Do you speak a second language?

Started by Tadeo
BU Medical Sciences
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My first degree was in German, and I did a foreign exchange in Austria for a year.
 
Ho studiato l'italiano da solo per alcuni mesi due anni fa. La primavera scorsa, sono andato in Italia per un semestre... adesso, provo non dimenticare la lingua... e' un po' difficile quando non ci sono italiani alla mia universita'...
 
I'm fluent in Russian and English. = )

I'm surprised to see so many Russian speakers---At kooda vee?
 
Geekchick921 said:
Someone after my own heart. 😉

I know some Spanish and some Italian, from high school and college courses, respectively. I know a few words in Russian (mostly hello, goodbye, yes and no). I wish I knew more Russian, since we have a handful of Russian speaking doctors at my hospital and we get a LOT of Russian patients from the area that don't speak a lick of English.

I'd like to try to become at least conversational in another language, since it would help in practice down the line. Italian is what I'd really like to learn, but it is far less useful than Spanish, Russian or an Asian language like Chinese (any variation) or Japanese. I know you can effectively speak Italian to a Spanish-speaking person and they will speak Spanish back to you and you can understand each other (more or less anyway) but it's not quite the same as actually being fluent.
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Where do you live?
 
I speak perfect mardarin ( first language lol). and semifluet english..

anyone wanna practice mardarin? follow my post plz
 
eellen3 said:
Where do you live?
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Philadelphia area, which is also where I plan on going to medical school.

However, I don't know if we'll end up settling here. New York City, Maryland and SoCal are all areas we might end up at, as since they're all places that would be ideal locations for both of our careers.
 
Drogba said:
I think if you have a good foundation in any romance language then all the rest are fairly accessible to you with little effort. The one exception might be french because if its seemingly irregular phonetic and spelling system, though I can't say this with certainty because I haven't made a serious attempt to learn it. Are you brazilian, portuguese or maybe angolan :]?
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I served an LDS (mormon) mission in Brazil.
 
jochi1543 said:
I speak Japanese, but not fluently. I majored in it in college, so I took 4 years of classes and then went on study abroad in Japan.

It takes forever to learn Japanese, tho - I think the US dept of foreign service classifies it together with Chinese and Arabic as languages that take 12 years of college-level coursework to become fluent in. In the meantime, something like Spanish only requires 3. I took German for 1.5 years, and I speak it at the same level as Japanese, and read better.
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Nonsense. 2 or 3 years in Japan should yield the same results, and probably better.
 
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baylormed said:
Nonsense. 2 or 3 years in Japan should yield the same results, and probably better.
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Do you speak Japanese?

I'm inclined to say that the US government knows what it takes to train foreign service workers in a given language.
 
Fluent in English and Persian. I can understand Iranian dialects of Azeri/Azerbaijani as well.
 
first language: japanese (despite being born and raised in georgia)
fluent in english (horrah for ESOL)

spanish: speaking ability lost during college years
mandarin chinese: speaking ability lost due to lack of practice; can still read traditional and simplified
cantonese chinese: i can understand some 👍 hell yeah
 
native speaker in mandarin, hakka, english, taiwanese
fluent in spanish, german, japanese
some ability in cantonese and italian
can order off a menu in tagalog, indonesian, malay, and a few other languages

being an expat improves your language skills quite a bit heh
 
Aesculapius said:
Ho studiato l'italiano da solo per alcuni mesi due anni fa. La primavera scorsa, sono andato in Italia per un semestre... adesso, provo non dimenticare la lingua... e' un po' difficile quando non ci sono italiani alla mia universita'...
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Dove sei stato in Italia? Sono d'accordo, e' veramente difficile non avere qualcuno con cui parlare italiano. Piano piano si dimentica la lingua.
 
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Sono stato a Roma. Stavo vicino al Foro, proprio dietro l'angelo. E' ora, Roma manca nel mio cuore...

Ho una persona con cui posso chiacchiere in italiano- mia nonna, chi e' stato a Roma durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Abbiamo parlato ieri sera, infatto, perche' ho ricevuto la prima accetazione a scuola di medicina (quindi l'ho detto)!

Ah, ho dimenticato- di dove sei? Sei italiano/a? O semplicemente, ami Italia?
 
Fluent in Spanish. Conversational in Kiswahili (now there's a useful language, huh?)
 
English is my second language! ( I came to this country four years ago) My first language is Spanish. I also know some German, but I am not fluent by any means. I would like to become a fluent German speaker though.😀
 
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Spanish, French, Portuguese (all near perfectly) and Mandarin (not so perfectly). 🙄

I LOVE my Chinese classes.
 
Fluent in English (duh), and French
I can converse in Tamil, but can't read and write, and I'm not sure my speaking skills are that great, my mother always laughs when I try to tell her something, and my grandmother's response is usually *pat pat*

As per other languages, I'm currently (slowly), learning Italian. I'm mainly interested in learning other languages to read stuff in them, not just to talk to the local, although that would be amazing
 
Spanish, but I'm not fluent. I took it in high school and then worked at Wendy's for 2 years as a manager and used a lot of spanish there.
I don't know Spanish for healthcare though... .need to work on that.
 
Jolie South said:
si c'est pas l'argot de l'afrique, je ne la connais pas. peut-etre il vaut mieux que je passe un peu de temps en france. :laugh:
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Il y a des gens français qui appellent à la sensation vacante après l'orgasme femelle "la petite mort". It sounds cute and sexy. 😎
 
la petite mort said:
Il y a des gens français qui appellent à la sensation vacante après l'orgasme femelle "la petite mort". It sounds cute and sexy. 😎
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THAT'S where that username came from. I kept trying to think of why I recognized it. 😍
 
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I did Spanish in High School but I don't remember much so I am planning on doing a medical Spanish immersion program next summer (09) for 2 months

I am also taking Swahili next fall because I see myself returning to Africa and need a free elective!
 
Chinese. That ought to count for at least 2-3 languages, right?
 
speak 2 fluently...and know a little french, spanish, and sign language. not nearly enough to be fluent though. did 4 years in high school of each. i wish i continued them in college! i feel like im forgetting everything! 🙁
 
I am fluent in English and math.

But English is a very difficult language. It should count as two languages.

I am fluent in three languages.
 
A second and a third. A bit of a fourth. Perhaps a fifth and a sixth if I end up doing a combined MD/PhD in anthro. Knowing all the romance languages decently well (except for romanian) would be fun 🙂
 
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