How Easily Do You Learn Foreign Languages?

[A Link In Time]

Numerous times we've seen threads asking what foreign languages you know but this thread centers around the ease or lack thereof with which you are able to enmesh your mind in new dialects.

Personally, I love studying foreign languages and their cultures. European dialects come especially easily to me because once you know a few, you know them all. Lately I've been dabbling in the romance languages especially Spanish, Italian, and French. While I can solely attest to possessing a solid foundation in the first, the other two especially Italian are unbelievably similar and while unable to write or speak the languages fluently, I can easily comprehend them.

The situation isn't as optimistic with oriental dialects although I largely lack experience in that area. Many Asian vernaculars emphasize fluidity and ease in pronunciation, resulting in a fractional time to utter words as compared to more complex jargon like English or Hebrew. This results in a cultural and spoken disconnect between the Western and Eastern hemispheres, with vastly differing sentence structure and degrees of formality.

Anyhow, do you struggle with learning foreign languages or do they come naturally to you? Are there certain dialects it's harder for you to grasp? Certain dialects you understand and communicate without a sweat?

 

[Spirit]

Learning a new language is something i can't do. I studied French in school because i had to, and i tried Spanish later on, but just like me and maths, whatever i learn doesn't stick... i think i can still say 'i have blonde eyes' in french though.. yes you heard me

 

[Ventus]

Many languages are a trouble for me at first sight, I think this is with most people. This means that I am forced to learn things baby steps, right from the alphabet. From there, I am immersed in the "life" of [insert language here] speaker, given my own [insert language] based name such as "Tomas", "Pierre", etc. So, I would say learning a new language is moderately difficult for me.

 

[Sydney]

To be honest, it really varies for each language. English is the language I've known my entire life. Up until last year I begun taking French I. The course was ridiculously easy, I passed with an A with no sweat. Although I'm taking French II again this year, I'm expecting it to be only slightly more challenging than previous years. I fear taking Spanish or Italian will get me terribly confused, so I'm planning to learn said languages another day (besides, I can't even roll my R's). For me, European/English languages come easier to me than others.

 

[Ventus]

Up until last year I begun taking French I.

Wait, college level French I or high school level French I? :?

Oh, yes, Latin based languages definitely come easier than others. An language that has many similarties to me home langauge, English, comes easier to me. This involves Arabic, French, Spanish but I haven't yet tried Italian, Portuguese or any others. I tried Japanese and absolutely failed my Hiragana test because it involves symbols and far much more study time than any language I have ever gotten into. I may take up Japanese later on, but as of now, I'll stick to base English and attempt to get good (like, Thareous good).

 

[Rare Addict]

It's not something that comes to me naturally, unfortunately. Virtually everything that I "learned" within my first and only year of Spanish class was lost within a matter of months. I'd like to think that it was just an issue of repetition -- that if I'd devoted a few more years to understanding the language, then it would've stuck.

Ah, well. Fortunately, my Major in Journalism requires that I take several foreign language courses, so... These next couple of years should be interesting, I guess? xD

 

[Vanessa28]

Believe it or not but I learn them easily. I studied 3 foreign languages at school but I never used them. Now after doing hotelwork I learned to talk german. I am not fluent but I speak it well enough to hold a conversation and a long one too. I pick it up easily somehow.

 

[Dan]

I know only enlish, that's about it, oh and I know how to speak riddles.

 

[:Zelda:Druggie:]

English is a *****
Excuse my language . . .
Seriously, I hate English, with a burning fiery passion in my heart. My mother tongue is Spanish and I was pretty much forced to learn English when I moved here. No classes or nothing. I learned everything I know from TV and hearing others speak. Can you guys tell half of my posts on here are made with Google Translator? Or am I just that sneaky? Mwahaha

Anyways, I guess I could say I learned the basics of English pretty easily. My accent sucks so bad. And my grammar. I write wayyyyy better than I speak because I try to speak fast but then my word gets jumbled and I end up cussing in Spanish by the end of my sentence.
I avoid speaking English in school as much as possible and stick around with my Hispanic friends xD

 

[Violet Link]

To be honest, it's actually kind of easy for me to learn foreign languages. It will kinda took me 3 days to do it. But Arabic is a challenge to me...
I know English, Malay, French, Japanese, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Indonesian...... I think that's it.
Probably the easiest for me to learn is Indonesian, because my mom often says Indonesian all the time. Sometimes, she always gives me the meanings to it.

 

[misskitten]

Well, learning English was easy for me because I'm surrounded by English in the media, even many Norwegian artists write their songs in English, most of the shows on TV are in English, etc. Learning French was not so easy for me, and even after five years of French classes I only understand bits and pieces of the language. In the past months I've attempted to learn sign language for work, I think if there had been consistent exposure to it, I could have managed to learn it properly, but going off a digital dictionary that doesn't even contain all the signs there are in Norwegian and having to ask other people, most of which are in the process of learning themselves, is not really helping all that much. At least if I encounter a deaf person who is used to fingerspelling (I work with mentally handicapped people, so those there using sign language don't always understand fingerspelling as they associate the signs with names), I can at least make myself understood. I have no problem with those signs, lol.

So I would say I'm not that good at learning foreign languages, not unless I get lots and lots exposure of the language and there's a strong will in me to learn the language (French was never really a choice for me, I had to learn a third language and I could choose French or I could choose German...)

 

[Joy]

I'm good at languages, and I have a good ear. I already speak 3 and am in the process of learning another two. I love being able to talk to different people and I am naturally good at vocabulary and spelling, not so much at grammar but no one really minds.

I speak everything with an accent except for French though.

 

[Ouroboros]

Well, in high school I took Spanish 1 & 2. I had a really difficult time and I hated it, I figured learning a second language is just too hard. Now I'm in college and I'm taking Mandarin Chinese; now I find that I love learning this language, maybe Spanish just wasn't for me. It is a somewhat difficult language, but if you take extra time to practice, and submerge yourself in the language it becomes easier. Out of all of my classes, I have the most fun in Chinese. I will most likely end up taking the next classes in line, all the way up to Chinese 4.. And hopefully beyond elsewhere. Early on in the semester, it was very easy, but now were getting into more complicated characters and sentences, so it will take extra work to grasp it. However, for the most part I seem to be catching on pretty well.

 

[Libk]

I can understand languages pretty easily but speaking them is where I start running into trouble. It's odd how I know what a word means yet when I go to say it I can't remember it for the life of me.

 

[octorok74]

It depends on how engaging it is. Every time I've tried to learn a language so far it hasn't kept me interested. I can decipher what people speaking a different language are saying for the most part, but I never know what they actually say.