If you could speak another language fluently

[Soubriquet]

What would it be?

I think I would choose Spanish. It sounds so musical to me

Welsh (it's so hard though!)
French (I did it at a level but that was 18 years ago )
Spanish
Italian
I love languages, I think I'm being a bit ambitious though haha

Dutch - was born in Holland as my British parents were working there. I was fluent in both Dutch and English, but after moving back to UK when I was 5yrs old, I've lost the ability to speak Dutch but do still understand alot.

Japanese definitely, I’m trying without success to learn it.

German.

I done French and Italian in school and enjoyed them then. Have started German on Duolingo a few times but I always fall away from it

Studied German and French at uni but never had to use it regularly on a professional basis so my fluency has massively dwindled. Can read it but fluency is pretty poor now. Your range of vocabulary just slowly diminishes with lack of use but recognising written words is easier. What helped me do so well with my O’level languages was having a pen friend funnily enough but don’t think that kind of thing exists anymore.
Would love to learn Arabic if I ever got the chance.
Learnt quite a bit of Russian in my early 20s and dabbled with Italian after watching Montalbano !

Either Mandarin or Italian

French
I’m bilingual English/Hungarian but would love to learn French again. I was top of the class in school, but they wouldn’t let me do it in GCSE. Shit school

Sign language. Spent a couple of years trying to learn it at college. Stopped after I realised my deaf tutors started really taking the piss out of me. I was a hearing person and a pay cheque.

french. I am battling away with it, but would like to master at least one foreign language reasonably well.

I used to learn spanish and bsl, so would like to take those up again.

German so I could have a good bitch with my German friend without anyone knowing.

Japanese
Mandarin
Polish
Spanish
Arabic
Greek

Te Reo Maori

British Sign Language. I did American Sign Language when I was a kid at a very basic level, and I've been up to a similar level with BSL, but I've yet to be consistent enough at it to get better than that.

For spoken languages, I've a fondness for Kazakh, Icelandic is interesting too.

If it was a magic wish to instantly be fluent, I might pick a killed off language like Piscataway or maybe whatever the Voynich manuscript is written in...

Russian

Ooh I would like to learn BSL too. I can manage the alphabet lol

Swahili - my former partner's daughter used to tutor me in it when we were cooking, baking or playing chess together. A very talented linguist, at 14 she spoke 7 languages, four of them self taught, including Korean and Russian. Goodness knows how many more she knows now. I am still tutoring myself in Swahili, via the Duolingo app.

Like @Afromeg, I would also like to learn some West African languages like Yoruba, Igbo, Ga, Twi or Wolof - just for interest really.

Spanish, so I could communicate with those of my DH's relatives who don't speak much English.

I speak fluent German having lived there for a few years and used German in the workplace in the past. I've been learning French on Duolingo for the last few months and I'm getting quite good at it. I chose French because it's quite familiar having learnt the basics for a few years at school. I tried Spanish but switched to French.

Diolch yn fawr iawn @hopefulmamaofone. Dw i'n mynd i drio.

That probably has mistakes in but I have to start somewhere.

@Chaotica ymdrech gwych, dim camgymeriadau o gwbl! Keep up the good work, the hardest part about speaking Welsh is having the confidence in yourself!

[quote hopefulmamaofone]@Chaotica ymdrech gwych, dim camgymeriadau o gwbl! Keep up the good work, the hardest part about speaking Welsh is having the confidence in yourself! [/quote]
The Say Something In Welsh people are very good on that mental barrier to speaking, when actually speaking is what you NEED to do to get better. Once I recognised that impulse to chicken out as a very sensible bit of my subconscious trying to prevent me making a tit of myself it became easier to rationalise then ignore the fear and have a bash.

Russian and Hebrew for me.
I’ve dabbled in both over the past 5 years and was full of good intentions during lockdowns but haven’t made much progress.
It’s all about confidence, isn’t it ?
Can’t wait until we can all travel again.
Just think how impressive our language skills will become.

I’m fluent in German and French but I’d love to speak Russian as well and be able to read the literature in the original!

Diolch @hopefulmamaofone and @FreezerBird.

Confidence in speaking is a big step up from typing Welsh. I'll look at Say something in Welsh and prepare to make a fool of myself in RL.

@chaotica This is the little piece that helped me a lot - having said that I haven't done any Welsh or practiced for so long I'm almost back at square one I think. This thread has prompted me to crack on again though.

fb.watch/55szmA7OM_/