What languages have you attempted to learn?

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23120
Contact:

What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:14 pm

I was going back through my log looking for something, and discovered that once upon a time I'd had a go at learning Finnish. So I thought I would query what languages people have "had a go at"? My list below.

English (N) <= I have been relatively successful at this one.
French
Italian
Mandarin
Finnish
Czech/Slovakian
Setswana
Korean

EDIT: 2 more I forgot. Esperanto and Toka Pona
2nd EDIT: I forgot about Polish too. I had a stab at that once.

But never German, because life is too short to learn German.
12 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

Online
galaxyrocker
Brown Belt
Posts: 1119
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:44 am
Languages: English (N), Irish (Teastas Eorpach na Gaeilge B2), French, dabbling elsewhere sometimes
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=757
x 3327

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby galaxyrocker » Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:52 pm

I've been subject to so much wanderlust it's not even funny. Just thinking back on the ones I've seriously attempted, and probably put in the log here (and I'm sure I'm missing many!)

  • Irish
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Japanese
  • Pali
.

Now, all the others I've mentioned or dabbled in? Well, there's North Sami, Finnish, Latin, and the list keeps going on and on... And I'm sure there's some from my blog I've forgotten.
8 x

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10461

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:09 pm

I quote myself:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Apart from Swedish and English, I've had classes in eight languages in high school/university, have studied a few on my own (on and off), and have flirted with a couple. If I would include all of them, this would be the list:
German
Spanish
French
Ancient Greek
Irish
Welsh
Scottish Gaelic
Japanese
Mandarin
Cantonese
Latin
Russian
Portuguese
Esperanto
Finnish
Cornish
Serbo-Croatic
Persian
Turkish
Sindarin/Quenya (I can't really remember which, if not both)


↑ This is in chronological order.
9 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23120
Contact:

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:17 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Sindarin/Quenya (I can't really remember which, if not both)

Yes! I like this one. I should try this one. But in fact you reminded me of constructed languages, so I've updated my list with Esperanto and Toka Pona
3 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby einzelne » Sun Jan 29, 2023 8:22 pm

I only list sustained (but not necessarily successful) attempts:

English
German
French
Dutch
Italian
Spanish
Latin

* to clarify: by sustained but not necessarily successful attempts I mean that I passed the stage of textbooks and started to engage with unadapted materials but not necessarily got to the stage where I don't need crutches (dictionary for books, transcripts/subtitles for audio/video materials).
Last edited by einzelne on Mon Jan 30, 2023 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
9 x

User avatar
Klara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:28 am
Languages: German (N), English (C1),
B-ish: French, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Italian
A-ish: Russian, Swedish, Latin, Polish, Portuguese
x 306

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Klara » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:27 pm

Here is the sidebar of my "Langenscheidt Vokabeltrainer". The one with a square around the plus sign is with SRS, because Polish is the language I study intensively. Dutch, French and Italian are maintained and the rest gets some attention from time to time.
lang1.png
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
8 x

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10461

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:39 pm

rdearman wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Sindarin/Quenya (I can't really remember which, if not both)

Yes! I like this one. I should try this one. But in fact you reminded me of constructed languages, so I've updated my list with Esperanto and Toka Pona


My God. The quoted text was from last year (but based on an older post from HTLAL). I think I've been dabbling with Toki Pona ever since Polyglot Gathering 2014.
1 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

User avatar
rdearman
Site Admin
Posts: 7231
Joined: Thu May 14, 2015 4:18 pm
Location: United Kingdom
Languages: English (N)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1836
x 23120
Contact:

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:42 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
rdearman wrote:
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Sindarin/Quenya (I can't really remember which, if not both)

Yes! I like this one. I should try this one. But in fact you reminded me of constructed languages, so I've updated my list with Esperanto and Toka Pona


My God. The quoted text was from last year (but based on an older post from HTLAL). I think I've been dabbling with Toki Pona ever since Polyglot Gathering 2014.

At least I'm not the only one forgetting languages I experimented with.
1 x
: 0 / 150 Read 150 books in 2024

My YouTube Channel
The Autodidactic Podcast
My Author's Newsletter

I post on this forum with mobile devices, so excuse short msgs and typos.

vonPeterhof
Blue Belt
Posts: 879
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2015 1:55 am
Languages: Russian (N), English (C2), Japanese (~C1), German (~B2), Kazakh (~B1), Norwegian (~A2)
Studying: Kazakh, Mandarin, Coptic
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1237
x 2833
Contact:

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby vonPeterhof » Mon Jan 30, 2023 6:24 am

Also quoting myself, after having updated the list.

Native: Russian
Speak: English, Japanese, German, Kazakh, Norwegian
Learning: Indonesian, Latin, Hmong
Previously studied/On hold: Abkhaz, Gulf Arabic, Croatian, Classical Chinese, Estonian, Old Japanese, Kalmyk, Slovene, Classical Japanese, Slovak, French, Spanish, Esperanto, Arabic, Modern Greek, Mandarin, Korean, Hungarian, Finnish, Polish, Hindi,
Just dabbled in: Ainu, North Frisian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Albanian, Vietnamese, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Uyghur, Armenian, Ukrainian, Hakka, Belarusian, Nogai, Written Manchu, Georgian, Portuguese, Irish, Old Norse, Ancient Greek, Karachay-Balkar, Bashkir, Dari, Galician, Avar, Ingrian, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Old Church Slavonic, Hebrew, Setswana, Syriac, Navajo, Guarani, Hawaiian, Swahili, Turkish, Scottish Gaelic, Catalan, Turoyo, Chagatai, Chuvash, Old East Slavic, Tamil, Zulu, Cantonese, Akkadian, Welsh, Basque, Romani, Thai, Chechen, Classical Armenian, Yiddish, Levantine Arabic, Friulian, Haitian Creole, Swabian, Tagalog, Māori, Old Turkic, Classical Armenian, Tatar, Dungan, Lezgin, Pashto, Ojibwe, Mongolian, Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Koryo-mar, Sanskrit

The distinction between "studied" and "dabbled in" above is not so much about the intensity of study as it is about whether I took up a language with the express intention of using it (regardless of whether I actually got to use it or not) or just out of curiosity.

In addition to the above qualification, the minimum standard I'm setting for "dabbling" is sustained effort to learn the language, no matter how short. So listening to a single lecture about a language doesn't count (otherwise I'd have to add every single language I've ever read about on Wikipedia) but listening to a lecture, jotting down a few sentences and then reviewing those sentences in Anki for a few weeks does.
14 x

User avatar
Iversen
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 7:36 pm
Location: Denmark
Languages: Monolingual travels in Danish, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Romanian and (part time) Esperanto
Ahem, not yet: Norwegian, Afrikaans, Platt, Scots, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek, Latin, Irish, Indonesian and a few more...
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1027
x 14962

Re: What languages have you attempted to learn?

Postby Iversen » Mon Jan 30, 2023 11:51 am

My ordinary criterion for speaking a language is that I have done a monolingual trip, i.e. a voyage where I basically have refused to speak anything but the local language to native inhabitants - and if possible also to other tourists, but that's not a condition. However the criterion asked for here is 'attempted to learn' , which in principle would include complete failures. Since the criteria are so volatile and debatable I have just made a commented list in an order dictated by linguistic relations plus age plus my end results - prepare for a long long list:

Standard Danish: my native language
Danish dialcts: I can think in several tarzanesque varieties of Jutish (i.e. dialects spoken in Jutland), and I have written here in at least two (Westjysk and Synnejysk). However the only one which you could say I have studied is Synnejysk (Sønderjysk), because I have read some issues of the magazine "Æ Blaj" before trying to write in it. Apart from old songs by J.Aakjær and others there's nothing comparable in other kinds of Jutish, but I just know them because I have heard them.

Old Norse: Definitely studied because I followed a university course in the 70s while I was studying French, but I haven't tried to make it active.
I have read about Proto Norse ('Urnordisk') and also own a book that details the changes from that language stage to Old Norse, but with no attempt to learn it - not even passively

Icelandic: Definitely studied, and I have also had conversations in it,for instance during my stay in Reykjavik during the polyglot congres in Reykjavík - but it was not a monolingual voyage.
As for Faroese: I can read the local newspaper (called something like Dimalættir), but I haven't studied the language systematically

Swedish: Definitely studied, and the last couple of times I have visited the country I have stuck to speaking it whether the locals liked it or not (but I'm better at Swedish than they are at Danish, and I simply refuse to speak English to Swedes).

Norwegian Well, studied yes since it's among the 30 languages I do wordlists in, and I have also several times written in a mixture of New Norwegian and Bokmål and chaos here at Llorg. But I reckon it as a passive language, albeit at a fairly high level - and contrary to most native Norwegians I prefer Nynorsk.

English: well, hard to avoid in my country, and I may actually read more in English than in Danish these days. And of course it counts as a language I have attempted to learn.

Scots: Definitely attempted to learn, but I have only had one real conversation in it (during a gathering). And just as with most of my other languages I don't try to learn any single dialect of it, but my main concern is not to fall into the trap of emitting English with a slight Scottish accent

Anglosaxon: definitely studied insofar that I have read grammars and dictionaries to cope with written sources, but not tried to activate it (apart from one or two short messages here at Llorg)

Frisian: not tried to learn in any of its dialects (out of which the only that really remains active is the Westernmost kind), but I have investigated the alleged links between English and Frisian (I think they are less clear than mostly claimed). I can read the stuff, but haven't tried to activate it

Dutch/Flemish: Definitely studied and also learnt as an active language with the requisite monolingual trips.

Afrikaans: Definitely studied and also learnt as an active language, albeit mostly used in writing (tried out on a few short conversations in ZA)

Luxemburgish and other upper and lower Alemannic speech variants: I recently had a fit where I read in and about this language, which now even has become official in Luxembourg - but not tried really to learn it

Low German/Platt: learnt by watching TV in the 60s, only seen in writing some 50 years later. Not studied much, but enough to qualify. Not tried out in speech, but I can write and think in it.

Ancient Saxon: well, I have studied old Saxon chronicles in order to compare them with Old Norse and Anglosaxon - I guess that quilifies as studying, but no attempt to really learn the language

High German: O gosh, learnt in school during the 60s and I have had German television ever since - and would of course refuse to speak anything but German to Germans in Germany.

German dialects: I dearly like to hear them, but you rarely see them printed outside Wikipedia - even in Switzerland, where the local bunch of variants are so different from High German that German TV put subtitles on them.

Gothic: I once briefly studied the Wulfila bible, but this must be characterized as 'dabbling'

Latin: definitely studied and also used both in its written and spoken form, but my involvement with it tends to fluctuate, and after a long drought I can't just start speaking it at the turn of a hat. I have also read about other Italic languages, but definitely not tried to learn them.

French: Well, I have a university degree in French, though my level now is probably a tad lower than it was in 1981 (same fluency, but more errors). Nevertheless still good enough for monolingual trips.

Ancient French: I have actually studied this stage of the French language (and also written in it a few times here), but I count it as a passive skill.

Occitan: I followed a course in Ancient Occitan (the language of the trouadours and trobairitzes) so it definitely counts as a studied language - and I have been reading stuff in modern Occitan as goodnight reading for more than a week. But almost exclusively as a passive language.

Portuguese: I only really learned this language in the noughties after my return to language learning, but now it's good enough to be used for monolingual trips on both sides of the Atlantic

Castillian (Spanish): homestudies from the 60s (no courses, but a lot of tourism) - good enough to be used for monolingual trips on both sides of the Atlantic

Catalan: followed two semesterlong courses in it during the 70s and have supplemented with homestudies and tourism - good enough to be used for monolingual trips

Sardic/Sardinian: I can read the stuff, and I have read a grammar of one of its five dialects, but it's not on my to-do list

Romansh: actually a bundle of four or five 'languages' (some say dialects) rather than one monolitic language. I have read some tales by Hans Christian Andersen in one of the variants (methinks Low Engadin?) - but no attempt to learn any of them.

Italian: I have studied and also learnt Standard Italian well enough to do monolingual trips (mostly as a home study, but I did follow regular university conversation classs in the 70s). I am aware of its dialects and have read and listened to stuff in some of them, but don't plan to do anything more systematic about learning them.

Romanian: followed courses with native teachers for three years in the 70, the last two years as the only student (and 100% in Romanian at my request) - good enough to be used for monolingual trips, but hard to keep alive

Greek (Dhimotiki): I bought some books around 1981, but have only studied it since the noughties. Tried out in short conversations during my last two trips down there, but mainly used in its written form when I'm at home

Ancient Greek (from Mycenean over Homeric and classical Attic to Koine): maybe later but definitely not right now

Russian: I bought some books around 1981, but have only studied it since the noughties. And since I hardly could speak since my last visit to the country (and probably the last one for a long time) I am only really confident about using its written form

Ukrainian: a recent addition. I do study it and I do own a dictionary, but no grammar (I have however made some gren sheets based on Wikipedia). So far mostly aiming for a decent passive level, but with aspirations to do more about it

Bulgarian: its verbal system is complicated, but otherwise the easiest Slavic language. I have never tried to speak it, but do try to activite its written form

Serbian: the first Slavic language I studied after Russian, and I have learnt a fair amount of vocabulary. Keep it apart from Croatian by favouring sources in Cyrillic, but it seems that the language community is sliding towards Latinitsa

Croatian (and other Southern Slavic languages): some passive skills because of my involvement with Serbian, and I recently studied some texts in Bosnian, but that counts as dabbling

Slovak: study it, but not very actively and with no prospect of activating its spoken version. Slightly higher aspirations for its written version.

Czech: right now mostly counts as periodical dabbling, but I just might study it more seriously it in the future

Polish: I do study it, and its written version starts to make sense - but I still can't speak it

Irish: definitely an on and off affair, where the main problem (apart from the spelling) is that most people in Ireland hate it. I put it on the shelf a year ago to focus on the Slavic languages, but now I am studying it again with the assistance of Harry Potter in translation and my trusty Collins dictionary

Indonesian: actually a concoction based on local languages, but with the help of my Tuttle dictionary I'm making progress. I heard at one of the gatherings that natives of Indonesia use their local languages more and mix them into their Bahasa Indonesia (which worries me since it lessens my benefits from learning it as a spoken language), but I still keep it on the agenda as the only Non-Indoeuropean language in my collection

Tagalog/Pilipino: I studied the verbal system after a visit to the country, but soon found out that my small dictionaries weren't sufficient for proper study - instead I study Indonesian, using a dictionary I bought in Manila

Malaysian: When I last visited Singapura I collected some study texts in what I thought was Bahasa Melayu, and I also bought a dictionary, but the texts turned out to be in Indonesian so now I study that language instead. I have however several times made parallel versions of texts in Indonesian and Malaysian using Google Translate to see how much they resemble each other - I guess that qualifies as studying, albeit at an absolute rock-bottom level.

Besides I have read full grammars for Sardic, Greenlandic, Finnish, Hungarian and Basque (and even included Finnish in the first round of my 30 language folly), maybe a few more, but so far I have never intended to properly learn them properly - and I have also read small language guides to a number of exotic languages without expecting to get hooked. Besides I have learnt single words or expressions in other languages during my travels, but again: never with the expectation of learning any of them.

Plus some computer languages ...and oh yes, Esperanto, which I have studied and to some extent learnt as any other language.
11 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Kraut and 2 guests