Your languages

[Upbeat 88]

why did you want to learn the language/languages you are learning now

well for me my neighborhood started to become more populated with people that spoke Spanish after me and my family moved in, and I also thought that Spanish was just probably a great language to learn and here I am now learning Spanish so yay what is your story please make it short I tried my best to make mine short!!!

[Deleted User 114]

I have always been interested in the Middle East! Their language, their culture, and I also love the sound of their language. So, I’m learning Arabic.

Arabic is my target language, but I am also learning a tad bit of French. Just a few fun greetings.

[IceVajal]

I'm learning Russian, because my cats are from Moscow and if stressed it calms them. It is their "human mother's tongue".

And Dutch... I've been to the Netherlands for concerts a hundred times. It not far from where I live and easy to learn for Germans who know English. Just something easy to take a break from Russian.

[Davey944676]

I was looking up a bit of Polish one day for generally practical purposes, and I came across duolingo.

I enjoyed the way it worked and I just kept going.

[ppelk]

Every language one learns appears to have a story behind it. Let me try to give a one-liner to all of the ones I do:

Finnish - Native
English - From schooling, and from living in the US and UK
Swedish - From schooling, but also visits and generic motivation to be able to communicate in Scandinavia
Dutch - I was an exchange student in the NL, and the language stuck, so I kept it going
Norwegian - Frequent visits, and similar to Swedish, so I did the Duolingo course for the sake of general education...
French - Learned a bit at school, increasing amount of visits to France, a good big language to know. A great country.
Spanish - Increasingly useful for both my work and travel. Can't avoid Spanish anyway. Opens up Latin America as well. Good investment.

And that's already a lot, so I'm going to be consolidating these for the years to come and not extend to new languages (I hope!)

[Explorer]

Languages I use (almost) everyday:

• Spanish: native.
• Portuguese: my grandma always talked to me in Portuguese so I learned it at an early age. Now I feel that I have the responsability to maintain the language alive within my family. We must not forget where we come from. I'am nevertheless a little ashamed to admit that I still make a lot of spelling mistakes. Or even worse, I speak Portuñol sometimes.
• English: I didn't decide to learn English. The educational system did. Anyway here I am and I don't regret it.
• German: I had the opportunity to study in Germany for three years (1 year as an Erasmus student + 2 years doing my master's degree).
• Japanese: I've always been interested in the History of Far East, and Japan is by FAR my favorite country.

Languages I stopped learning / I don't usually use:

• French: I wanted to choose a second foreign language in high school and French was the only option available.
• Chinese: I tried to study Chinese in the past but tones are too difficult to master. It's like a roller coaster going up and down. I can read quite a few characters but I cannot pronounce them properly. I give up... for now.
• Catalan: I have family and good friends in Catalonia. I go there almost every year and try to speak Catalan with them.
• Latin & Ancient Greek: it isn't easy to find natives nowadays, you know.

Languages I would like to study in the future:

• Dutch: one of the most difficult languages. It's neither because of the grammar, nor because of the pronounciation. It's because it seems that Dutch people want to keep their language in secret. As soon as they detect you cannot speak it fluently or you have a foreign accent, they instantly switch to English. - Hallo, goedemorgen! - Yes hello sir, how can I help you?
• Norwegian: if I had time I would like to study Norsk. It's not too difficult, it's similar to Swedish and Danish, and it's spoken in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

[EranBarLev]

• Hebrew: Native.
• English: I learned it at school, and then worked for an American company.
• Spanish: I spent 4 years in South America and I learned it there. I don't want to forget it, so I need to practice. I also think about going back sometime.
• French: My grandmother's side of the family were French citizens. My mother and uncle always spoke French with each other. My mother taught me some French, but we didn't speak it at home.
• Portuguese: I've applied for a Portuguese citizenship.
• Russian: I have Russian neighbours who don't speak Hebrew, and I want to be able to communicate with them. There is a large community of Russian speakers in Israel.
• Arabic: I learned it at school, but I've forgotten a lot, and I desperately need to practice.

[Stasia]

Polish: native.
English: the first foreign language that I learned at school. Now I use it daily.
Spanish: the second foreign language that I learned at school. Now I use it daily.
Quechua: I started learning it on my own because of my interest in the people and cultures of the Andes. I practice it often, but fluency still evades me.
French: I started learning it as a child (on my own, not at school), but then I dropped it. The pandemic made me renew my interest. French is the reason I installed the Duolingo app on my phone. I don't have any practical reason to learn it, but I enjoy it because I find it to be relatively easy (I suppose because of being exposed to it in my childhood).
Aymara: this will be my next project after mastering Quechua. I can understand a (basic and slow) conversation and I know some basic phrases to join a (basic and slow) conversation, but the grammar scares me.
Latin: the third foreign language that I took in high school. I remember some random phrases and I can read it, but I couldn't create a sentence of my own.
Ukrainian and Russian: I have been learning, forgetting, and re-learning the Cyrillic alphabet for years. I started the Russian course on Duolingo to help me with that, then in February I dropped it and I switched to Ukrainian instead.

[DJCat]

For me:

Canadian English - native (a combination of British and American English - spell like the British, speak like the Americans)
Swahili - my partner is Tanzanian and none of his family speak English and I want to be able to communicate with them, also I will be moving to Tanzania
French - took in school but only remember bits and pieces, can read it better than I speak it as everything in Canada has to have English and French on it. I will take it up again once my Swahili is at a higher level

[Upbeat 88]

hot topic yay

[EranBarLev]

Aymara: this will be my next project after mastering Quechua.

Is Aymara similar to Quechua? Something like Spanish and Portuguese for example?

[Stasia]

Is Aymara similar to Quechua? Something like Spanish and Portuguese for example?

Yes and no.

They do not belong to the same family of languages as Spanish and Portuguese do, so there is no "common ancestry" similarity. However, they have been in contact for a very long time, so there are some mutual influences within their vocabularies. This is especially true for the variety of Quechua that I know, which has been in the most contact with Aymara.

These crossovers are facilitated by the fact that the two languages share a common pool of phonemes, and by the fact that they are structurally similar: they are both agglutinative languages where meanings are created/changed by adding suffixes.

In terms of grammar, I have only scratched the surface of the Aymara grammar, but there are some significant differences. Quechua has 7 persons (singular: I, you, he/she; plural: we [some], we [all], you, they), Aymara has 8 (that includes 3 kinds of "we", each one with different verb conjugation; the smallest "we" which is just "me and one of you" somehow counts as singular, don't ask). Verb conjugation suffixes are very different, as far as I can see, and the same goes for other meaning-altering suffixes.

[roy]

(listed from most knowledgeable to least)
English: Native
Mandarin Chinese: I am a child of first-generation immigrants from China! I can speak enough Mandarin for daily conversation from speaking Mandarin at home, however, I am still not very good at writing/reading as well as speaking with correct grammar haha. I think it's important for me to learn my family's heritage language and many of my family still live in China so it makes it even more crucial for me to learn so I can communicate.
Spanish: I learned Spanish up to grade 8, so I do know rudimentary Spanish, but I quit after with no real plans of continuing. However, My partner is from Chile so I am largely motivated by being able to understand him speaking Spanish and just being able to learn a common language where I live.
Welsh: I have no real reason as to why I am learning Welsh. I just think the language is really cool and very fun to learn
Greek: My partner is learning Greek, so its a language we try to learn together :D (though he knows more about it than I do) The language is also very fun to learn

I want to learn more languages (Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Hindi) but I think it's better to focus on these for now :'D I like dabbling in other languages for the fun of it

[harrylee773]

I learned Spanish about 25 years ago, my in-laws were from Guatemala and it was the best way I could communicate them. I'm still conversational, but rusty and don't have as many opportunities to speak as I have previously via my neighbors, classmates, and co-workers as I've gotten older.

I'm currently using Duo to learn Italian, since there are enough similarities that I could pick up a few words/phrases here and there and I have had a lot of additional free time since finishing college in 2020/plus the pandemic.

About once a week, I also like to study French - while I can pick up maybe (on a good day) 20-25% of written French based on what I know of Spanish and have learned of Italian, it's barely enough to keep up and does not help much with understanding it spoken, so Duo has helped with that quite a bit.

[Sue588388]

-USA English: native.
-Spanish: studied for 7 years long ago, learned that I love languages and learning languages. Started back up a couple of times, and again during the pandemic. My cousin’s lovely wife is from Mexico, and I’d really like to have conversations with her in Spanish.
-French: also studied for 7 years long ago. On DL, started out studying both Spanish and French, and got them horribly mixed up - unlike when I was younger. Had to stop to avoid going bonkers.
-Ukrainian: Tried this for a short time, almost like a prayer for peace since the war started. Found it a really fascinating and beautiful language, but too difficult for me at the moment. Plan to return to this, as a challenging break from Spanish.

I’ve never broken the ‘getting comfortable speaking’ barrier, which aligns with my shallow-breathing-turn-a-bit-gray-then-pass-out fear of public speaking in my native language. There’s still time (and prescription drugs!), and I won’t give up!

[Corinnebelle]

-Hebrew I want to learn how to read the Old Testament and also am fascinated with modern Hebrew. I feel the best way to get a feel for a language is to actually use it, not just translate it.
-I've tried some others as well, but Hebrew is my main focus

[ShinyZoroark]

I learn English, French and German at school. I decided to learn Hungarian beacause of its reputation as a unique and difficult language. I also study a lot of Balkan languages (Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Slovene, etc...) because I love Balkan ballads.

[Basler Biker]

Languages I use (almost) everyday:

oh oh... Brian kindly asked to keep it short ! but it's a very nice overview, and yes Dutch IS a real challenge.
But to counter the "Hallo, goedemorgen! - Yes hello sir, how can I help you?" effect, people learning Dutch by submersion and living there have a pin or T-shirt or sticker on their forehead saying "Talk Dutch with me" (in Dutch of course => Praat Nederlands met me !!)

[Explorer]

oh oh... Brian kindly asked to keep it short ! but it's a very nice overview, and yes Dutch IS a real challenge.
But to counter the "Hallo, goedemorgen! - Yes hello sir, how can I help you?" effect, people learning Dutch by submersion and living there have a pin or T-shirt or sticker on their forehead saying "Talk Dutch with me" (in Dutch of course => Praat Nederlands met me !!)

That's kind of funny. Thanks for the tip

[bar999]

Polish - mother tongue.

English - first foreign language that I've learnt - in Poland it's an obligatory subject at school.

Spanish - second foreign language that I've learnt, continuing on Duolingo - I took it as a second obligatory language (I'm very grateful that my school offered it because now I prefer Spanish to English).

Dutch - started the Duolingo course in January out of the blue, but I'm really fascinated with it! I love the spelling which seems to be very intuitive for me (unlike the spelling in German).

German - I've already grasped a bit of German in the past, now continuing on Duolingo - it's a useful language in Europe, that's the reason.

Italian - I want to be able to speak some basic Italian on my trip to Italy in August.

[Basler Biker]

I learn English, French and German at school. I decided to learn Hungarian beacause of its reputation as a unique and difficult language. I also study a lot of Balkan languages (Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Slovene, etc...) because I love Balkan ballads.

Nice. How would you compare Finnish vs Hungarian in terms of (learning) difficulty?

[Madness]

Here are mine, in the order of fluency:

(Finnish: native.)
English: fluent, I've been learning English since I was 9 years old because it's mandatory in schools here in Finland.
German: intermediate or advanced (somewhere around B1-B2), I started learning German on my own a bit over 10 years ago. Partially because some of my favorite bands are German, and mainly because I got interested in Germany and thought I'd study something there but then realized I probably should learn the language first.

Swedish: beginner, altho I did learn it at school for 3 years as it, also, is mandatory in Finland. However, I never really could wrap my head around Swedish (at that point I was not so interested in languages in general), and I totally lost my motivation. Last year, after 15 years of not learning Swedish, I decided to give it a try on Duolingo. I was almost done with my German tree and didn't feel like letting go of DL just yet, and Swedish was my first thought because I already had learnt it before, and I also wanted to see if I could have a better motivation and understanding now as an adult :D

Hungarian: beginner, started this one just out of curiosity. It's in the same language family with Finnish and I grew curious about the linguistics aspect, wanted to know what are some of the things they share.
Russian: beginner, this one I also started just out of curiosity. I have never learnt another alphabet than the Latin alphabet and felt like testing out if I'd be able to learn a new set of alphabets. I also come from East Finland so any knowledge of Russian is always an advantage here. It could also help with Hungarian a bit since Hungarian has been affected by Slavic languages to some extent, whereas Finnish was more affected by the Germanic languages instead.

[ShinyZoroark]

I learn English, French and German at school. I decided to learn Hungarian beacause of its reputation as a unique and difficult language. I also study a lot of Balkan languages (Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Greek, Slovene, etc...) because I love Balkan ballads.

Nice. How would you compare Finnish vs Hungarian in terms of (learning) difficulty?

I personally find Hungarian a bit easier, mainly because I still struggle with the partitive case in Finnish. Moreover, I think that the word order is slightly easier in Hungarian, as well as the verb conjugation, since Hungarian, unlike Finnish, doesn't have separate positive and negative forms. Nevertheless, I think that both languages have a reputation of being much harder than they actually are.

[Deleted User 1414]

I studied English at school from the first year of junior high school to the third year of high school, and after that I continued to study English by myself. I still need to study. Other languages ​​started from scratch but are moving forward. The duo is good.

[oso]

Portuguese: native

English: started learning in 4th grade, eventually got a C1 certificate, but I've become very rusty and I'm probably at B2 now. I'm not doing anything to improve at the moment, but would like to take classes again in the future to express myself better on the Internet.

German: loved the language ever since I started listening to a German band (no, not Rammstein). I tried learning it on duo a few years ago but dropped it due to lack of purpose. Now I'm going to Austria in September, so I hope to work hard to finish the tree by then!

I also tried to learn Japanese for a while. Still remember hiragana/katakana, but I've forgotten 95% of the kanji I'd learned. This is another one I gave up on because I didn't exactly have a reason to learn it.

[Basler Biker]

you got a good response from many people on this posts Brian!
and of course [mention]duome[/mention] requires the double mention for having opened this forum

[Nada]

. I am learning English because language learners in Egypt are highly respected and I chose English because it is the official language that every person all over the world should learn and because I cannot find a good job unless I have a foreign language and I can also speak with foreigners through it

[η γατα]

Spanish - studied it at school/college, then when my kids started learning it I thought I'd brush up a bit so I could help them.
Greek - was getting a bit bored of only learning Spanish, and thought I'd try something new. My maternal grandparents were Italian (Grandma) and Greek (Grandad). I thought Italian might be confusing as there are similarities with Spanish, so I tried Greek, and loved it

[doomists]

Languages I use (almost) everyday:

oh oh... Brian kindly asked to keep it short ! but it's a very nice overview, and yes Dutch IS a real challenge.
But to counter the "Hallo, goedemorgen! - Yes hello sir, how can I help you?" effect, people learning Dutch by submersion and living there have a pin or T-shirt or sticker on their forehead saying "Talk Dutch with me" (in Dutch of course => Praat Nederlands met me !!)

i am new but funny hehehehehe

[Steve579062]

Great idea.....

English born

Russian because I answered a rogue email and spent six months keeping some spammer occupied just for the hell of it.

Ukrainian after a visit in 2021

Italian because of all the hand and arm movements