To think it must be great to be able to speak another language?

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Found myself in Newcastle today and wandered into a Polish store which sold lots of foodstuffs. Some Polish people in there all chatting to each other. ds1's friend's parents can speak three languages and it all seems to be so interesting and other wordly.

Cue me, thinking it would be great to learn another language and insists upon learning Russian in the hope it will actually make me feel more interesting and exotic I have a whole new alphabet to learn, can't pronounce the words - ds1's friends parents thought I was trying to speak Czech to them - and all in all, it's just so bloody silly as I can only speak about 5 words, but I go around the house muttering to myself and trying to remember things and it feels lovely.

Is it possible to learn anything like this by yourself and what is the point?

Am bilingual and two more under my belt.

Would love to learn more Spanish - very basic - only cos Central and South America and Caribbean appeals to me more than Russia (or China).....

I thought I was good at languages (so did my husband who learned arabic among others) until I tried Mandarin, whie we lived in Asia. Hours and years and dollars down the toilet, I can just about grasp how hard it is and how I'll never speak it.

I speak six to varying degrees of fluency/competence, and it's honestly not that hard. Some people have a bizarre mental block about how difficult it is, yet there are millions of people in the UK who are multilingual. I have a British Asian friend who never thinks of herself as speaking a lot of languages, yet she speaks Hindi, Urdu and some Punjabi, as well as English, plus the Portugese she's picked up from living in Brazil.

If you are going it alone, I agree with the suggestion of subtitled films, preferably ones you are already familiar with so you can semi-recognise 'oh, that must mean that' as you watch, and so you can rewind. The other thing I used to expand my vocab was to read favourite books in another language, starting with translated children's books which have the advantage of a simple vocabulary. I found reading a couple of the early Harry Potter books in Spanish really useful, especially if you have the English text at hand if you lose the thread - it's easier than looking up the dictionary every time you hit an unfamiliar word. Anything you already know the story/basic situation of can be really helpful.

I'm plateauing in about three languages at the moment- two of them relearning, they both like they're just "my" languages. English feels so wrong to me. Nothing I say comes out right, there are no nuances. The other languages are perfect.
Good job I'm young so I can remember lots of vocab and get through the grammar smoothly. School is rubbish at this kind of thing- but they're only trying to get their stats up.

I'm learning British Sign Language (BSL), it is amazing, it really turns your whole idea of language on it's head, communicating visually and you can express such complicated things in a relatively few movements. I'm rubbish at it unfortunately . Watching people who are fluent having a conversation is mesmerising though!

I started learning BSL (British Sign Language) four years ago, and have just managed to get a job that requires it. I'd recommend it to absolutely everyone.

Russian's great fun - you can practise the alphabet at the start by looking at car number plates when you're out and about and thinking how you'd pronounce them if the characters were Russian.

znaika Russian is crazy. Prefixed verbs of motion are crazy.

English is definitely crazy though and so difficult to learn.

I love BSL. I did a bit at university but didn't get far due to having to go abroad. I'd love to pick it up again.

I speak Spanish and Catalan. Would love to learn Irish and want to make some time to try some self teaching.
Russian looks fascinating - wonder if there are any students at the Uni who could help you out?

My husband speaks 3. english, kiswahili and kikuyu and understands several others (as long as they share the bantu root)

When we were first together, he used to get terribly confused, particularly when tired or pissed and mumble to me in kikuyu or kiswahili and be seemingly unable to understand that I didn't have a clue what he was on about

I can read enough german to get the gist of what a passage says, but I can't speak it. I did BSL level 1. But can do little more now, some 20 years later, than spell out the alphabet . I can count in kikuyu and know quite a few words, can ask if someone wants a drink, tell you I am going to the shop and tell you that I don't speak kikuyu so would you mind speaking to me in English!

I do think that if you are going to learn more than one language fluently, it's best done when you're a child. They seem to just soak up language without really trying. when you're an adult it's just so hard. Or maybe it's just me.

BSL is another thing I wanted to learn but haven't a clue where to look for courses.

I bilingual in my parent's mother Tongue and it is great. I think to learn a language you really need to use it in everyday life and converse.

Мамзнет

froggy try your local Deaf Association. My course is at my local FE college.

I'm bilingual (English/Dutch) and have fluent French and German as well as a bit of Arabic - it's great, especially having the one non-European language in there. I think it does affect the way your brain functions in a positive way, I have been known to intervene in misunderstandings in shops and so on, really useful.

I speak 2 fluently and a further 2 well. It was about where/how I was brought up. 1 was hard adult work, rest were luck really. They are English, French, Spanish and German

Oh aren't we all so clever!

I grew up in a family (small) were between the three of us there are 4/5 other languages other than enlgish (mainly thanks to one parent). But it's all mixed up because no reason to use it everyday.

DS has not yet picked up his df's language. Doesn't bother me at all but it would be brilliant if he did. My mum speaks her mother tongue to me when ds around sometimes not realising that he's understanding it.

But not something I push.

I'd love to learn Portugese. Lovely.

sut'mae! My DH and DS' are all bilingual, even DS3 who just turned 5 can switch between languages without a pause, it fascinates me and I'm deeply jealous. I have learnt a bit myself and can occasionally shock people by joining in in Welsh but normally only when I've had several drinks. You need an MN languages meet up with a glass of wine each to encourage shy people to speak out!

Znaika I was trying to prove you wrong, but it turns out you weren't
however, greetings to all from (sodding cold) Moscow.

Russian is so incredibly logical (esp. compared to English) that it took a while just to get my head around that fact. And then one day I did, and I suddenly understood a lot more without actually learning any new words. It is also a really enjoyable language to speak -- the words feel nice in your mouth!

OP if you go to www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/russian/cyrillic-setup/cyrillic.html you can download software that lets you type Russian letters without having to learn a new keyboard layout -- for example, you type the letter g and you get a cyrillic g. So if you want you can type some words in English and they'll come out transliterated into cyrillic. You can easily switch between that and English keyboard. Might be an amusing way of practising the alphabet?

i used to be able to speak arabic fairly well could hold a concersation (and read/write a little too) but not anymore can occasionally understand what is being spoken about and because it is so widly spoken can only understand clasical, tunisian and egypitian dialects

i livde in tunisia for a year and coudl speak french to get by but picked up arabic from those around tv and radio adn my ex's family

for some odd reason it has stuck with me more than french has maybe because it is so different to our language

My DH is Portuguese but the twat silly man won't speak to our DCs! DD is 6 and knows less than me! He does occasionally spout some words of Portuguese to the DTs though and I try too
It's a hard language to learn though, I've been trying on and off for 6years and still only know the basics!

Some posters have said English is very different and wild compared to other languages. I would agree. I battle daily with German and Dutch because I can't make them do what English does, they are so inflexible! My DH can flip between the three effortlessly and it does annoy me sometimes. I think its great that you want to learn when you don't even need to. Nice thread :)

I am Italian and I also speak English. I've tried to learn French, but I failed miserably, despite the fact that French should come easier to an Italian speaking person.

My mother always complains about English not being logical, she finds German much easier.

I think English is a wonderful language, I like its subtleties.

It is even nicer if the language you speak is one from a country you visit often (doh....)