altfriday5

[serene]

From the altfriday5:

1. Which languages do you know? How did you learn them (e.g. natively, from classes, by immersion)?

English (natively), Spanish (some combination of classes and immersion), a tiny bit of ASL (some combination of classes and immersion)

2. Which language would you most like to learn? Why?

Russian, because I think it's really beautiful, and it has concepts that are hard for me to grasp, like having different word endings when things are in motion (I'm not sure I even have that right, but my ex explained it to me once).

3. Have you visited any places where you did not know the predominent language? If so, which ones? Was it hard to manage?

Morocco, but I was ten and with an adult, so I don't remember it as being very difficult.

4. Which language do you most enjoy hearing, seeing, or expressing? Why?

My own. Because I think my language is beautiful and strangely cobbled together, and I can't get to a level of abstraction in any other language.

5. Which languages, other than the one(s) you know, are you exposed to your daily life?

So many. I live and work in a very diverse neighborhood, and work at a major university with LOTS of international students. I probably don't hear as many different languages every day as I did when I was at IKEA, though.

The Questioner says: Don't forget your links!

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

So ... FORTRAN doesn't cut it, then :-)

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I took two years of Russian in college, and would get back in to it if I had the time (I don't do well with self-study for languages).

As I recall -- and someone fluent may correct me -- most nouns and verbs follow relatively normal declension/conjugation patterns. However, the class of verbs-of-motion, something English represents as phrases -- verb-preposition combinations -- is much more complex. "in motion"/"going", "going to", "going through", "going past", "going around", "going from"...all are different words (though mostly related; it's mostly about prefixes or other small changes). Mode-of-motion (walking, in a vehicle, etc.) may be involved, too; I'd have to look at my reference material.

Russian Question

[(Anonymous)]

Not fluent by any means, but: the main difference is going on foot (идти) versus going by conveyance (ездить), and the other stuff derives from that. (German gehen and fahren comprise a similar ordering of the universe.)

There were odd tenses, too, but that data's gone.