What prompted you to learn the foreign languages you know?

[Absinthe]

Personal desire, necessity, business reasons, falling in love with a french girl? :D

For me it was:

- English

Despite of the fact that my mom is American (she didn't bother teaching me anyways), what motivated me the most, was music.

I had been listening to hard rock/heavy metal music since a very young age (8 or 9) and I had a burning desire to learn english fast so that I could understand the lyrics.
It worked both ways as I also learned from the lyrics. I acquired the Proficiency in the english language at the age of 15. I thereafter studied in an American College for 5 years, which improved my academic use of english a lot.
I still don't get all the idioms of british english and damn me if I can understand the Cockney accent...it's like a totally different language :eek:

- French

It was mandatory to learn them in school so I was taught French for 6 years. Unfortunately, there is a strange, almost metaphysical phenomenon about greek women teaching French: every single one of them is extremely fat, sexually deprived, hateful and obnoxious.
My experience with 2-3 french speaking monsters like those made me despise the language itself and my brain blocked it. :(
Pity, because it is such a wonderful language and I would have been fluent if I had studied but now the negative associations are so strong that I still cringe at the thought of my highschool experience.

- Swedish

I always had a strong desire of learning a scandinavian language because of my strong admiration for nordic culture.
Norwegian would have probably been my first choice but it so happened that I visited Sweden and fell in love with the beauty of it so I took up svenska instead. :)

- Finnish

I visited Finland in the summer and before that I thought I'd learn a few phrases just to entertain my friends. :p
What came as a rather unexpected twist was the amazing facility by which I could pronounce the language, without even trying.

Before that, I randomly met a Finnish girl in Athens who could also pronounce the greek language without trying and she almost sounded like a native...

So I thought there's something extremely fishy here and I decided to investigate that by learning the language. It's an intriguing language anyway. In a couple of years I'll let you know of my findings :thumb001:

- Sanskrit

I was always fascinated by the Vedic tradition, Evola's works on hinduism as well as Savitri Devi's... Also linguistically, I wished to learn that ancient IE language that everyone's talking about.

I never thought it would be possible without going to India, until I found out that in the same place where my swedish classes were being held, sanskrit was offered as well. I have to say it was a good choice: a whole new world opened up for me... :)

[Silverfern]

I had to because of work. I have many different people pass onto my list, and understanding them is the key.

Tho I think I swear better in Italian and Greek than I do in English.

[SuuT]

Vaious Scandinavian dialects:

Even though I moved to the states at a young age, you can't spend very much time in Scandinavia without picking up Danish (obviously), and (in Norway [Oslo]), anyway) informal svensk. There are even familial dialects in Scandinavia, spoken (as implied) only amongst the family which is a left-over/antique cultural phenomena of the cultural 'upper-crust' (Aristocracy). My fluency in my own familial dialect is still strong, and we have kept it alive; however, the older I get, and the less I use other (especially formal) dialects, coupled with an over-exposure to so many Germanic tounges and being an avid traveler, I get articles and noun placement all mish-mashed: I think I'm actually more fluent in English now than I am in Bokmål, for example :( .


(the Queens) English:

English was well on its way to becoming the "universal language" before I was even born, so there's that; and, when the remanider of my family (long, complicated, very convoluted story) decided to move to the states, I can remember my father actually asking me to put all other tounges "out of my head" except our family one. He passed before I really had the chance to find out why.


German:

Given that my chosen University discipline was Philosophy, my pre-existing semi-fluency had to become sharper so as to read primary texts. This was quite amplified when as an undergraduate I began to delve into 19th century Philosophy.


Latin:

Again, simply pre-requisite to my chosen discipline. And I always had an affinity for it. It is a harsh and noble tounge.


(Latin American) Spanish:

semi-fluent, here. Why? ...I live in America! - And I am fairly heavily invested in the Green Industry.


Greek:

I know enough to know when I ought to use a Greek word in my own philosopical writings.


French:

I took four years in high school (because I had to pick something), but the majority of what I have learned has escaped me (sorry, Aemma;)).





Here's a twist!:

I want to learn Dutch, and have given a half-ass stab at it; but, for whatever reason, it just doesn't register: I think that the reasons are two-fold. 1.) The language centre of my brain is fairly fixed at my age (although the "Rosetta Stone" series for Dutch is on its way to me - it comes highly recomended from a trusted friend); and 2.) It is a 'composite' tounge that requires me to nearly forget all of the tounges that are familiar to me - the rules seem alien.

[Vargtand]

I only speak swedish, I fake the rest.

[Psychonaut]

In chronological order...

German: I took three years of it in High School. I was just about to sign up for French but made a last minute decision (I never knew why) to switch to German.

Koine Greek/Biblical Hebrew: I took a few textual criticism classes (know thy enemy ;)) in college. I've largely forgotten everything other than the scripts and a few dozen useful roots.

Mandarin Chinese: I joined the Army as a linguist, but wasn't able to choose a language. Given the current political climate, I was expecting to get Arabic or Farsi, but towards the end of basic training, lo and behold, I was issued Chinese.

French: Even though my grandparents and a few of my aunts and uncles are/were native speakers, my parents were not and didn't speak French in the house. So, what vocabulary I did pick up as a child was through my grandparents mostly and wasn't very much. I'm now trying to remedy that, but it's slow going. These last few years of damnable Chinese have seriously mucked up my brain. :D

[Solwyn]

I learned French and English at about the same time as a child, although I was placed in a French language nursery school and was put in front of Radio Canada instead of CBC. My paternal grandfather passed it on to me, but not his sons - being Acadian was not the cool thing when my father was a child, in fact, it went against you, so his dad wanted the kids raised in English. Unfortunately when he died, there was no one around to speak to and at that time you couldn't do immersion if you didn't have a French-speaking parent or relative living with you.

Other than French, which I've studied consistently from grade primary through to the end of university, I also took German in junior high, high school, and university. I was bilingual at one point, but since about 1993 I haven't had anyone to speak to, and you know what they say, use it or lose it. I can still understand some things, but I'll have to take another course again.

I took Russian in university as well and despite the alphabet and pronounciations being completely foreign to me, once I internalized it, I found it easier to pick up than any of the other languages that I'd studied. Again, no one to speak to, but because I now live in an area whose dominant ethnic groups come from the former Soviet Union, I have access to many Russian newspapers and magazines. I can read in Russian once again, but I'd be afraid to amuse too many people with my speaking.

My parents spoke Scots Gaelic to each other because it was my mother's first language but I never picked it up. My brother, on the other hand, who could never get French, picked up on the Gaelic right away. I knew enough to know when I was in trouble. :thumb001:

My son, who is 100% against anything to do with French for some odd reason (he's been that way since he was small) has managed to teach himself Italian with a program that I bought him, which was designed for iPods. I wasn't sure if he was actually learning or just repeating, so I took him to the Italian neighborhood last summer for some ice cream and he carried on a conversation with the lady behind the counter to the extent that I had to give him a little kick because it was time to go. Why Italian and not French I'll never know, but at least he has another language.

[Baron Samedi]

I speak un poco amounts of Spanish. I would like to expand my fluency in it more so that I know when Aztlan is talking shit about us in our presence.

[Solwyn]

I speak un poco amounts of Spanish. I would like to expand my fluency in it more so that I know when Aztlan is talking shit about us in our presence.

LOLOL!!!! I'd like to quietly take Vietnamese for similar reasons. Most of my students are from Vietnam. I may not speak the language but I always know when they're venting about me:D

[RoyBatty]

I speak un poco amounts of Spanish. I would like to expand my fluency in it more so that I know when Aztlan is talking shit about us in our presence.

LOL :D

[RoyBatty]

I learned English due to the fact that it was an official language for us and I had some Englishspeaking friends.

Learned German at school. The choices were either that, Latin or a non-language subject. Used the German a bit while working for an Austrian business so it came in useful. Not fluent in it unfortunately.

Dutch / Flemish - Similar enough to my native language Afrikaans to get by in. Don't speak them well but can make myself understood. I find Flemish to be more similar to Afrikaans.

French - Did a bit at Uni but for some reason I kept thinking in German and got confused. Can understand a bit but am quite weak in it.

Russian - Was fascinated with the Soviet Union since I was a kid so I started reading up on it. I dabble in Russian as a hobby, can read / understand a bit but it's a long slippery slope ahead.

[Gooding]

I grew up speaking English and that's my primary language.
I learned some bits of French here and there from my grandmother and my sister.
When I was in high school, I was enamored of the Scots Gaelic language and can speak a little here and there.
I took three years of Spanish in high school and another year of it in college.I only use it if a client is utterly ignorant of the English language and I have no choice.
I know traces of German.

[Inese]

German: I am fluent in it because one grandfather is German and he teached me the language when i was small for many years!! :D And i picked German in school too. ---- I was always the best one in the class before moving to Germany!!! :cool::

English: I learn it in school. I am not fluent but i can understand most. Grammar is shit but okay i do my best , lol...:coffee: My grades are often 2-4.

Russian: I understand the language of our enemies a little bit because many russians are in Latvia , you learn automaticaly some things. I dont use Russian actively i use it to understand what the other say only!!! Often it is not nice.

[Óttar]

English - Northern Standard (Mother tongue). German (I wanted to learn German due to Southern German great-grandparents, a desire to have knowledge of another Germanic language, and Rammstein. :D) Spanish (Took Spanish in 6th grade. Recovered an interest after reading about Castile and Vulgar Latin tongues.) Italian (An interest awakened after studying the Renacimento and being fascinated with the decadence of Medieval Italy.) Hindi (4th largest language in the world, the language spoken by the majority of India's population, interest in Hinduism)

I am advanced in German, intermediate in Spanish, beginning-intermediate in Italian and Hindi... Want to learn Persian to secure cushy federal job as the US govt. will be desperate for speakers of Urdu (Hindustani with a large Persian vocabulary).

[Electronic God-Man]

Spanish - I forget most of it, but I learned it for some years in High School. I just couldn't get into it. Spanish as a Latin American and Mexican language just didn't rub me the right way. That's how they teach it usually in the US. I would have done much more with it had we focused mostly or completely on Spain and Spanish history. I can still understand it fairly well though when it is spoken to me, especially when the person speaking is a non-native speaker as well. I can't reply for the life of me though.

Latin - My High School required at least a year of Latin. I got into it and took some other classes then outside of school. I'm not sure how much I remember of it. Latin is really great for understanding any other Romance language and also for understanding English with its many Latinate words.

German - This is the one language I came to actually wanting to learn it. They didn't offer German in school so I bought books and CDs and German language music and just studied it by myself. Actually, I remember wanting to try and learn it at a younger age (like 13 or so) but I didn't know enough about things like cases (Thanks Latin!) to really teach myself. The real reason I wanted to learn was because I knew that other than English the second greatest amount of my ancestry was German...plus the language just sounds awesome.

By the time I entered college I could enter the German courses there and did. I'm much better at reading and listening to the language and understanding than I am speaking. I really need to start speaking it more often...but I hate making mistakes. Blah blah blah everyone needs to make mistakes blah blah...I know.

[Osweo]

Gaelic and Welsh aren't really foreign, so I'll discuss Russkiy;

Survival.
I landed in Russland after having read through one basic primer written in the 1940s. Plenty of words had changed. People weren't so anxious to discuss tractors or Lenin's boyhood anymore. I had to learn on my feet, or starve and get stranded in odd places in the middle of the night in the snow... :P

Starting out as a teacher, I learnt much off kids and when I got proper translating and interpreting work with self important middle-aged Russian officials and businessmen to talk to, I occasionally raised bushy Brezhnev-eyebrows with the odd childish or slangy expression. I've ironed it out with a lot of reading, though, which is great for formal vocabulary, if not for pronunciation.

I last worked in an office with English people who'd done Russian at school and university and whatnot. They gave me a lot of technical help with things that I really should have learnt at the beginning, but i could still teach them a thing or two of the more colloquial style I'd lived in! One girl had lived among Russians for years without learning 'na' - a noise made when passing somebody something, like 'here you are'. I used it on her, then had to explain it. She later said that she had suddenly started noticing it every day! :D

It's a great language, and here's a funny little reason; it has a full operational case system. German's is damaged, as is Old English, and so is less regular and predictable, and thus more abstract to learn. Latin has a good one, but you can't go and live in Latium to experience it as a living language. Russian thus helps me envisage grammar in interesting extinct languages I like to read about. :thumb001:

[Maelstrom]

Spent a year in Germany, so I picked up some of the language there. Whilst there I found it difficult to gather my thoughts and translate to their language while being on the spot.

Now, when messaging my German friends I find it easier as I have time to gather my thoughts. I am pretty useless when it comes to the cases and whatnot, but I can make myself known.

All the girls think it's really cute :p

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Vaious Scandinavian dialects:

Here's a twist!:

I want to learn Dutch, and have given a half-ass stab at it; but, for whatever reason, it just doesn't register: I think that the reasons are two-fold. 1.) The language centre of my brain is fairly fixed at my age (although the "Rosetta Stone" series for Dutch is on its way to me - it comes highly recomended from a trusted friend); and 2.) It is a 'composite' tounge that requires me to nearly forget all of the tounges that are familiar to me - the rules seem alien.

Dutch is easy,put a hot potato in your mouth and speak German.

Dutch,but only because I am Dutch

English a perfect language to rape the grammar and double meaning.I do use it if I have to lie,at least I do not blush.

Latin--learned at high school mandatory for certain subjects at University
German I was stationed in Berne and had to learn it for love's sake

French ditto. I just swoon when I hear a female swearing at me in French 'to go to hell' and loving the trip and above all it is the most precise language in Europe

Never bothered to speak Zulu-Ndebele-Xhosa-Shangaan etc they sound like a septic tank deflating

[Vargtand]

Alright while my first post was semi true.


I learned Swedish natively; I've always been interested in languages so I understand Norwegian a fair bit better than most Swedes as well as Danish, working in tech support for a year with the Scandinavian languages gave me a bit of practice as well.

I don't speak but I understand Dutch and German quite well.
At a later point I intend to study some Dutch, currently my friend is teaching me German :)

Also English I learned thanks to the all knowing all wise, TV. :P if you ask my mother it was because I had troubles reading the text, which is completely absurd I've always had an easy time picking up spoken words, am a bit of an analyst in nature :)

Funny enough I did study Spanish for 3 years but I can’t remember a single word, it is as useful to me as coca cola, nice to have around but hardly necessary. So I have had no use for it and thus forgotten it.

[Tabiti]

English - it's just a must nowadays.
German - I've always liked the way this language sounds and Germany as a whole. I'm not fluent, can only understand the main meaning of a text.
Russian - I had to choose between Spanish and Russian in school and since I don't like Roman languages very much I prefered Russian. Also not fluent - can only understand, but not speak/write.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Dutch is easy,put a hot potato in your mouth and speak German.

Dutch,but only because I am Dutch

English a perfect language to rape the grammar and double meaning.I do use it if I have to lie,at least I do not blush.

Latin--learned at high school mandatory for certain subjects at University
German I was stationed in Berne and had to learn it for love's sake

French ditto. I just swoon when I hear a female swearing at me in French 'to go to hell' and loving the trip and above all it is the most precise language in Europe

Never bothered to speak Zulu-Ndebele-Xhosa-Shangaan etc they sound like a septic tank deflating

Forgot to mention Afrikaans

[Angantyr]

French. My mother spoke to her children in French.
English. I eventually went to university in English. I wrote my TOEFL exams when I was 19 years old.
Russian. I lived and worked in the Ukraine and I married a Russian girl when I was there (since divorced). Additionally, it is close enough to Ukrainian and Belorussian that I can understand both of them.
Estonian. I studied it for three years at university. It is close to Finnish, whcih I also studied for three years at university concurrently.
Hungarian. I studied it for four years at university and I worked in Hungarian for almost three years.
Danish. I fell in love with a Danish girl when I was younger and tried to charm her by speaking Danish. I kept the Danish and lost the girl. Additonally, I can understand Swedish and both varieties of Norwegian as they are all very similar.
Lithuanian. A job in Lithuania for one year.
Icelandic, or rather Old Norse. I audited Old Norse at university for two years.
Irish Gaelic. I had a plan to go to the Gaeltacht that I prepared for, but it never came to fruition. Additionally, it is close enough to Scottish Gaelic that I can understand most of it as well.
Latin. I studied independently merely for my own edification.
I can also speak and understand a considerable amount of Spanish and Italian, which I pick up incidentally, although I never really made any effort to learn them.
I would love to have the time to learn Breton, Welsh, Mordvin and Komi as well as a few others. I have no desire whatsoever to learn Chinese, Hindi, Zulu, Indonesian and many others. It is not my culture nor my people.

I have a gift for languages and I love them. Each one is like my own child to me.

[Útrám]

I'm fluent in the following

Icelandic Needs no explanation

English What can I say, it's an anglophone world.

Swedish In my childhood, I lived in the city of Lund for three years. When my family moved back to my home country I decided to preserve my knowledge and skill of Swedish by reading books and watching films. This is doubtlessly my favourite tongue, it has an ineffable benign quality to it.

Danish This is a compulsory subject in the Icelandic educational system. I would never had voluntarily learnt it since I don't see much of a reason to and every Dane I have come across insists on speaking English when he/her detects the slightest sound of a foreign accent.

I have a basic knowledge of French(I like French literature), I can't converse but I can read without looking too often in the dictionary.

[Kempenzoon]

English:

I got my first computer when I was 6. It was a text-based command-line PC back then, all in English. So I started educating myself in the language. Coupled with subtitled TV and movies in spoken English I could read/write English fluently by 12, without any formal education yet.

I later spent half a year or so in Finland, and living in Erasmus dorms both at my own college and during my foreign time - and that improved my speaking skills in English to a higher level.

French:

Had to study it in school between age 10 and 18, and a course on professional business French when I was in my last semester in college. Had no choice to avoid them. I guess it's handy in a way to understand French, but I always resisted learning the language in detail because of the history between the Flemish people and the French language.

Latin:

Studied it in high school for 4 years by choice. It's been almost 10 years ago since I did so, so I've forgotten most of it, but it still comes in handy once in a blue moon. If anything, it made it much easier to me to understand modern European languages.

Finnish:

When I lived in Finland as an Erasmus student, I voluntarily took some courses. I lived in a large student city (Jyväskylä), so it wasn't actually necessary with all communication going on in English. But I still felt my hosts deserved the respect that I'd at least learn some basic vocabulary.

Though Finnish is so incredibly hard to learn. I think in half a year's time, even motivated as I was, I only really learned how to do groceries and order a beer at a pub.

I'm still doubting because I want to learn one more language, I think that if I don't wait too long, my mind is still flexible enough for it. I wonder if I should continue my study of Finnish; or if I should learn German; or if I should learn Swedish. They're the three languages that I like a lot.


Dutch / Flemish - Similar enough to my native language Afrikaans to get by in. Don't speak them well but can make myself understood. I find Flemish to be more similar to Afrikaans.

Some friends of mine travelled to South Africa and lived there for a while, and they claim the same. That Afrikaans is actually more similar to Flemish than it is to Dutch. I didn't know that, but I find it interesting.

[Svarog]

I speak Russian, Polish, English, French (can't write) and understand most of Slavic languages more than well enough to have a descent conversation, no special events really made me want to learn these languages, English was always mandatory and is everywhere around, if you can't speak it, you're pretty much uneducated, all other languages I learned from friends plus forcing myself to watch their movies, listen to their music, rewrite their magazines and such, no school, practical learning is much more effective.

[Laudanum]

I can speak English, German, and now i'm learning Norwegian, because i want to move to Norway when i'm 20.:)

[RoyBatty]

Some friends of mine travelled to South Africa and lived there for a while, and they claim the same. That Afrikaans is actually more similar to Flemish than it is to Dutch. I didn't know that, but I find it interesting.

One possible explanation I've heard from Belgians is that both Flemish and Afrikaans are closer to old Dutch. Who knows.... :)

[Zardoz]

French: I took French starting in Grade 4 and kept it up through the end of high school (Grade 13 at the time). I enjoy the language and am trying to maintain the degree of fluency that I have. I read and write it quite well, but I have problems understanding spoken French especially when spoken quickly.

Russian: I have no idea why I started learning Russian! lol I have no Russian blood in me. It's honestly a mystery to me, but a wonderful mystery. The high school I went to wasn't large enough to offer foreign languages, so I started teaching myself Russian. Then I took two years of it at University of Toronto and have tried to retain what I've learned. I've only been to Russia once, but I loved it! The superintendent couple in my apartment building are Russian, which is a plus and I dated a Russian woman for a year or so back in 2004. I still don't know why I chose Russian, I think Russian chose me. :D Either way, it's a beautiful language!

[Laudanum]

French: I still don't know why I chose Russian, I think Russian chose me. :D Either way, it's a beautiful language!

I agree. Russian is a beautiful language, but isn't it really hard to learn?

[Luern]

I started learning both English and Spanish in grade 6. That was mandatory.


I would love to have the time to learn Breton, Welsh, Mordvin and Komi as well as a few others. I have no desire whatsoever to learn Chinese, Hindi, Zulu, Indonesian and many others. It is not my culture nor my people.

But aren't you French Canadian?

[Zardoz]

I agree. Russian is a beautiful language, but isn't it really hard to learn?

Yes, it is a bit difficult. But I took Latin in high school and both Latin and Russian are highly inflected languages, so that helped prepare me for the noun cases and changes in adjectives. Nothing prepared me for Russian verbs though! Especially verbs of motion! :eek:

[RoyBatty]

I agree. Russian is a beautiful language, but isn't it really hard to learn?

It's not that hard (but OK, I haven't made much progress thus far). They use a lot of Dutch terms in the Russian Navy so you'll find that quite a few words in their language would be familiar to you.

[Äike]

I learned Russian, because 30% of the population is too retarded(must be genetics) to learn the native language of Estonia, Estonian.

[pure maiden]

Well, My main language and the language that I was raised with is English.

I didn't even know who I was beyond that when I was younger, had to find out on my own. So I grew up thinking that the Scots and the Irish spoke English and that was it. I had no idea what it even meant to be Irish or Scottish.

However I ended up discovering my Gaelic Heritage through, ironically Aboriginal peoples, who both me and my mother spent a lot of time with. My mother worked with Native children through Child Guidance Clinic and I was fascinated by there culture, through that I became inspired by there re-claiming of there own culture and languages I wanted to learn my own.

I met a wonderful lady who had been teaching Scottish Gaelic so I was able to study with her. I learned a lot about my heritage and language from her.
Then I ended up going to the Gaelic College in Cape Breton Nova Scotia.

I also studied Irish at the Irish center. Sadly I don't remember very much of either language now as I have no one to speak it.


I suppose the other languages I know are French, being that I am Canadian.
As well a bit of German, my mother sent me to a Mennonite school as a child so I learned it there, wish I had studied it more closely back then. I love the language and the Germans.

Here is a great link to a u tube post that celebrates Scottish Gaelic.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN4

Gaidhlic Gu Brath! Gaelic Forever!

[TheWingedHussar]

I was forced into German by my school -no choice. That said I enjoy learning German and will most likely study it at college. Apart from that, I understand odd bits of other Germanic languages and bits of Spanish too, but not much. I also know one or two basic phrases in French and some Slavic languages, but the only lanuages I can converse in are English, German and Scots (if you want to class that as a language -most of it comes just from being able to understand what people are saying to you).

Pure Maiden -Cimera tha sibh? (that's all the Gaelic I know!).

[Loddfafner]

French: because I lived there.

Spanish: I wanted to understand Californian place names.

Arabic: I wanted to learn a language with an exotic alphabet.

[Loxias]

French is my mothertongue, no need to go into that.

English
When I was 8 (last year of primary school), we had to chose a foreign language. I eagerly wanted to take German. But my parents opted for English because it is a more useful language. I wasn't too bad in English at school as I was very interested in languages, but I started improving more seriously when I was 10 and we moved to a country where English is the main vehiculary language.
The biggest boost however was the internet. I can safely say that I owe 90% of my proficiency in English to the internet.

Spanish
Again, when I was 12 (third year of collège, like junior high in French system), we had to chose a second foreign language to learn. Again, I wanted to take German. But, in this small French school abroad, I was the only one who wanted to, so they didn't open a class for me, and I had to go with Spanish. I don't have much affinity for this language, but it wasn't very hard to learn due to its similarities with French.

Latin
Had to learn at school too. Now it's pretty much escaped my mind, but I can understand latin texts to a good extent.

Bahasa Melayu/Indonesia
Grew up a part of my life around it, it's one of the easiest languages in the world. I am not good with literary language, but otherwise relatively fluent for daily talk.

Other than that, I have acquired a very limited understanding of German and Japanese, both I wish to improve and learn more properly.

I love phonetics and pronunciation, so much that I have learnt how to read pretty much every European languages with a correct pronunciation (save for Gaelic which still remains a mystery to me).