What's your first language?

coolandhot · 08-11-2007

Is Spanish your first language? Or, did you learn it as a second language?

nuaeman · 12-15-2007

My first language is Malay, but I like to learn many language because it can give us many benefits. Maybe my others is Spanish.

zhinghur · 12-24-2007

Nopes, Spanish is not my first language, but I am learning Spanish and soon me my another second language.

ankuranks · 12-26-2007

my first one is english,nope spanish isn't my first one infact i am still a baby boy in terms of spanish skills.

nuaeman · 01-06-2008

Have anybody here know how to speak in Malay Language? I meant for the people outside of Malaysia.

zhinghur · 01-06-2008

I think Nuaeman you are the only one here from Asia. So, it may be hard to find one.

nuaeman · 01-08-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by zhinghur

I think Nuaeman you are the only one here from Asia. So, it may be hard to find one.

It seems so, but then for Asia, Mandarin is considered the most spoken language, in fact in the world due to China. I think Spanish in fact are second most spoken language after mandarin.

zhinghur · 01-09-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by nuaeman

It seems so, but then for Asia, Mandarin is considered the most spoken language, in fact in the world due to China. I think Spanish in fact are second most spoken language after mandarin.

Spanish is 4th most spoken language. And, ya Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world [over 1 billion]

sallyxu126 · 03-06-2008

My first language is Chinese, and English is my second language. I really want to learn more languages as my work is international trade... the more languages I speak, the easier is my work.

Yatzi · 03-07-2008

My first language is spanish and I learned english in school.Although I know how to write it I still practicing for a better conversation.

GordonS · 03-16-2008

My first language is English.
My second is French
My third is Urdu (language of Pakistan)
My fourth is hopefully going to be Spanish! I picked up a good solid background in Spanish when I was in Central America as a teenager and now my wife and I are working at picking it up again using a really good interactive Spoken Spanish DVD learning program. Hopefully a year from now we'll be speaking Spanish comfortably! We had earlier taken a Spanish series at night school which helped a lot too.

dsc · 04-28-2008

I grew up & currently live in Western Canada, so my native language is English.

I always said if I learned a 2nd language it would be Spanish. A trip to Mexico 15-20 yrs ago probably had something to do with it.

I never got serious about it until about 6 mos ago after getting back from a trip to Buenos Aires & Uruguay.

So long story short..

My native language is English & I'm somewhere in the beginner/intermediate level for Spanish.

Gordon, how difficult was it to learn Urdu? I work with a couple Pakistani gentlemen, so I've seen written Urdu. To the untrained eye, it just looks like more Arabic squiggles..

GordonS · 04-29-2008

Hi dsc,

Interesting, I grew up in Western Canada too.

Urdu was fairly complex to learn, mainly because of the arabic letters used in writing. Apart from that, the grammatical structure is similar to European languages mainly because, Hindi/Urdu, and many other middle eastern languages belong to the same Indo-European family of languages. And of course English has adopted many Hindi/Urdu words such as khaki, bungalow etc because of the British colonial rule over the subcontinent. We had a 3 month high intensity course in Urdu and then learned by constant daily use. As pointed out by a few others below, it's the actual day-by-day usage which results in learning. Classroom learning is only good as a start.

My wife and I came back last night from Panama, and I'd say that those 2 weeks there really helped. We spend a lot of time with friends who only spoke Spanish and the Royal Decameron Resort had over 50% Columbians as guests!

Panamax · 07-23-2008

I was born in Panama to parents of West Indian descent. Consequently, although I'm fully bilingual, English is (was) my first language, as it was my parent's, who spoke English to each other and to me. Learning spanish was easier to me than learning to speak, as I went to school and hung-out with the kids on the block. Still, to this day, Spanish does not roll-off the tip of my tongue - I must translate my English thoughts to Spanish, before uttering a word...

dsc · 07-23-2008

Well, that's very interesting too..

Before I started to learn Spanish 8 or 9 mos ago (and I only knew one language before that), I sometimes asked people I know who spoke multiple languages "What language do you think in?".

Most people say "It all depends".

It didn't make much sense to me at the time, but I think I understand a little better after the past few months.

If (like a good friend of mine) you spoke nothing but Polish for the first 18 years of your life, you think in Polish when thinking back on those times. Now that he's been in Canada for the past 15 years and is fluent in English, I'm sure he thinks in English when he's thinking about his experiences here.

Still from Panamax's comment I have to conclude that since I started to learn a 2nd language at a somewhat older age, that even if I do become fluent in Spanish one day, I will probably always think in English first.

I'd be interested to hear others experiences, of course..

fennecman · 07-26-2008

Hey Guys: bonjour!
My first language is obviously french then comes English
Hopefully I'll be speaking Spanish in 2 or 3 month or I ll be lost!
I am also trying to learn Russian but it is quite commiting...

I am arriving in Panama mid-august. I want to take spanish courses, any ideas?
Thanks

didonko · 10-16-2008

My first language is Bulgarian. I am learning English, German and Russian right now. I have been in China for 10 months, so I also know a little Chinese