I would post French songs so that people get used to hear French seeing the lyrics!

Cool. So much interest. How about we create a mini-dictionary?

My languages go as follows:
Native tongue is Finnish, my Mum's Russian, so I speak that okay, but understand better, I've studied English since third grade (and now study it at uni, meaning I'm near-native), Swedish, I've studied since the seventh grade (it's compulsory here), a bit of French, but I've forgotten a lot (which is why it's so great to have French people here), then a little bit of Japanese, Spanish and German, and of course a beginners' course in Latin.

My language is a strange one. It's said to be the second most difficult language to learn in the world (after Mandarin Chinese). The written language is something thet gets taught to foreigners, but unfortunately it won't help them much, because no one really speaks it. Unlike in many languages, our written language was artificially created, combining elements from the East and West parts of the country.

Another interesting piece of trivia: a lot of people have asked me if Finnish is close to Swedish (since the two countries are neighbours). But oddly enough, linguistically speaking, Finnish is more closely related to Japanese than it is to Swedish (or most European languages). In effect, not that much, but it is easy enough to see in the forming of words (consonant, diphtong, consonant, diphtong) that the two languages (Finnish and Japanese) share.

Then a few phrases:
(Hyvää) päivää= Good day
Hei= Hi
And to show the difference between the written language and the spoken one (my dialect, South East of Finland):
(Minun) nimeni on Mae= My name is Mae (written)
Miun nimi on Mae= My name is Mae (spoken)

Actually, the spoken language is easier for foreigners, because the base form (nominative) of 'name' is nimi, but in the written language the first person singular -ni is added to the word, producing nimeni.

Yeah, ask a language student about languages, and they'll barrage you with useless facts...

@flavie: Btw, in old English there were two forms for 'you', but they were not singular and plural. They were about social class. If you were talking to an equal you used one, and if you were talking to a superior, you used the other. I can't really remember which way it went, because in the 16th century it changed (for example if 'thee' was used for superiors before 1500s, it was used for equals after that).

@ Mae
wow that's amazing. I hope that I had your brain.

Well I know only 2 though I can speak four of them
We were also taught a bit of Sanskrit upto 8th grade but I can barely write a single sentence in it.

@excalibur:cool!~ you know hindi where r u from?(country)

in tagalog
How- paano
Who- Sino
What- Ano
When- Kailan
Why- Bakit
Where- Saan

@excalibur: And what would you do with my brain if you had it? I'm not giving it to you. I kinda need it to live and stuff. XD Just kidding. I mean it sounds all impressive and stuff when I write it down in one litany, but it's really not much. I mean I barely passed my Spanish and German...

@sana90
I am from India.

@Mae
.....but it's really not much.

You know 9 languages, I mean two or three or four or even five but nine is just too much. Wow!!

I'm quiet fluent in English, Chinese (Cantonese, Hong Kong's language) and Bisaya (Philippines, Cebuano's language). I can understand Tagalog (the "main" language in Phils) since the t.v. shows in Philippines are mostly in Tagalog, but sadly I can't speak it fluently. I might stutter and that's that. As for Cantonese, since I live in HK now, yes, I do speak it quiet fluently, at least enough to communicate with the people here, but sadly I'm not really social towards people (yeah quiet shy :3) so sometimes, sometimes, I might stutter too.

I live in Philippines mostly when I was a child so 100% flueny Bisaya. But I also don't know some vocabularies too since I don't learn it, I kinda just know it by "instinct" (you get the point.) I might even know some few Spanish words and not know it because Bisaya has mixed Spanish words. (Remember the war huh? *smirks*)

I can only speak a little bit of Putonghua (another term of "Mandarin", the "main" lang of China), and understand a little of it too since it almost sounds like Cantonese.

Jeez I want to learn too much languages. Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian...

hi, guys!
I could teach you Russian (or Ukrainian), if anybody's interested.
Well, and I guess my German is really good, too, because I'm studying in Germany.
And I've started to learn Japanese. The language is really cool.

I want to learn how to build a sentence in Japanese.

How do you say, "I am x-insert-name-here-x" in Japanese?

I remembered it's Watashi wa...., right?

Watashi wa insert-name-here desu
written with hiragana, it looks like this
わたしは (insert name)　です。
written with kanji, it looks like
私 (insert name)　です。

Watashu wa Sailor Moony desu ROFL =D

My Native language is Macedonian That's why I can understand even Russian =D My parents are well they call us "Vlasi" here or in English will be...hmm let me search the net to see....found it ... Vlachs is a blanket term covering several modern Latin peoples descending from the Latinised population in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. English variations on the name include: Vallachians, Wallachians, Wlachs, Wallachs, Vlahs, Olahs or Ulahs (wikipedia). Vlach have their own language, which is very similar to Latin, that's why it's easy for me to understand some Italian, Spanish, Portugal I understand everything but i just can't talk in this language which kind of freaking out my parents But what can I do At least I can understand it unlike my sister I will not mention English cause it is obvious anyway
My wish is to learn Japanese, too..I envy you Shiny

here are some Macedonian words

Zdravo (Здраво ) - Hello
Kako si? (Како си? ) - How are you?
Dobro (Добро ) - Good
Dobro utro (Добро утро ) - Good Morning
Se vikam Emilija (Се викам Емилија ) - My name is Emilija

so that's all..for now lol =D

Moony ^_^
The same phrases in Russian
Privet (Привет ) - Hello
Kak dela? (Как дела? ) - How are you?
Horosho (Хорошо ) - Good
Dobroe utro (Доброе утро ) - Good Morning
Menya zovut Emilia (Меня зовут Эмилия ) - My name is Emilia

German
Hallo - Hello
Wie geht es dir? - How are you?
Gut - Good
Guten Morgen - Good Morning
Ich heisse Emilia - My name is Emilia

Japanese
Konnichawa (今日は or こんにちは ) - Hello (Good afternoon)
Ogenki desu ka (お元気ですか or おげんきですか ) - How are you?
Hai, genki desu (はい 元気 です or はい げんき です ) - I'm fine.
Ohaio gozaimasu (お早う御座います or おはようございます ) - Good morning.

oooh why have i never visited the clubhouse before?!

is this correct: ima watashi wa juusan sai desu.
i read somewhere that it's supposed to mean that i'm 13 years old?...

filipino curse words:

jk of course i'm not gonna post curse words! although if you want to learn you can pm me...lol.

Hmm I've a Japanese online friend and he told me people there just say "genki" and the people reply "hai".

What does "no" and "desu" mean? I've heard it's like "the", a", "an" or something like that if in English.

Hey guys! This club is really interest me!!! I'm from Yakutsk, Russia. I can speak many languages.

@MoonPrincess: Macedonian shares some similarities with Russian! We discussed in FB before huh?

Quote:

Yes, you can say "genki", it's just that's the more informal form.

Quote:
desu is like the English verb "be"
for example,
Watasi wa gakusei desu (I'm a student)

"no" is like 's in English
example
Sore wa watasi no hon desu. (that's my book)


@mikasalla
yahoo, a fellow Russian here!

@red_shrine: I'm not white Russian but a Siberian instead which shares some traits with Caucasian and Mongoloid. I must admit Siberia is a land which forgotten by many...

well, but you are Russian citizen, aren't you? So that counts as Russian for me, no matter what nationality
Let me guess... you are probably Yakut?

You're right.
How did you know about Yakuts, while many have forgotten about our land and race?