonicyellow said:
I guess, but so far, 3/4 of my french teachers say I have, so i'll go with that. Ima look for a french-english dictionary :D
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In my french schoolboks it says that je suis, a form of être means to be.
être = to be
avoir = to have
aller = to do
faire = to go

Those are the basic french verbs.
 
red blastoise said:
In my french schoolboks it says that je suis, a form of être means to be.
être = to be
avoir = to have
aller = to do
faire = to go

Those are the basic french verbs.
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Correction:
être = to be
avoir = to have
aller = to go
faire = to do

Also I think I know what might've been the problem (translators don't always translate very well). For example when one uses a verb in the passé composé (past perfect) it normally would be (the auxiliary verb used here is 'avoir'):

J'ai su. ('su' from savoir > to know)
[I am knowing]

However there are some exceptions, those exceptions won't use avoir as their auxiliary verb but instead they will use être:

Je suis allé. ('allé' from aller > to go)
[I am going]

In both cases avoir and être meant 'to be'. I think this is the problem the translator was dealing with (although I think a translator should at least know this). When avoir and être are used as a main verb they will simply keep their original meaning.
 
I did speak French when I was younger, but I have forgotten most of it. This year I have started taking Spanish which I seem to be very good with and I'm somewhat fluent with it already. :) I tried to learn Chinese, but that did not go well.
 
i am learning spanish in school. we have an after school thing sometimes where we can learn chinese. so i took that for 2 sessions. so basically i know some spanish and chinese. i would really like to learn japanese.
 
Btw, why does almost nobody speak Russian? :'O I would love to be able to speak Russian, I'm even thinking of taking some lessons. And what is meant with 'religious language'?

Also for those who had the avoir/être problem, on the page before I gave an explanation, before anyone misses it -_-
 
I can speak a little German. I took it in school, but I kept failing. I know easy things (like the numbers and some sayings like 'Hello' and 'Goodbye').
 
Pokequaza said:
Btw, why does almost nobody speak Russian?
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I know some Russian; my mother is Russian.

I know more German though, because I do it in school and my mum helps out 'cause she is a German teacher.
 
Vietnamese is my second language, since my family is Vietnamese, but I'm not that great at speaking it, and I can barely read or write it. lol
 
I speak a little Japanese because I'm part Japanese. I was once at a friends house for dinner and accidently cursed... ^^'
 
I can speak a bit of Afrikaans. (From South Africa) It's like a mixture of Dutch/English and German, kinda. I studied it at school because it was mandatory, but I`m not very good at it.
 
xgengarx said:
I can speak a bit of Afrikaans. (From South Africa) It's like a mixture of Dutch/English and German, kinda. I studied it at school because it was mandatory, but I`m not very good at it.
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Well, actually there is no German and English in South African (Well, Dutch contains some English words, so South African might also). It's a dialect of the Dutch. But since the difference is pretty big it is considered as a different language (Mainly some difference in grammar and writing). Still I'm able to understand South African and vice verse, they'll understand Dutch.
 
Emphasis on the 'like'... I meant it sounds like a mixture, because in Afrikaans the pronounciation of some words take on a more German sounding tone. Extreme G's and such.

It is almost identical to Dutch though with some changes here and there, Ek kan verstaan wat die Dutch mense se.

And it can't reall be called South African as we have 13 official South African languages, including Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho etc.

When I said I can speak a bit of it, I also mean like; I can have conversations in it and it's needed too considering I am the only English first language person at my work and the rest speak in Afrikaans. So ek moet met hulle Afrikaans praat as hulle vir my vra ;)
 
In terms of the poll, why are Chinese and Japanese grouped together/ They are completely seperate languages. Anyway, I do speak a little Japanese. I want to learn Tagalog.
 
Along with my native tongues, I speak English and French.

linguistically speaking of the disc,
hatedisc
 
I have being trying to learn french for just about under a year now using 'Learn french with Michel Thomas' tapes. I had previously studied it in school but only the very basics. I took it up because my mum speaks it fluenty and I want to keep it up. Honestly I have not learnt much :( I plan to enventually learn spainish/italian as apparantly for an english speaker they are easy so :)
 
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