French, then Latin, some German, some Greek, some Italian
Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
11–20 of 44 posts
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#12My native is Ukrainian, fluent in Russian. Converstional Polish and Slovakian. Just passed exam in Danish, wanna start German and Dutch. Some time ago I tried to learn Japanese, but it was quite difficult without any plactical application... Finnish would be intereting, as it's one of 3 non-indoeuropean languages in Europe;)
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#13Dutch.
I moved to Holland from California several years ago, and have picked up the language after taking a few courses. You don't need it here, but it sure helps you break out of the expat scene.
This is the first language I've really 'learned' to a good conversational level, and I am really fascinated by the process. I didn't get far with Spanish in high school, but since the process of Dutch has been so wonderful I plan on revisiting it soon, possibly other languages as well.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#14As a German, I'm learning English (passively through reading and writing on the internet). I pondered relearning Russian (parents are from Russia) but I decided it would be a waste of time.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#15Chinese (various Sinitic languages, but especially Modern Standard Chinese), German, Japanese, Russian, the original languages of the Bible, samplings of Latin and of various Romance languages, interesting conlangs, and others. Here's a link to language-learning advice: http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html Here's one of my favorite links about one conlang: http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/
Chinese too. I've found Mnemosyne (a flash card app) quite useful, for learning lots of characters, though I already knew a lot about radicals, and how to combine them.
My personal project (not working yet) is a language learning web app. I think there's actually a couple of more advanced language web apps by HNers too.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#16I speak Dutch (actually Flemish; my mother tongue), English and French. I've had Latin in school but that's long forgotten. Learning Spanish since recently.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#17i speak somewhat Mandarin, i understand some Shanghai (Wei dialect) Chinese, took latin in school, and Japanese in university. I understand smidgeons of romance languages, particularly French.
I believe it's called Wu dialect.
Native Chinese here, been living near Shanghai for 6 years, but never really understand the dialect.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#18I'm spanisch native speaker. Began learning german at age of 5 for 17 years, english at 12 for 8 years, french at 15 for 3 years (barely remember something).
Sadly my written englisch is not as good as it should (altough I have no problem reading it or with conversational englisch. My father doesnt speak englisch, so when technicians from the US came to repair his machines (CNC) I was the translator).
And with german I dont have any problems, I try to read books and watch movies so I dont forget much. And of course german ebm/dark music =)
Being in a german school (Abitur) and living 2 years in Germany helped me a lot in my career =)
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#19Spanish, mostly because my wife is from Argentina. Also, some Italian I learned from an ex-girlfriend.
I took four years of Japanese in high school and one at university.
Re: Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
#20I am currently learning Spanish and can speak Danish, Bosnian, English and German (conversational). Would be interested in tips/articles/tools on how to learn Spanish fast (or any language for that matter).