How many languages do you know? Which would you learn & why?

[qtiekiki]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

Two different dialects of Cantonese and still trying to learn English.

I speak Cantonese dialect and some Mandarin. I know there are differences between Cantonese spoken in China and Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong, is that what you mean? Or do you mean Toishanese or some similar dialect? (Curious, as a Cantonese speaker I never realized there were sub-dialects of Cantonese dialect).

[

Yes, Toishanese like what we speak in our own village back in the old country, as you know it sounds different from the Cantonese spoken in HK.

My maternal grandparents are from Toishan. I never thought it was that different until people would ask me what my grandma was saying because they couldn't understand her. I guess I am just used to it.

I am fluent in Cantonese and English, and speak Mandarin with a Cantonese accent .

My inlaws speak a mix of Hainanese (another Chinese dialects) and Vietnamese. I can make out what they are saying by context. Sometimes my husband is surprised that I know what they are talking about. I only know names of foods in Vietnamese. lol

ETA: I took 4 years of Spanish in HS. I still know some basic phrases.

 

[PintoBean]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

Fluent in mandarin and American-English
I can understand Taiwanese and speak some
I amazingly remember enough Spanish from Jr and Sr. High School to be able to convey things in bastardized spanish to my trades people while being an ad hoc GC to my home renovations, community landscapers, and to my cleaning lady.
I studied a summer session of Japanese at U of Hawai'i after graduating from college, but the vocab words I learned were very particular to Hawai'i. Try to tell a native Japanese person that your hobby is "odori fura", and they will go "fura? fura?" - that translates to "hula dancing"

I'd like to learn Hindi. I love Indian food, and India is on my bucket list for traveling. Plus, all the companies I've worked for do a good amount of outsourcing to India. I'd also like to learn more Italian curse words. My mother in law falls over laughing when I tell her what I learned. Since they vary from region to region, sometimes I have to tell her what they mean HAHAHAHA.

 

[jaysonsmom]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I'm fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese.
I also comprehend Japanese, Afrikaans (spoken in South Africa), German, and Spanish....By comprehend, I can understand what people are saying around me by virtue of having lived in the countries where they are being spoken, and I can read and understand instructions in those languages. The thought of conversing in these 4 languages would terrify me, but I hope to become more fluent in them when I retire and actually have time to study these languages.

If I include other Chinese dialects, I can add Taiwanese (fluent) and Cantonese (comprehend). For those not familiar with Chinese, some of the over 300 dialects are like their own language, and have no similarity to Mandarin at all.

300 dialects?! I know Cantonese and Mandarin are very different. Is Taiwanese more like one or the other?

Also, this may be a sensitive question, but I'm very curious and maybe you (jaysonsmom and Dancing Fire) can answer this. It's the kind of thing I wouldn't really feel comfortable asking Chinese friends. Are there different attitudes or connotations re: Cantonese vs Mandarin dialects and their speakers? I think I heard that Mandarin is seen as the official or state/power language and obviously it's the dialect learned most by foreigners. Is there any prejudice again Cantonese or different assumptions made about Cantonese speakers vs Mandarin? I'm thinking of US regional dialects/accents... For example, how there are sometimes attitudes/assumptions re: southern accents vs. northeastern.

Btw, a (Mandarin speaking) Chinese friend once told me that "rich people" speak Taiwanese! I'm not 100% sure she was joking!

To answer each of your questions: I stand corrected, an internet search states that total dialects spoke in China are about 250, and they are derivatives of about 7 Languanges. Taiwanese is very different from Cantonese and Mandarin. In fact, Cantonese and Mandarin are more similar to each other than they are to Taiwanese.

Because Mandarin is the official language (in China and Taiwan) and is taught in schools and used in business etc, people who speak little to no Mandarin may be considered less educated, however, that is not the case in Hong Kong where Mandarin only became an official language in 1997 after the handover of Hong from the Brits back to China.

in the 1900's "rich people" used to come from Taiwan because of free trade and democratic rule vs communist China. However in recent years a lot of extremely rich Chinese come from mainland China !

 

[qtiekiki]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I'm fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese.
I also comprehend Japanese, Afrikaans (spoken in South Africa), German, and Spanish....By comprehend, I can understand what people are saying around me by virtue of having lived in the countries where they are being spoken, and I can read and understand instructions in those languages. The thought of conversing in these 4 languages would terrify me, but I hope to become more fluent in them when I retire and actually have time to study these languages.

If I include other Chinese dialects, I can add Taiwanese (fluent) and Cantonese (comprehend). For those not familiar with Chinese, some of the over 300 dialects are like their own language, and have no similarity to Mandarin at all.

300 dialects?! I know Cantonese and Mandarin are very different. Is Taiwanese more like one or the other?

Also, this may be a sensitive question, but I'm very curious and maybe you (jaysonsmom and Dancing Fire) can answer this. It's the kind of thing I wouldn't really feel comfortable asking Chinese friends. Are there different attitudes or connotations re: Cantonese vs Mandarin dialects and their speakers? I think I heard that Mandarin is seen as the official or state/power language and obviously it's the dialect learned most by foreigners. Is there any prejudice again Cantonese or different assumptions made about Cantonese speakers vs Mandarin? I'm thinking of US regional dialects/accents... For example, how there are sometimes attitudes/assumptions re: southern accents vs. northeastern.

Btw, a (Mandarin speaking) Chinese friend once told me that "rich people" speak Taiwanese! I'm not 100% sure she was joking!

To answer each of your questions: I stand corrected, an internet search states that total dialects spoke in China are about 250, and they are derivatives of about 7 Languanges. Taiwanese is very different from Cantonese and Mandarin. In fact, Cantonese and Mandarin are more similar to each other than they are to Taiwanese.

Because Mandarin is the official language (in China and Taiwan) and is taught in schools and used in business etc, people who speak little to no Mandarin may be considered less educated, however, that is not the case in Hong Kong where Mandarin only became an official language in 1997 after the handover of Hong from the Brits back to China.

in the 1900's "rich people" used to come from Taiwan because of free trade and democratic rule vs communist China. However in recent years a lot of extremely rich Chinese come from mainland China !

Chinese (from China) and Taiwanese have different accents, much like US regional accents. Mainland Chinese, Hong Kongese and Taiwanese do not really like it when they are misidentified because there are ongoing issues between Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

 

[jaysonsmom]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I'm fluent in English and Mandarin Chinese.
I also comprehend Japanese, Afrikaans (spoken in South Africa), German, and Spanish....By comprehend, I can understand what people are saying around me by virtue of having lived in the countries where they are being spoken, and I can read and understand instructions in those languages. The thought of conversing in these 4 languages would terrify me, but I hope to become more fluent in them when I retire and actually have time to study these languages.

I still get such a kick out of you speaking Afrikaans! Mooi so! Ek is hoogs beindruk!

I am fluent in English and two dialects of Afrikaans. I am slowly moving towards fluency in isiXhosa because our nanny isn't allowed to speak English to my son. I want him growing up speaking isiXhosa with native proficiency! My new boss is Zulu, so my isiZulu is getting a bit better too. I still sometimes mangle the two, often with disastrous results, lol. Historically, the Xhosa and Zulus don't mix - they're sworn enemies - so the fact that I even want to learn to speak isiZulu is met with some distrust.

I find myself sadly losing my Arabic and my Hebrew, but I know it's easy enough to pick up the Arabic again. Even just a couple of hours around Arabic speakers and it starts coming back.

I was told if I wanted my son to be bilingual, each parent should speak to him in their first language, but that's not really happening. My husband wanted me to be the English parent and him to be the Afrikaans parent (he has a posher accent than I do lol) but he has probably spoken 5 words of Afrikaans to our son.

At this point I'm not in any great hurry to learn a new language but I am working on improving the languages I already speak.

Baie dankie!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

[quote="jaysonsmom|


in the 1900's "rich people" used to come from Taiwan because of free trade and democratic rule vs communist China. However in recent years a lot of extremely rich Chinese come from mainland China ![/quote]


Those are corrupt officials most of the Chinese citizens are still poor.

 

[jaysonsmom]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

[quote="jaysonsmom|


in the 1900's "rich people" used to come from Taiwan because of free trade and democratic rule vs communist China. However in recent years a lot of extremely rich Chinese come from mainland China !

Those are corrupt officials most of the Chinese citizens are still poor.[/quote]

There are lots of corrupt officials then, because lots of people paying cash for multi-million dollar homes in So.Cal!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

[quote="jaysonsmom|


in the 1900's "rich people" used to come from Taiwan because of free trade and democratic rule vs communist China. However in recent years a lot of extremely rich Chinese come from mainland China !

Those are corrupt officials most of the Chinese citizens are still poor.

There are lots of corrupt officials then, because lots of people paying cash for multi-million dollar homes in So.Cal![/quote]


Yes, a lot, but many are hiding under their beds now...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/china-corrupt-officials/

 

[Voldemort]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I really want to learn German, because that's my family history.. Italian, because omg Italy! And Spanish (first, actually) because I live in SoCa and I would use it fairly regularly.

 

[missy]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I used to be fluent in Spanish as I took 2 full years in College (and 4 years in High School) and even took an advanced Spanish literature class in College. That was challenging and worthwhile. However that was decades ago and honestly since I have not used it much I forgot much of my spanish. I still have a few patients who only speak spanish and I can get by but it's not any where near being fluent in spanish anymore.

I also used to be well versed in Hebrew as I went to Hebrew school all through my public school years. After public school classes I went to Hebrew school a few hours every afternoon 4 times a week till my Bat Mitzvah and I was fluent in Hebrew at that time even being the salutatorian of my Hebrew School graduating class. Again though I have forgotten all of my Hebrew and cannot even read Hebrew anymore.

So while I used to be fluent in 3 languages now I barely get by in one. English and even that's a stretch as sometimes my dh says he thinks English is my second language the way I mangle certain idioms and phrases LOL.

Not sure which I would want to learn now. Perhaps relearn Spanish as that has the most useful applications for me living in NYC. I love French but with my NY accent not sure I could ever become graceful enough to speak it well. And I love Italian too. Both romantic languages.

 

[AGBF]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I love French but with my NY accent not sure I could ever become graceful enough to speak it well.

Why would French be different from Spanish, missy? (I mean, in your mind. In my opinion, it is not. I want to know why you think as you do.)

Deb

 

[missy]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

I love French but with my NY accent not sure I could ever become graceful enough to speak it well.

Why would French be different from Spanish, missy? (I mean, in your mind. In my opinion, it is not. I want to know why you think as you do.)

Deb

LOL you are quite right of course it is not really different in that my NY accent gets in the way of everything.
Though for some reason Spanish is an easier accent for me to master and I am guessing it is because French is (to my ears anyway) more elegant than Spanish which is still quite a pretty language. French feels more complex in its accent than Spanish does to me though I am sure I mangle Spanish when I (attempt to) speak it.

 

[Snowdrop13]

Re: How many languages do you know? Which would you learn &

My Dad has spent the past 20 or so years learning bits of various European languages and is pretty good with 3 or 4 of them. He often quotes one of his teachers who said that the French accent can be a problem for many people- particularly schoolboys, and recommends they do Spanish instead!

For myself, I speak English and learned Fench all the way through school. I used to be pretty fluent but lack of use over the years has led to me forgetting much of it, sadly! I can read fairly well but conversation is difficult. I know a few words of Spanish too. We are very poor in the UK at developing language skills, there is a bit of laziness expecting that "everyone " will speak English.

I'm currently learning Italian for my summer holiday, using a mix of Duolingo and Linguaphone. I find the Duolingo lessons are great for doing a little bit every day but there are far too many verbs! Surely I won't need all of them.....?