Language Introduction thread!

[Hrollo]

Yeah, but neither French nor Polish are shy in similar sounds!

[Deirdre]

Rollo, both of your posts are very true. The anti-german stereotype is here still a thing, as it's a very popular excuse among lazy lower-high-school students. And that of course affects the level of German common among people continuing their education on upper-high-school/university level. As I like all languages just becouse I'm hounted by the fact that people decided to communicate in so different manners, I've had no prejudices. And objectively looking (as objectively as I can being a Polish native-speaker) German sounds are no more harsh than Polish, there are less stops and the stresses are more natural. German grammar is quite different, but generally easier (though it depends what you concentrate on). The next thing is "Germans have long words", but it's an argument only to those who have never seen Icelandic or Finnish wordbuilding.

Yet I find French doesn't have many sh/ch/sz sounds compared to Polish or German. However, I'm not a French native, so I won't argue.

[kjeks]

Rollo, both of your posts are very true. The anti-german stereotype is here still a thing, as it's a very popular excuse among lazy lower-high-school students. And that of course affects the level of German common among people continuing their education on upper-high-school/university level. As I like all languages just becouse I'm hounted by the fact that people decided to communicate in so different manners, I've had no prejudices. And objectively looking (as objectively as I can being a Polish native-speaker) German sounds are no more harsh than Polish, there are less stops and the stresses are more natural. German grammar is quite different, but generally easier (though it depends what you concentrate on). The next thing is "Germans have long words", but it's an argument only to those who have never seen Icelandic or Finnish wordbuilding.

Yet I find French doesn't have many sh/ch/sz sounds compared to Polish or German. However, I'm not a French native, so I won't argue.

*waves hand
Hello fellowe signer May I ask how you got to signing?

[Deirdre]

Two years ago or so I met a woman on a train. It was a night journey, lasting about 9/10 hours, and we were alone in the compartment, so we started talking about everything, as it happens. I don't exacly remember how, but she started to tell about her deaf-mute niece, and how she started signing to contact with her. Seeing my interest in the story and the sign language, she taught me the alphabet and various words and expressions useful in everyday life. I did my best to expand the knowadge, yet I've had since very little possibility of actually practising it, and a proper course I used to attend for a few weeks was ceased about six months ago. However I still manage to greet a deaf person if I spot one (and have a short, easy conversation if possible) hopefully making their day a bit happier

[UFOO9000]

:canada: :france: Mmmmm, alors bon, je suis canadienne française du Québec et j'aime beaucoup lire donc pour moi apprendre des nouvelles langues c'est vraiment super puisque cela me permet de lire en version originale; elles sont super plus meilleures! Je suis en train d'apprendre le Danois. J'ai eu quelques cours en espagnol, mais ça fait assez longtemps que je m'en souviens plus vraiment.... Je connais quelques kana japonais et plusieurs mots qui peuvent (ou non) se transformer en phrase qui ont du sens. C'est a peu près l'étendu de mes talents.

:japan: Konichiwa, watashi wa UFOO desu. (I only know some sentences in romaji)

:denmark: Jeg har katter. (currently learning on duolingo)

:mexico: :spain: Hola! llama UFOO. (haha. Learned in school, cant remember stuff)

:usa: :uk: I'm pretty sure it's obvious I know my English, I'm a fluent bilingual though I sometimes really don't care, so I make stupid mistakes. Words are complicated sometimes. Summary of what I said in french : I'm a Canadian French from Quebec and I like to read so learning new languages is a very awesome way to read in the original version it was made; they are much more better! Currently learning Danish. Some classes in Spanish some years ago that I cannot remember. Also know some kana and some words in Japanese that can sometimes be made in somewhat understandable sentences...

[Rha]

Hallo, ik ben Rha, geboren en opgegroeid in België, en tweetalig opgevoed. Enkele jaren terug was ik bijna viertalig, ik was vrij goed in Frans maar euhm, ondertussen ben ik het grotendeels vergeten u_u

Mi segunda lengua materna es el español, aunque en realidad hasta hace poco lo hablaba peor que el Inglés, pero desde que vivo en España he mejorado mucho! Sé que el Neérlandés no es para nada interesante, pero si queréis chatear en español me alegraría! Aunque aún hay cosas que no digo del todo bien, y no pronuncio todo lo bien que debería (me cuesta mucho pronunciar la 'r' ;_; ).

//Hello, I'm Rha, born and raised in Belgium, and raised 'with two languages' ?¿ I mean they taught me two languages since I could speak xD Several years back I could say I know 4 languages but I forgot almost all about French.

My second native language is Spanish, although until fairly recently I spoke it worse than english (i'm sure I didn't phrase this correctly at all) but since I live in Spain I improved a lot! I know that dutch isn't an interesting language at all, but if anyone wants to chat in Spanish I'd be happy to! Even so, there's some stuff I still don't write or pronounce perfectly (I can't pronounce the 'r' well)//

Oh, and a question..is the r in Swedish rolling or throat sound? With that I mean, you 'vibrate' the tip of the tongue or the base? I'm just starting to learn but I don't want to sound silly ^^;

 

[Fimbulvarg]

Oh, and a question..is the r in Swedish rolling or throat sound? With that I mean, you 'vibrate' the tip of the tongue or the base? I'm just starting to learn but I don't want to sound silly ^^;

The common Swedish /r/ sound is a trill (or rolling sound as you put it). Scanian and other dialects may differ though.

[AquaAurion]

I'm just going to post the same introduction in all the languages I know:

:sweden: Hej, jag är en tjej som kommer från södra/mellersta Sverige och är 24 år gammal. Mina intressen är att läsa böcker, måla och spela tvspel. De språk som jag kan är svenska, engelska och japanska. Jag har pluggat spanska, men jag kommer inte ihåg något.

:uk: Hello, I'm a girl from the southern/middle part of Sweden and I'm 24 years old. My interests are reading books, painting and playing videogames. The languages I know are Swedish, English and Japanese. I've studied Spanish, but I can't remember anything.

:japan:??????????????/?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Since Japanese doesn't seem to work:


:spain: ¡Hola! Soy de Suecia.

[Synthpopalooza]

:mexico:  ¡Hola a todos!

:sweden:  Hejsan, alla!

:usa: Hi, everyone!

Another new face here.  About me:  I am from the USA, I have a fascination for 80's music, 80's culture, and I am an electronic musician (who does retro 80's synthpop music under the name Synthetik FM).  I've made a few contacts in the synth music scene who are Swedush, so for fun, I decided to learn a bit of the language.  My recently discovery of the SSSS comic (after finding the excellent language tree graphic on Google) has ignited my interest again.

I know a lot of Spanish, too, having learned it in my college years. 

[Deirdre]

Hi! I checked out your music on the Internet, and as far as I'm totally uninterested in 80s culture and synthpop music, it really is nice.
Want to learn Polish I see? I'm intrigued why that is. Wish you good luck, maybe I could be useful as a native speaker?
(Also, the Forum is not friendly with Polish diacritics).

[Synthpopalooza]

Well, another of my interests is retro-computing, specifically Atari 8-bit computers (the main competitor to Commodore in the 80's) ... in the late 80's, Atari computers caught on big in Poland, and to this day there is still an active Atari computer scene there.  So as it turns out, I have a lot of contacts who are Polish, and it'd be neat to be able to play Atari games, go to the websites, and be able to understand some of the language without having to rely on Google Translate.  I also have written utilities, and would like to one day be able to translate the doc files into Polish.

[mithrysc]

Another new face here.  About me:  I am from the USA, I have a fascination for 80's music, 80's culture, and I am an electronic musician (who does retro 80's synthpop music under the name Synthetik FM).  I've made a few contacts in the synth music scene who are Swedush, so for fun, I decided to learn a bit of the language.  My recently discovery of the SSSS comic (after finding the excellent language tree graphic on Google) has ignited my interest again.

I know a lot of Spanish, too, having learned it in my college years.

Hello, and welcome!

This is probably sort of confusing, but there's also a main introduction thread over here where, if you'd like, you can further tells us about yourself (in English) and get properly welcomed by a shower of squirrel cookies.

[Ann Marie]

Hei!  Nimeni on Ann Marie.  Minä olen amerikkalainen.  Minä asun Californiaessa... that can't possibly be right.

Hi!  My name is Ann Marie.  I'm American.  I live in California.  I'm attempting to learn Finnish and German, but I'm not accomplished enough in either to form an introduction.  There doesn't seem to be a Finnish learning thread yet, so I guess I will go start one.  :-)

[jp otter]

:usa: Hi, I'm jp otter. You can call me jp or otter or whatever. I've lived all over the US including, DC, Boston, New York, Chicago, and now San Francisco, mostly because I like to travel and check out new places. Someday I'd like to live in another country, but work tends to get in the way. For now I just like to think about retiring to Italy or the south of France. I've been to England, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and Mexico. I want to go everywhere else.

:france: Salut! Je m'appelle jp otter. Vous pouvez m'appelle jp ou otter ou...quelque chose. J'ai habitée dans beaucoup de les villes américaine, comme DC, Boston, New York, Chicago, et maintenant, San Francisco, parce que j'aime voyager et voir les places nouvelles. J'amerais habiter dans une autre pays, mais...travaille. Pour maintenant j'espere prendre ma retraite a l'Italie ou la sud de France. J'ai voyagé a Angleterre, France, Espagne, Italie, Belgique, et Mexique. Je désir aller partout.

^Okay, that was probably very bad. I must sound comme j'ai quatre ans. I never have the opportunity to speak French, so there's a lot I don't know or forgot. Also, apparently I don't know the French word for whatever.

I'm not even gonna attempt Italian.

[EmmaC]

jp otter just so you know, there are some mistakes but not at 'j'ai quatre ans'. for example it would be better to say 'dans beaucoup de villes américaines', otherwise there is 'ma retraite en Italie' and you did travel 'en Angleterre'...
so you see, really good french, very understable!!!! Oh and you could use 'peu importe' for Whatever if it's an exclamation like 'oh whatever'

So uh, sorry, I thought I would add my two cents

so here I am:
:france: Bonjour, je m'appelle Emmanuelle, mais tout le monde m'appelle Emma. Je suis née en France mais j'ai grandit en Afrique, au Gabon, j'ai voyagé un peu (Cameroun, Côte d'Ivoire, Tchad, Angleterre) et maintenant je vis au Québec. j'espère un jour pouvoir voir la Nouvelle Zélande et surtout l'Islande! j'avais oublié: je suis ici car Sunflower (Tournesol) m'a indiqué le forum!.

:canada: Hi, my name is Emmanuelle but everyone is calling me Emma. I was born un France but I grew up in Africa, in Gabon. I travelled a little (Cameroun, Ivory Coast, Chad, England) and now I am leaving in Québec. I hope to see New Zélande and most of all Iceland! Oh I forgot, I'm here because Sunflower told me about the forum!
(it's pretty much the translation of what is my presentation in French).

:germany: Guten Morgen, Wie gets?
Good morning, how are you?

uh, yeah... my german is definitively