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A German friend of mine just wrote to me about how she actually likes speaking English better than German -- that she finds it to be more fun and feels more social/enthusiastic when she's speaking English.
This is way interesting to me -- I know some French and German, but I've never known enough to be fluent and really speak either language... for Hatrackers who ARE fluent in a second language, have any of you ever experienced this -- liking a second language more than your first?
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm fluent in two languages, but I learned them both together, growing up... as a result, I really like both of them, and languages in general. As well as speaking Hebrew and English, I took both French and Spanish in high school, and am considering taking Italian later on. I love learning languages, speaking languages, and hearing languages. Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I really like speaking French, and I think if I spent a little more time immersed in the language (so that I'd actually be fluent) I would like it better than English.
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I'm not sure I can say I like English better than Romanian, but what I can say is that I definitely like English a lot! Actually, among the Romanians around here we sometimes use to talk in English, especially on messenger. Just a habit from learning too many cool expressions from too many American movies, I guess.
As for French, I used to think I hated it, but that was just a load of crap said/thought because I didn't want to learn. Now it's ok, though not my favorite language by any stretch of the imagination. German, on the other hand, won't even get in my head no matter how much I try. Not that I try a lot. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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When I spoke Japanese everyday, I felt smarter. Oddly, I've heard from English speaking Japanese friends that English is more efficient.
Posts: 516 | Registered: Aug 2004
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oh yes, i like spanish much more than english. i wish it was my first language, cause the accent is so beautiful. there's nothing particularly nice about english accents, but spanish accents are amazing. i can only hope my spanish accent will come close to ok-sounding some day. Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I hate Spanish. Sorry. There's something in that language that makes me cringe, especially when I hear men speak it. Not even German does that to me. Italian's cute, but although I might understand a little bit I don't really know how to speak so that kind of prevents me from liking it a lot. I may give it a try sometime - I've already taken one semester of Italian but didn't have the chance to continue afterward.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I don't like English more than Polish, but what I do like more is the internet (forum) use of English. I don't know. It feels like Polish internet is occupied by the leet kids and there's not many people who use the language normally.
Posts: 5700 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I feel cool when I speak French, but mostly just because I'm making people jealous.
Um... seriously, though, I do enjoy speaking French in the respect that the sounds are a lot more fun. The French ou, for example, just fills up your whole mouth. Say route a couple times. Cool, n'est-ce pas? Almost as cool as druide, but that one just makes me giggle. Whenever I speak English, I feel like I'm mumbling. Probably because I am.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I prefer English to Norwegian, mainly for the vocabulary. English has a separate word for pretty much everything, where Norwegian gets by with modifying a word. Plus there's a lot more literature in English, so it has a deeper well to draw on for quotes.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I like harsh-sounding languages. I love the sounds of Dutch, and Irish Gaelic and Inuktitut. I'm not fluent in any of them (yet) but I'm working on it. I also really like Ancient Greek. I am basically fluent in that one (or I was a year ago), but most of my work is writing it rather than speaking it. Not many people speak Ancient Greek anymore. Shame, really. Other good ones are German and Ukrainian. I love speaking the little Ukrainian I know.
On the flip side, I *hate* the sound of Classical Latin. Too many w's and b's. Maybe too many m's too. I do like romantic languages like French and Italian though - not sure what that means. Maybe I'd like Latin in its original accent.
I'm big on the sound of languages more than the vocabularies I think. Does anyone else sit and listen to radio programmes in languages they don't know for hours?
Edit: By the way, I can't really say if I like any of these better than English, because I don't think I can make myself objective about it. I can say some of their grammar rules are a lot easier though.
Posts: 624 | Registered: Mar 2005
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I grew up speaking both English and French. Still, I consider English to be my first language. When I was in Quebec, I was surrounded by French. So I listened to English music, read English books, and generally set myself apart by the fact that I spoke English.
Now that I'm in Ontario, and surrounded mostly by English, that has reversed. Partly on purpose. I don't want to lose my French through lack of use. So I made a point of reading French books and French newspapers. Funny thing is, it's like I'm only now seeing for the first time what a beautiful language French is, and how proud (and lucky) I am to speak it as well as English. It seems to me to be a far more elegant language than English.
Mind you, this in no way lessens my view that German is the most beautiful language on the planet.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I don't speak any languages fluently besides English (if you can call it fluent) but I do love to listen for hours on end to languages I only barely understand or don't at all understand. The sounds are lovely. I know just enough Spanish that I get these bizarre images and surreal imaginings becuase of my misunderstandings of words. So I'm picturing all these marvels that they must be talking about when they're really only describing the latest football scores or something I dunno. I think Spanish is a magical language. After all, it's the language of Jorge Luis Borges, who is sort of the grandfather of magical realism.
Another thing that I found very wonderful was listening to my Guatemalan roommate talking to someone from home on the phone and how english words like "scotch tape" would be sprinkled in with the musical nonsense I was hearing as the rest of her conversation.
I love languages! I wish I were gifted in languages as Saudade and many of the rest of you seem to be.
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Now it's ok, though not my favorite language by any stretch of the imagination. German, on the other hand, won't even get in my head no matter how much I try. Not that I try a lot. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
