What forgeign language would you like to learn? Why?

[debm55]

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Wish I was fluent in French. Took 3 years in high school about 60 years

ago. I would be better able to spend more time in Paris.

[debm55]

5. Thank you sinkingfeeling. Spending time in Paris would be great.

[elleng]

10. DITTO did in high school AND college, ##### years ago, then drove around France with family;

definitely better to BE there!

[OnDoutside]

79. Duolingo French is pretty good for brushing up

I learnt French is school too, have spent two years of my working life in France as well as many rugby weekends there....oh and am on over 1100 days of Duolingo! However, learn vocab and the present tense will be enough to get you going. The French people I met will help you one they see you try.

Btw, look up the Jay Swanson YouTube channel for all things to do in Paris !

[Joinfortmill]

2. Spanish, but I'm still working on English.

[debm55]

6. Thank you, Joinfortmill., Basic Spanish is quite easy. Good luck

[elleng]

3. Italian, I love the SOUND of it.

I studied French, and that sounds pretty good, but something about Italian!

[debm55]

8. Thank you, elleng. It is a beautiful and romantic language.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. Same.

Such a beautiful language.

[bucolic_frolic]

51. I saw him. Unforgettable. /nt

[bucolic_frolic]

52. I have some small envy for people who can speak several.

I can read French fairly well. But wish I knew more French, Italian, German, Spanish. A little Polish and Russian wouldn't be bad either.

[Ocelot II]

4. I have been learning Norwegian for the past few years.

Partly because it's my heritage, and partly because learning any language is good for an old brain but it's an easy enough language to learn that it isn't frustrating me.

[debm55]

12. Thank you, Ocelot II, I hope you learn it. My husband knows Finnish as his mom was born there and all his aunts only

spoke it at home. In fact, they were not permitted to go to public school until they learned English. Good luck with the Norwegian.

[Ocelot II]

16. Finnish is a tough one. Finland is a Nordic country, but the language isn't related at all

to the Scandinavian languages or the other European languages except for Hungarian and Estonian, and is very complex grammatically. I'm too old to learn Finnish. But Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are so closely related that they are for the most part mutually intelligible, and their grammar is almost as uncomplicated as English.

[debm55]

22. Yes, I remember that my MIL and her sisters had double vowels in it and I found it hard to pronounce. TY Ocelot II Good

luck to you.

[Ocelot II]

23. I had to learn some choral music in Finnish.

One of our members was from Finland and she taught us how to pronounce it - it's actually fairly simple when you learn the rules, but the grammar is something else. We also learned some songs in Icelandic, which was challenging because of some weird vowels and a couple of letters that no longer exist in other languages, ð and þ.

[LearnedHand]

30. Second that!

Norwegian is surprisingly easy for English speakers to learn. Honestly it's easier than Spanish, and I studied Spanish for years. I haven't tried Finnish but I read the same as what you said: Finnish is related to Hungarian and Estonian.

[Ocelot II]

32. Much easier than German, too, which I took in high school and college.

And waaaay easier than Icelandic, which is what's left over from Old Norse. I can pick up some Icelandic words that are the same or almost the same as other Scandinavian words, but the grammar is so gnarly that it's really hard to sort out. And spoken, it sounds like a creole of Norwegian and Klingon.

[Wicked Blue]

21. I grew up speaking Estonian, closely related to Finnish

My parents were born there. They spoke Estonian, English, German and Russian fluently.

They sent me to kindergarten knowing not a word of English, but I picked it up quickly. I was not allowed to speak English at home. They sent me to Estonian school every other Sunday.

Took 3 years of German in high school but forgot most of it.

Not sure I'd have the energy to start learning another language now.

[debm55]

53. Thank you Wicked Blue. My MIL had the same problem After she learned English, she did very well. She went to Nursing

School. was a MASH nurse during WW II and became a teacher. You could hear the Finnish accent in her voice.

[LearnedHand]

25. Jeg lrer norsk ogs!

Nesten to år nå. Jeg har familie dar men de ikke er norsk.

[LearnedHand]

26. Interesting

The reply title changes the spelling and characters but the body accepts the Norwegian! The reply was supposed to be;

Jeg lærer norsk også!

[Ocelot II]

27. Det er moro, ikke sant?

Familien min kom fra Norge for mange år siden og ingen kan språket lenger.

[LearnedHand]

29. Ja!

Jeg leser "Forside - Klar Tale" for å lære språken. Den er skrevet på et forenklet språk for elever. Familien min i Norge snakker norsk og engelsk og hjelper meg å snakke. Jeg er ikke norsk men jeg elsker landet og språket. Min venns familie kom fra Norge for mange år siden og hun lærer norsk også. Vi snakker og tekster på norsk.

https://www.klartale.no/

[Ocelot II]

31. I klassen min leser vi noen ganger kriminalromaner.

Jeg har lært mange ord om forbrytelser, som drapsvåpen og blodige fotspor.

[LearnedHand]

35. Klassen?

Tar du kurs? På nett eller i klassrommer? Jeg studerer bare med appen.

Ok lol det er perfekt å lær ord om forbrytelser. Jeg har lest Jø Nesbø, men bare på engelsk. Jeg vil lese ham på norsk! Jeg har besøkt mange steder i bøkene hans, som Frognerparken og andre steder i Oslo. Slik kan man lærer bedre.

[Ocelot II]

36. Nett og klasserommer, her:

https://www.mnlcp.org/index.php

[DBoon]

7. Lithuanian/Latvian - the Baltic languages

Supposedly the modern languages closest to proton-indo European, the ancestral language of most European languages and many southern Asian languages (Persian, Hindi and others)

Not a chance in hell I would actually learn either - couldn't master German grammar and the Baltic languages are much more complex.

[debm55]

17. Thank you, DBoon, As I child I knew Yiddish, lower Russian. some Ukranian. Haven't spoken it in years, so mostly in

Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2024, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

decades. Good luck in whatever you want to learn or not.

[Xolodno]

9. Well I know a good dose of Spanish and Russian.

Thinking about Mandarin or Arabic. Why? Both occupy use in significant parts of the world.

[debm55]

19. Thank you Xolodno. Arabic is one I would like to learn. Good luck in learning Mandarin or Arabic.

[Xolodno]

24. Thanks!

I was in Egypt this last fall and learned a few phrases and words in Arabic. Turns out, just like when I went to France, most knew English. Even when I responded in either Russian or Spanish to tell them I wasn't interested in buying their cheap ware they were peddling, some would actually respond and try to haggle in that language. Floored me when they responded in Russian.

Found out from a friend later a lot of Russians vacation in Egypt.

[grumpyduck]

11. Actually, Latin.

I took two years of it in high school and put it to use when i visited England later and could read some of the inscriptions on the old monuments.
Of course I've forgotten most of it.
But there are so many more old Roman plaques out there that I would love to just be able to read them without googling them.

[debm55]

57. Thank you grumpyduck and good luck learning some. I went to Mass that was in Latin and grew up knowing some words. Can't

remember it for the life of me.

[limbicnuminousity]

13. Muscogee, Navajo

Fun.

[Ocelot II]

28. I'd like to learn Ojibwe.

I know hello (boozhoo) and thank you (miigwech), but that's all I got.

[debm55]

65. Good luck to you learning Ojibwe. Ty.

[Ocelot II]

67. I'll never learn it - it's way too hard, even harder than Finnish.

[debm55]

58. Thank you limbinuminousity. Good luck learning the two languages of our Native Peoples.

[LoisB]

14. French because I think it is beautiful. nt

[debm55]

66. Thank you LoisB. French is a very beautiful and romantic language.

[gopiscrap]

18. at one time I was fluent in German, French

Urdu and English along with church latin and a bunch of Spanish, so I would love to fully learn Spanish

[debm55]

68. Ty gopiscrap. Good luck learning Spanish.

[gopiscrap]

120. thanks

[BlueSky3]

20. I would love to be fluent

in French. Our family was stationed there when I was age 7-10 and it really had an effect on me. I would have learned more, but I was enrolled in an American school. I’ve studied it since, but do so much better speaking it when I’m there. The best help I’m getting now is from a language exchange. I speak to someone who lives in France and is French. She wants to improve her English and I want to improve my French. And it’s free.

It’s really the best option for me because I’m a lousy student. I know that at my age I’ll never be fluent, but find that even small bits of study here and there are good for the gray cells.

[LearnedHand]

33. My library offers online language courses

I think it's called Pronunciator. It's a really nice resource for self-study, even though it's web-based only and doesn't offer an app. I just sign in to the site with my library card!

Also there are many podcasts and YouTube videos for language learners. I was struggling with a particular new word in Norwegian that contained both the "æ" and "a" sounds (similar but distinct). I found a good YouTube to help learn and distinguish between the sounds.

[debm55]

71. TY LearnedHand, I will have to look into that.

[debm55]

70. Ty BlueSky3 that is so true.

[debm55]

81. Ty Blue Sky 3

[enid602]

34. portugues brasileiro

I speak Spanish, and used to be conversant in Brazilian Portuguese. Haven’t spoken it in years, but plan to study it at some point. I lived in Argentina a total of 5 years in my life, and am pretty good with castellano rioplatense.

[debm55]

72. TY enid602 and good luck to you in Brasilian Portuguese.

[electric_blue68]

37. I wouldn't mind learning some French. It sounds pretty, I know a teeny amount, and I was gifted a trip to Paris(!)...

I was in the advanced classes in grade school. We had a French teacher. Unfortunately I didn't like her much so she kind of turned me off of French for a long time.

Then in 9th grade ('67) we were offered French, Spanish, or...


Russian!
I suppose it was a way of possibly getting Russian speakers for The U.N., American Embassy, ?future trade, some science stuff, or C.I.A. (😮 ) ! There were only 4 JHSs in NYC that offered it!

I decided to take it so I could talk to my dad. Oh, English was probably his first language; but he (2nd Gen) spoke Ukrainian to his parents, and a few family friends. I thought it would cool to converse a bit since I understood they could often understand each other (Ukrainians, and Russians).
I didn't know completely yet how much friction there could be between them.

I took a year, and I got an 85! You had to learn a whole new alphabet, and thethree what ever you call - masculine, feminime, and ?nuetral designations. I was going to the specialized Art & Music HS, and they didn't offer it. Only my local HS did.

So I struggled through Spanish for ?2 more years. 😑

What I'd like to learn, and I actually have to finish the on line class I have - is some Arabic Calligraphy. It's so beautiful!

[debm55]

64. Ty electric_b;ue 68. Wonderful post.Yes, when I was young I spoke Ukraine and Russian. Different alphabets. I think when

you are younger it is easier to pick you the language. Good luck on your Arabic Calligraphy. It is beautiful.

[electric_blue68]

104. Oh, yeah, it's often much easier to pick up on

languages when you're a kid.

Some people have a natural talent for them at any age!

[Behind the Aegis]

38. I used to be fluent in 4 languages, now back to one, English.

However, I have been relearning Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, and new ones, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, German, Yiddish, Swedish, and Romanian. I would like to learn Swahili (I know several animals' names), Greek, Hindi, Mandarin, Russian, and Hungarian.

Oh, and have been relearning American Sign Language.

[debm55]

55. Wow. Behind the Aegis. Good luck learning all of those languages.

[GreenWave]

39. Nuevos estudios cientificos muestran que los cerebros

de personas que estudian una lengua extranjera genera nuevas neuronas!!!

So keep studying other languages to generate new neurons in your brains!

[debm55]

50. Thank you, Have you spoken since childhood or did you just learn.?

[Phoenix61]

40. Indonesian - I like to travel there

Japanese - I want to travel there

[debm55]

49. TY Phoenix , I have always wanted to travel there too. Good luck on learning Japanese.

[Niagara]

41. Italiano, Spanish, German, and ASL.

I can speak a little French and Italian.


I can swear in both Spanish and Hindu.


I know very little German. Definitely not enough to get by.


I know enough ASL to get by but I don't use it much anymore so I forget words.

[debm55]

48. Thank you , Niagara. Wow you know alot of languages. Sometimes when you don't use it you forget how to speak it.

[Niagara]

75. My foreign language skills are minimal, Debbie. Lol!

[Elessar Zappa]

42. I'm trying to learn German but it's tough.

I’d also like to learn Japanese.

[debm55]

45. Ty Elessar Zapper. I always wanted to learn Japanese. Good luck on your German.

[Harker]

43. Old Norse.

I have a tutorial and a big old Oxford dictionary of Icelandic to help me get going.

I'd like to be able to read medieval Icelandic sagas in the original.

[debm55]

44. TY. Harker. That sounds great. I wish you luck.

[Harker]

46. Thanks, debm55... it'll be something to do.

When I get my time machine humming, I'll see if I can have a beer with Snorri Sturluson.

[Dear_Prudence]

60. Free instruction online

You probably know this, but in case others are interested, here is some info. Jackson Crawford, a former university professor, gives free instruction online on YouTube. I use his site to learn about the mythology and ancient culture, but he has lots of language instruction too. I read his translation of The Poetic Edda. He reads some poems aloud in Old Norse in his online videos, so you can at least enjoy the sound of the language. Enjoy!

[Harker]

62. Thank you very much, Dear_Prudence...

I'm sitting here with E.V. Gordon's "An introduction to Old Norse" (Oxford Press), being a paper firster, but I will surely benefit from your helpful reply.

I'll certainly look into Mr. Crawford's videos.

You've both broadened and invigorated my outlook on this endeavor!

[LearnedHand]

121. Pronunciator language learning offers icelandic

This is the online language learning system my library offers.

https://www.pronunciator.com/

[Harker]

124. Thanks very much, LearnedHand! I appreciate it. n/t

[malthaussen]

47. All of them. Because I'm weird like that. n/t

[debm55]

54. Thank you. Mal. Good luck.

[Dear_Prudence]

56. Hindi

Beautiful song lyrics, pure vowels that enhance the sound of songs, and insight into Indian culture, from great epics to Bollywood movies. I studied for years, but I never could speak as well as any four year old native speaker in the entire nation of India.Once I successfully ordered chai from a Hindi-speaking waiter. Once I sang along in Hindi at an Indian concert when I had written out the lyrics of my favorite songs (much to the kind amusement of native speakers around me who did not need any a cheat sheet to sing along). Still, I never regretted those years of study.

[debm55]

59. TY. Dear_Prudence, Yes, Hindi is a beautiful language.

[Midnight Writer]

61. I'd like to learn one of those languages that no one has ever heard of.

That way I will be able to mix in when Trump's imaginary invasion force takes over the country.

[debm55]

63. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH, Ty Midright Writer. Good luck learning.

[yellowdogintexas]

69. After 2 years of highly unsuccessful Spanish classes in college

I find myself wanting to re learn some of it. There is a lot of Spanish culture here and I would just like to be able to understand it

And figure out what my sister in law and niece are saying.

On the other hand, over in Fantasyland, I would love to learn Farsi. My daughter married into a Kurdish/Iranian family and the whole family speaks .Farsi, Kurdish, some Arabic and English. My co-grandmother speaks to her granddaughters in Farsi, and my son in law is teaching my granddaughter. My daughter is really good with the names of the food!
Meanwhile, my daughter & son-in-law are learning Spanish because southern Arizona has a large Spanish culture

[debm55]

73. Ty, yellowdogintexas. All the languages that you mentioned sound great to learn. I wish you luck

[yellowdogintexas]

74. I am very happy my baby girl will grow up with many cultural influences

What's wild is when my son in law's sisters and their mother get into squabbles. They get going in one of those languages and I kind of want to creep slowly out of the room. It's fierce sounding.

[debm55]

91. Yes, some languages can sound angry and sinister, but it is just how certain words are pronounced.

[Runningdawg]

76. In my case it's an Indigenous language, Cherokee.

I grew up hearing it spoken on one side of the family and being forbidden from speaking it on the other. You would think it would be easier to find a class in OK, but it's not.

[debm55]

86. So sorry that happened to you ---the family should have welcomed the diversities, Did you check ounline? Best wishes for

finding a place where you can learn.

[Runningdawg]

114. Oh yes, I found a class, at a library, near me.

Unfortunately, several weeks into it, I was the only student left and the library decided it wasn't worth the effort. They have never scheduled another class.
I tried learning from a set of tapes, there was no feedback, I had no idea if I was learning anything or not.
I tried online. Maybe the teacher was a bot. First phrase was supposed to be 'hello" one of the few words I do know, IDK what the bot said, it wasn't a hello anyone around here would understand. The one class available from the tribe is in a location an hour and half away, the roads are horrible, cut through the middle of nowhere and my car is crap. Not only that class starts at 8pm, but I also wouldn't get home until nearly midnight.

Family Cherokee, kidnapped and sent to boarding schools. 1/2 the family rebelled and clung even tighter to tradition. The other half jumped on the jesus bus. That's a very common family situation in OK.

[debm55]

115. Ty, Runningdawg. Could you get one of your relatives to teach you?

[Runningdawg]

116. As of 2017 I am the last one.

[debm55]

117. Sorry.

[LakeArenal]

77. Espaol: en el dialecto de Costa Rica.

(In the Costa Rican dialect)

[debm55]

83. Ty LakeArenal, Would you say you are fluent? Just thinking you have to be exposed to the language everyday to be fluent

in it.

[LakeArenal]

84. Very few expats are what you might term fluent.

But if you try you are usually understood.

Ticos are very patient with one if one is patient with them.

Google Translate is used by everyone. Ticos and expats.

Pronunciation is almost as important as knowing vocabulary.

[debm55]

87. Thank you LakeArenal. You have been living there awhile.So I was guessing you are fluent.

[LakeArenal]

96. I'm dyslexic so tenses have been difficult as well as the irregular verbs.

But my present tense and vocabulary are pretty good so I have no fear if I have to speak Spanish.
Mr Lake is better forming sentences and looks to me me for the words and he does the syntax.
All I can say is having a partner who is simpatico with you is the most helpful part.

We have a saying: Between my Spanglish and Tico Spenglish we are doing very well.

[debm55]

110. TY LakeArenal. You and your husband are blessed to have each other.

[maptap22]

78. Portuguese

Because I am going there in 7 months.

[debm55]

88. Thank you maptap22. Have you been studying? Good luck and happy times in Portugal.

[OnDoutside]

80. I spent 14 years learning Irish and 5 years learning French

I, amongst so many Irish people, hate having Irish forced on us. French, I love, and have over 1100 days of it on Duolingo.

[debm55]

89. TY OnDoutside.. Continue with success on your French.

[OnDoutside]

99. Thanks 😊 !

[RainCaster]

82. Mandarin, I like the people but not the govt

Someday in the future, Mousy Dung's idea of government will fail completely. If the people are smart, they will move to some form of democracy instead of the autocratic system that the USSR moved to. I love the culture and people, but the country is so backward because of the party rule.

It would be nice to go back there with an understanding of the language. I could then spend more time discussing about the culture in their native tongue.

[debm55]

85. TY RainCaster, I must have been fantastic to visit China. Good luck to you learning the language.

[RainCaster]

93. It was fantastic and scary at the same time

If not for the heavy cloud of an authoritarian government, it would have been fantastic. In the US we think 200 years is old and 200 miles is near. In Europe, 200 years is young and 200 miles is far. In China 200 miles is infantile and 200 miles is a commute.

[lastlib]

90. Always wanted to learn Russian and Latin....

never had time or opportunity for either one.

And I shared a cubicle at work with a lady who was born in Russia! She was born in Moscow, and after getting married lived near Chernobyl. She and husband fled after the nuclear disaster there, wound up here in the Midwest.

[debm55]

94. Ty you lastlib. I am glad they are safe.

[Cartoonist]

92. French

I would like to be able to speak Spanish because so many of my fellow citizens do. I started to in high school, but gave up.
I would like to speak French because of the culture. So many books and so much music I miss out on. Films too.

[debm55]

98. TY Cartoonist. You still have time to learn.

[DFW]

95. I'd like to learn (better): Tagalog, Albanian, Turkish, Farsi, Polish, Japanese, Arabic and Mandarin

Tagalog because I encounter Filipinos everywhere I go. They have taught me some of their language, enough to surprise the hell out of them, but not enough to hold a real conversation. The same goes for Albanian and Farsi.

I know some Turkish, as I had some Turkish friends in college, and there are Turks everywhere here in Germany. But I'd love to be conversational.

I have Polish colleagues, and would like to be able to converse with them in their own language.

I run into Arabs everywhere in Europe, especially in France and Belgium.

Mandarin just because one encounters people from China everywhere, and while not all of them speak Mandarin as a native language by any means, Mandarin remains their lingua franca.

My sister-in-law is from Japan, and I would like to be able to converse with her in her own language.

As for languages in which I CAN hold a conversation with either little or no difficulty--those would be English (mother tongue), Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch (Nederlands), Swedish, German, Schwyzerdütsch and Russian. I'm no genius, but rather lazy, instead. I'm in a different country virtually every day for work. I don't have the energy or the time to ask everybody along the way, "Do you speak English?" It's just a LOT easier if I know the language of the people I interact with. Knowing the languages I do covers me about 95% of the time. Close enough. Besides, having learned German early on made it possible for me to meet and marry an incredibly beautiful, smart, kind and well-adjusted woman that would never even have talked to me if I hadn't spoken her language, which is German. She had taken some English in school, of course, but didn't speak it well, as she never figured she would ever have any use for it later on in life. She eventually turned out to be wrong about that, but she didn't know it at the time.

I think I fried my brain neurons long ago.

[debm55]

97. TY, DFW, What a beautiful post.

[DFW]

100. Walang anuman!

Last edited Mon Mar 25, 2024, 06:10 PM - Edit history (1)

("You're welcome" in Tagalog)

Here's a story you'll like:

About 25 years ago, I was having coffee with an American friend in a café in Brussels, when three college-age women from Sweden started practicing singing madrigals in perfect three part harmony. They were REALLY good, professional level. Between songs, they were conversing with each other in Swedish, which I happen to speak very well. When they stopped, I remarked to my friend, "I wonder what we have to do to get them to do an encore."

One of them turned to me and said, in English, "we don't do encores." I said, "oh, you only do encores if we ask in Swedish?" She said, "yes, that's right." I replied, "sjung oss någnting vackert, alltså," which means, "then sing us something pretty." That stopped all three of them in mid-sentence, since their jaws had dropped simultaneously to the floor. They interrogated me for the next twenty minutes how in the world it was that an American spoke fluent Swedish. We never got our encore, but the looks on their faces when they heard me answer them in Swedish was worth it.

[debm55]

111. TY DFW, Wonderful post again.

[lpbk2713]

101. Mandarin ... Because it can be difficult.

I tried it many years ago but couldn't fit it into my schedule.

[debm55]

109. Ty lpbk2713. Maybe try again at a slower pace when you have time. I wish you success my friend.

[drray23]

102. Portuguese.

I am French American so I speak English and French fluently. I understand Spanish and Italian but not fluent. I want to work on Portuguese because we ( wife and I ) are thinking about buying a vacation home in Portugal where we maybe would later retire.

[debm55]

108. Ty drrray23. I hope your journey into learning Portuguese is successful. Portugal would be great to retire to.

[Aristus]

103. Learning Spanish and French would go a long way toward being able to travel almost anywhere in the world without much

difficulty.

My medical Spanish just isn't going to cut it.

But the language I really want to learn is Finnish. It's an absolutely fascinating language. The way it is spelled, the way it sounds when spoken. Entrancing. I watched a few YouTube videos on the rudiments of Finnish vocabulary and grammar. But that's just dipping my toe. I want to take a full blown language course.

And then, of course, visit Finland.

[debm55]

106. TY Aristus. My MIL was born in Finland. and talked only Finnish at home. It was a Finnish community outside of Boston.

lots of double verbs in a word. She was not allowed into school until she learned English which she did. She was quit smart as she went to Nursing School and served in WW II as a MASH nurse and later as a teacher. When my husband was young, Toenie and the family visited Finland. All through her life with her family, she talked Finnish. but with us, she talked American English. Good Luck to you for wanting to learn it.

[Hekate]

105. Definitely Spanish -- so many Spanish speakers have settled in California, I'd like to communicate better!

[debm55]

107. TY Hekate, That would be great to communicate with Spanish speakers. Many of the older folks and the younger folks still

speak Spanish at home. Good luck to you for learning Spanish.

[Mr. Scorpio]

112. All of them, with all the requisite dialects

I want to be THE Omniglot.

[debm55]

113. Thank you

[Emile]

118. Spanish

[debm55]

119. Thank you Emile.

[Mr.Bill]

122. That would be spanish, living in California.

It's the second most common language here, except in areas where it is the most common.

I grew up in a hispanic neighborhood and I took spanish in high school. Just couldn't seem to learn it very well. I can understand a little of it some times, and speak it even less.

[debm55]

123. Thank you Mr. Bill

[ProfessorGAC]

125. Something Asian

Chinese or Japanese I guess. Not that I'll actually do it, but thought it would be cool.
I can speak enough Italian to get by, and having been there over 40 times, it came in handy.
But, knowing something as radically different as an Asian language is appealing.

[debm55]

131. Thank you ProfessorGAC, I always wanted to go to Japan. would love to learn the language.

[Hope22]

126. Spanish

[debm55]

132. Thank you, Hope. Spanish was easy the first two years. after that it became more difficult for me. I wish you luck.

[Lunabell]

127. In the US it isn't really "foreign." But, Spanish.

I want to be able to effectively communicate with others who do not speak English. We have a lot of Spanish speaking people where I live and I also want to help make them feel welcomed.
Bienvenidos!

[debm55]

134. Ty Lunabell.

[Traildogbob]

128. Latin

To understand better the many hundreds of scientific names crammed in my head for trees, plants, animals and protists and monerans and fungi.

[debm55]

133. Ty Traildogbob. The only Latin I had was going to mass for years and hearing it for years. My missal was English on

on the left hand side of the open book and Latin on the right.I wish you luck in learning it , if you decide to.

[leighbythesea2]

129. Spanish and Korean

Found an immersion program in Guatemala for Spanish. Not that expensive.

[debm55]

135. Ty leighbythesea2. Wish you luck.

[Different Drummer]

130. I would like to learn some language that uses characters that are not used in the English language.

Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Russian, Hebrew, and Greek all come to mind. I imagine that, since the English language is so different in terms of characters used, learning any or all of these would be an intellectual challenge.

[debm55]

136. Ty Different drummer, Hebrew is read from right to left. I did know Russian , Hebrew and Yiddish when I was younger.

The Russian language use the Crylic alphabet. Arabic and Japanese are languages I would like to learn to speak and write--even if it is basic words.