What other languages do you speak/are studying

[Ookinaushidesu]

English is my native tongue. Currently I am studying Latin (with The Rosetta Stone and soon to be Wheelock's Latin), and for about a year and a half now I have been studying Japanese.

I am obsessed with both Latin and Japanese.... lol. I can speak Japanese decently: if I was stranded in Japan I think I could... get by.. lol. I am in a course at school for Japanese while utilizing a few websites and the book Japanese for Everyone.

I want to learn Sanskrit, Gaelic (I think it's a Goedic language or something, I need to do more research), Mandarin or Cantonese, German and French.

With Latin I JUST started out so I do not know much. But I can describe basic things

 

[katsam]

Hi
I have just joined the site and feel this is a good place to start; I speak Norwegian reasonably (there are a lot of similarities with English), I'm learning French and am happy to try to communicate and speak and write a very small amount of Arabic. My Latin is very shaky and apart from trying to learn about Romulus and Remus at school a long time ago and the more famous proverbs - not much use!

To be absolutely honest I joined the forum as I am seeking help in translating a quotation that sums up my attitude to life, it is "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." and is by St. Augustine, City of God, 413-426. I truly think it will sound even better in Latin - can anyone help?

Kind regards

 

[Chamaeleo]

It would help to put your request in the correct forum.

 

[Decimvs]

Welcome to the forum Katsam!

You will find that this is a great place to talk about all things related to Latin language.

Like Chamaeleo mentioned, there are separate categories near the bottom of the main page that are for translation requests. If you cut and paste that part of your post into a new topic in the translation area someone will no doubt respond relatively quickly.

*make sure to read the guidelines about asking for translations--it is easier for us, and you will receive help faster, if you format the post (mainly the subject of it) in a certain fashion.

Thanks for joining!

 

[Matthaeus]

Salve.

 

[katsam]

Thank you for that - perhaps someone could tell me what 'thank you' is in Latin - even on thsi forum

 

[Matthaeus]

Gratias tibi (sing.)
Gratias vobis (pl.)

 

[617ricky]

Read/write/speak near-fluent Spanish.

 

[Flammius]

As you can see,I speak English and a bit German, as well.Since Greece is my homeland,I can speak Greek and Translate Ancient Greek,not excellent though.My latin are limitted,but i hope for help...!

 

[Nooj]

Studying Middle Egyptian on the side. The lack of knowledge on the phonetics is annoying though, so I guess I'll have to read it exclusively.

 

[Nikolaos]

I have studied Japanese longer than Latin, but not with near the same dedication. I memorized the two sets of kana and know the basic grammar structure, anyway.

I want to learn Spanish, but I am going to give myself some more time with Latin first.

 

[lukinxiii]

going to pick up the spanish rosetta stone on tuesday. looking forward to starting. any input on rosetta stone from those who have used it? theres lots of 'hype' associated with it but i havent actually met someone who used it.

 

[JaimeB]

I grew up speaking only Spanish, even though I was born and raised in the U.S., because my grandparents lived with us, and they spoke very little English. My parents were both born in Spain, but were young enough when they came to the U. S. that they could speak English fluently. My grandparents spoke Gallego (called Galician in English) between themselves, and sometimes with my mother. It is a Romance language spoken In NW Spain which is closely related to Portuguese, so I grew up hearing that and could speak it a bit. Consequently, I can understand quite a bit of Portuguese and even fake it in limited circumstances.

When I went to school, I had to learn English, and later, in middle school, the teachers decided that if I already spoke Spanish, I had to take another language for my graduation requirement, so I ended up learning French. I went through a doctoral program in French, but never completed the dissertation. For many years, I've been teaching English as a Second Language. I have done a couple of semesters of Basic German, and four semesters of spoken Mandarin. (I can't write the Chinese characters, but I'm pretty good at Pinyin transcription.) The last time I was in Spain, I spent some time in Barcelona, and picked up bits of Catalan. Once you know one or two Romance languages, it's easy to guess what you're hearing in other Romance languages, or even to fake simple stuff in conversation.

My background in Latin is more limited. I had one year in high school (many years ago now), and then took a Romance Philology class in my doctoral program (also years ago now), which focused more on the history of Romance languages than on Latin. I also spent some time studying theology, and so at one time, I had a rudimentary reading knowledge of ecclesiastical Latin, limited (of course) to theological topics and liturgical and scriptural Latin.

So to summarize: Near bilingual ability in English and Spanish, good French, limited Portuguese, reading comprehension of intermediate Italian, and very limited German and Mandarin.

 

[crystalled]

JaimeB, your Latin is hardly "limited"
Also, you must understand quite a bit more Latin than you ever studied because of your knowledge of Spanish.

 

[Gregorius]

It's kind of ironic, really. I'm a hopeless romantic in the layman's sense. Seriously, while most men are adrenaline junkies when it comes to entertainment, I'm rarely interested in anything that doesn't have at least the possibility of romance! The only way to ruin a good love story for me is to end it in tragedy, which I'm fond of saying is equivalent to baking a chocolate cake and then icing the top with spinach. So, I suppose it's only fitting that I'm also a "hopeless Romantic" in the linguistic sense. Just this April, I finished my B.A. in Spanish, and I also have a solid working knowledge of French, Italian, and Latin (of course). I'm also currently reviewing and beefing up my German (both to prepare for a course I'll be taking this fall and also for my own satisfaction). I took two introductory semesters of it, but my self-study will probably go beyond what I learned previously just because I'm eager to get to the point where I can really start using the language (I'm already fantasizing about adapting Taylor Swift's "Love Story" into German). I've also taken a couple semesters of basic Mandarin, but my knowledge hasn't been exercised in quite a while. At the same time I'm focusing on my German, I'm also drawn more than ever to Portuguese (which I can practically read already since it's so ridiculously similar to Spanish, at least in its written form) and Latin's better half (ancient Greek). I feel oddly unbalanced and off-kilter being able to at least exchange pleasantries with Cicero while Homer is left alone pouting.