What's better?
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What's better?
I wanna know one foreigner language to that level (native)
(Its up to you to guess which one!!). !!! :lol:
I prefer more than one on a fairly high level. My English is nice from far but far from nice, but I have no problems communicating with natives, now I'm studying German and when I achieve the level my English is on, I'll be bloody happy.
Having lived in Russia for many years provided me fluent Russian, if I move to an english-speaking country, I'll get fluent English forsooth. At least my sister who resides in Australia says she's almost fluent already after two years of living there.
I want to know all foreign languages to a native speaker's level? Where's that option?
Я думаю, что я скучал бы, если бы только занимался тем же языком все время.
Не скучай :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by basurero
Many people know several languages to a functional level nowadays, knowing two to a native speaker level (is it even possible?) gives you the competitive edge. It also enriches you culturally unlike the ability to order a pizza and impress the waiter. I'd trade my pathetic French for perfect English any time.
I think that the further you learn one language, the more effort is spent on every advance, but every advance itself becomes less and less useful and satisfying. To me, things tend to be easy and interesting in the beginning and hard and boring at the end. There's far more drive and satisfaction in moving from nothing to something than from nearly perfect to even closer to perfect. There are so many wodnerful languages around, why stick with just one single? Knowing many, even at basic level, gives even more than just the sum of knowledge in every single one. There are enteresting relations between languages, there can be similar concepts, or similar words, or even words of the same origin but with totally different meanings (like gift in English and Gift in German). Or even relatively distant languages can have some surprising similarities.
Но зато прикинь каким крутым знатоком ты бы стал - был бы круче нэтива (native)!!!! :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by basurero
I chose the second option i think it's the best.
I agree with Ramil, I want to know them all. Communicating with the maximum number of people is my goal in learning languages so I want to learn as many of the most popular languages as I can. I'm currently learning some classical latin as well as russian, not because there is anyone to speak with in latin but its interesting since most languages are derived at least partly from latin, and it shares the same complexity of cases with russian. On my to-learn list are spanish, french, and german.
Tough one, Basurero.....
But I've gone for knowing more than one as well.
I want the "fairly high level" to be, well, fairly high though... :lol:
That is to say, I don't want to stop at по-туристский level.
If I have to think too hard about the language through a conversation, it irritates me :| - so I tend to agree with Ramil: lots of languages at native level, please.
:lol:
Most languages? How about Africa? Are its languages rooted in Latin? :!:Quote:
Originally Posted by Layne
Interesting Idea... though I want to know English as well as Russian!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Layne
You will, Chuvak :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuvak
I don't think it's possible. You can master a lang as a native. But you are NOT a native who has a good command of his/her lang at a cultural level.
That's another question - and I fully agree with that. :)
After all, you've had your whole life to learn about your culture, from childhood.... and that's very hard to "relearn" with another culture.
But only the language, yes, I do think that is sometimes possible. :)
I have a German friend who has lived in USA for 35 years and speaks English with almost no accent. He freely admits that it is still possible for a native English speaker to "lose him" in a conversation if they want to.
I think it is very hard, even impossible, to become as fluent as a native.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rtyom
OK maybe 'most' was not the word I should have used. Actually I bet if you could count all the different island and tribal languages plus chinese, japanese etc that have no connection to latin they would outnumber the ones that do by many thousands. I will say that all of the languages I'm interested in learning are derived from latin.
German might be an indo-European language, but it isn't derived from latin. It is a seperate branch off the language tree...
It is as derived from latin as Greek is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages
I went with #2, I wouldn't want anyone to strive to speak like a native English-speaking-idiot. My (bad) Spanish I learned in South Florida sounds Cuban, low and slow, not like a Mexican or Puerto Rican. Nevermind like a Spaniard. My French sounds like an American that learned in school. I wonder what my Russian sounds like (besides horrible) :oops:
I'm just happy to communicate
I have a hard time in pockets of the Deep South
Quoting wikipedia:
"German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially Latin, French and Greek. Most of these word have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called internationalisms in German linguistics"
These borrowings are what made me think german partly came from latin. Again I stand corrected.
I'd like to know more than two languages. I'm currently studying Spanish, Russian, and French. I want to be able to carry on a conversation in these three languages, then I'm intersted in learning German and hopefully a few more. I want to be able to travel and speak the native language, as I was unable to do when I visited France a year ago.
Argh, If you want to get all anally-retentive let me tell you that it should read "NEAR native level."
I think, there are some men who can lose me in Russian!!! It depends on which "sublanguage" (i.e. slang, ans so on) they would use. I believe that there will come a day when I can speak English as well as I speak Russian now!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by DDT
Chuvak, you are from another planet, I lose you two times out of three. I wonder who besides you and me marked #1, noone else seems to have voiced it out. One person doesn't want to learn any foreign language, MasterAdmin would be my best guess, but who are other 5 people that want to be at a NEAR native level?
I encounter alot of foreigners at work (physics dept at a university) and I think several of them have a native level command of english. I'm not sure they can ever speak like a native, at least without some professional training, it seems like their accents never go away. Sometimes when the chinese get excited they speak english as fast as chinese which makes it very hard to understand. I know one russian guy who lived in canada for 9 years before coming here and he was shocked when I told him he still had a russian accent.
Accents is a whole different territory. I know that I have an accent, I can hear it myself, yet I cannot get rid of it because I don't know how. I also wouldn't know how to sing in key.
hmm, I can sing in key and I'm decent at imitating other peoples voices, perhaps I will be able to develop a russian accent.
To know more than one foreign language to a fairly high but not native level is better, because this will help u create a wider communication with wider parts of the world!
and the most important thing: Girls love foriegn accents! so dont speak like a native, if u want to be attractive 8)
It's very possible, I knew a professional singer from Sweden and he could produce an amazing Russian accent while not even being able to understand what he was saying/singing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Layne
Well the germanic languages have a similar pronounciation as Russian, so it makes it easier for them. Especially the rolling 'r', which americans have big troubles with.
Just because you have a foreign accent doesn't mean you can't speak the language as well as a native speaker. Americans have a strong accent but that doesn't mean they can't speak English well (most of the time).
Their r is rolled in a different way. Listen, for example, to Rammstein's cover of Aria's Штиль, where they (perhaps intentionally) sing with heavy German accent.Quote:
Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie
And isn't English a Germanic language?
That requires an answer. So here I am. :lol: Do you know the meaning of the word "наезд"?Quote:
Originally Posted by basurero
http://weblight.us/web/design/smile/0278.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by adoc
I don't think that was intentional...Quote:
Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie
I'd rather know more than one language at a non-native level, so then I could work on those to a native level, if it works that way.
It depends on a lot though, at that point depending on the languages, I may never have the ability to learn them to native-level. But if I got a great job oportunity abroad then I'd choose knowing one native language where they speak it in the country where the job location was.
Unless you have family abroad or a job oportunity, apart from a few other reasons, when you're a native English speaker, there's no real need to learn another language like there is for non-native English speakers to learn English.
Arrival?Quote:
Originally Posted by adoc
Hmm, where is the joke? :o :)
Technically yes, English is. I was referring to the Scandinavian languages and German... I don't know what to call them but Germanic... :?Quote:
Originally Posted by pisces
Volk: I never said that! :lol:
наезд (slang) is an unprovoked verbal attack, often used by inet trolls, keep it in your vocabulary. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by basurero