NationStates Jolt Archive

What is the first language you learned to speak and how long have you been speaking English?

I only know English.
I have spoken English for 18 years.

English first. 18 years of it.

I also have 7 years of Japanese and 3 years of French behind me.

L0lz mi f1rst l4ngu4g3 w4z l33t, bt 1 l34rn3d 3ngl1sh 34rly.

Nederlands was mijn eerste taal, en Engels ken ik al een jaar of 10.

**waits for Dark Fututre to come and assure he's only been speaking English for a year or so...**

English, for 12 ½ years. I'm glad I grew up with this complicated language, because from what I hear it is very hard for people to learn.

My native tongues are West-Flemish dialect and Dutch.

They are similar, but different. They have some common roots in the languages spoken by the Franks and the Saxons.

I learnt my first English from TV when I was six. What subtitled cartoons aren't good for. (Thundercats, some Hanna-Barbera stuff, etc. ) English classes didn't come until 8th grade.

French since I was 10 or so. (mandatory from 5th grade on)

German, still learning.

Nederlands was mijn eerste taal, en Engels ken ik al een jaar of 10.
That's Dutch btw :-p

English, for 12 ½ years. I'm glad I grew up with this complicated language, because from what I hear it is very hard for people to learn.
Yea, Americans tend to have a hard time with it, don't they?

I've spoken english (more or less) for 12 years but my native tongue is Finnish.

Ihana kieli, ulkomaalaset ei taatusti ymmärrä sanaakaan.

That's Dutch btw :-p
I knew that.

Native language is Greek
Started learning english at the age of 6
Also fluent in french,german and spanish and have had a one-year course (which amounts to absolutely no knowledge at all) of japanese

Pig Latin... *LOL*

hehe, no, English :)

Yea, Americans tend to have a hard time with it, don't they?

Hilarious, I mean people that grew up with a language that made sense, like Spanish or any other language besides English.

French.
I've learned english at school for 7 years.

Pig Latin... *LOL*

hehe, no, English :)

hoae esyae. orgotfae hattae neoae.

My native language is Norwegian.

I have no idea how long I've been able to speak English, (at least in a way which is understandable by others,) but I distinctly remember being jealous at people who could count further than ten in English back in nursery school.

Other than that, I've been studying French for four years and Russian for one year.

Ihana kieli, ulkomaalaset ei taatusti ymmärrä sanaakaan.

Tosi kuin vesi, Griga.

I speak Finnish as my native tongue. French was my first foreign language, English my second. In all, I've studied seven foreign languages but can fluently speak only four of them.

German is my 2nd language after french and english my third.
I'm more fluent in english than german though (lack of practise)

Flemish

Schild ende vriend.
Oilsjt stad van moin droeimen...

But since I live in France now (8 years), my France is as good as my Dutch.

I have spoken Dutch for 15 years, I was born in the Netherlands. My second language is English which I started to study 3 years ago, my third language should be French which I started to study 3 years ago as well but I never put any effort in studying it, I feel embarrassed for that... Well at least I can do the basics. My fourth language is German, which I started to study 2 years ago, but my German is way better than my French (logically it should be French which is better), partly because the Germans here over the border speak almost the same as the dialect here.

My first language is Russian, I started to learn English when I was 8, but realistically I could not speak fluently till about 10.

English first. Then Hindi. Then German. And Now French.

My first language was English, though I started to learn French young. In the past couple of years (2 or 3) I've begun to learn: Latin, Italian, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, German, Japanese, Polish and Finnish, all to varying degrees of success. (My best right now is Latin, followed by Welsh; I highly doubt I'll bcome fluent in all those languages, however.)

My native language is Icelandic, Lifi Ísland, húrra, húrra, húrra!
I have spoken English for over six years, Danish for about four, and a little German.

Finnish is my native language, but i also speak and write english quite well. Ofcourse i can't pronounce it correctly, but that isn't problem. :)
Can't say i can speak anything else, but i know some german & swedish.

My native language is Dutch. I'm from Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. My second language is English. I started learning it at age 12 or so. I can speak French too. In Belgium everyone knows at least three languages. (mostly Dutch, French and English)

I've also studied German for three years, but I found it very hard (schwierig!) I can understand most of it though. I can understand a very little bit of Spanish. I can say hello in Turkish (merhaba!). And I kwow the Philippino word for banana: saba. I've been to the Philippines in 2000, but I've already forgotten a lot of the language.

Voor de Nederlandstaligen. Ik versta dus ook Chinees: makkelijke taal. Een achterste is een wang-snee-wang. Een scheet is een wang-snee-wang-pang.

Flauwe mop, ik weet het. ;-)

My native language is English, pero estudio el español hace nueve años, et j'étudie le français depuis sept ans.

I recently graduated from college with a B.A. in French and Spanish, and I plan on getting a Masters or a Ph.D. in Linguistics. My only problem is that I have not travelled to any Spanish-speaking countries, and I've spent but a mere ten days in France, which were GREAT. So my goal is to do some travelling over summers if I can save up the money to do so.

My native language is English; I studied Italian for six years but have lost a lot of it as I never USED it for much, then studied French one year in college (and never used it either).

I can understand Spanish a bit as well, since it is close to Italian and French.

I knew that.
Goood boy! *pat pat* have a cookie! :D

I just like being a wiseguy sometimes ;)
Flemish

Schild ende vriend.
Oilsjt stad van moin droeimen...

But since I live in France now (8 years), my France is as good as my Dutch.
I had no idea!

Het is trouwens "'s gilden vriend", niet "schild en vriend". Die vertaling blijkt een misverstand te zijn. Het ging over "vrienden van de gilde". zo heb ik het me toch laten wijsmaken door mijn leraar geschiedenis.

I'm almost 48, have spoken English (or should I say, "Midwestern American") all my life. I remember being told by university students in Poland in 1977 that British English and American English were taught there as two different languages.
And yes, English is complex because it is such a mix of influences: Germanic,
French, Latin especially. I have taught English as a second language to Spanish-speaking immigrants and in Spanish, what you see is what you hear but in English every word is different. "Through", "though" and "tough" have "ough" as 3 different sounds for example.
Language fascinates me. I am fluent in Parisian French and do pretty well in
South American Spanish. Also studied Russian in college and Polish for six weeks in Poland but have lost a lot for lack of use, although when I get with people who speak those languages, they do come back to me.

My native language is English.

I also speak Spanish (I'm from California), and a little French (2 years in high school, but sorely lacking in practice now).

Latvian, a Baltic language, even though I grew up in Canada, because that is my family's background. Learned English around the age of 3-4.

So fluently, I speak Latvian and English. I have a passable knowledge of French, being as I live by the Québec border, and I can survive in Italian or Spanish if I absolutely have to.

My native language is English. I am also completely fluent in french, and have some spanish

English. Hablo un pequeno espanol.

Started out with Estonian apparently I knew some Russian at the time although I dont remember any of it. Then moved to finland learned finnish and tried learning German failed and at the moment I am being forced to learn Swedish and failing horribly.

My native tongue is German.
I started learning English at grade five at school (as usual) and contiued to do so till the end (grade thirteen). So, I have eight years of school English behind me.
In total I´m learning/speaking English since 10 years.
I was also forced to learn French at school for six years. I thought Latin would be even worse. Probably I was wrong. Though when I had to pick between the two I was even worse in Latin.
After grade eleven fortunately only one foreign language is compulsorary: so I of course chose English - and I chose the intensive course since it is the most important language in the world - and dropped French.

I assume most people think in their first language but does anyone think in a mixture of languages or think in specific languages for specific occassions? Anyone not use language at all when they think?

I assume most people think in their first language but does anyone think in a mixture of languages or think in specific languages for specific occassions? Anyone not use language at all when they think?

I sometimes think in a mixture of English & Spanish.. I thought I was weird, lol. Heh.. I mostly think in English, though.. I guess.

My 1st language is English, but I speak Spanish, too. Being right near Mexico, it's tough to live in Oklahoma and not know how to communicate with the many Mexican emigrants.
I've taken Spanish classes in school since 6th grade (I'm going into 10th now, I'm 15), and I also learned some when I was younger (though it was mostly nouns).

i have been speaking Welsh and English all my life and have learnt very basic French and German.

Polish 1st.
English 2nd and I know it pretty good - but not as good as I wish.
Russian 3rd and German 4th - both in shool for few years, so you all can imagine that I paid more attention to evading knowledge then actually learning.
After all it is usually enough to say "I sprache Deutsch nicht, kann Wir Englisch sprachen, bitte?"

I assume most people think in their first language but does anyone think in a mixture of languages or think in specific languages for specific occassions? Anyone not use language at all when they think?

Sometimes I think in only images or rushed concepts linked together. Depends on alot of things. I do think in different languages alot of times and I speak whith the different languages in one sentence when I'm really mad. "Mallesh problem, oui senior" but the grammer structure usually stays true to English. I usually think in Arabic when it has something to do with events in an Arab world or when speaking Arabic.

My native tongue is American English. Learned to speak Arabic fluently when I was 7 and I was taught for 3 years French via the school system in Egypt. I have been taught 2 years of Spanish at high school and have lived around Spanish people for 6 years, so I basically speak broken Spanish. I've taught myself how to write and understand some of Japanese for fun.

I was born and bred in America, thus, English is my native and fluent language; however, I began taking French in the 7th grade, and now, I am as fluent-as-an-American can be with French.