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Posted by: Pickysaurus 15 Jul 2009, 18:07

I'm from England, so naturally English is my first language. And I mean proper English not any of this English (US) crap.

Posted by: Alias 15 Jul 2009, 18:09

English, however I know a lot of irrelevant Schweizerdeutsch words due to my heritage (my parents used to name a lot of items the German name).

Posted by: Rayburn 15 Jul 2009, 18:43

German. Learned English and French in school although there's virtually nothing left of the latter.

Posted by: NergiZed 15 Jul 2009, 18:46

English first, but fluent in Chinese as well (though my writing skill isn't as good as it used to be, reading is still fine but sometimes frustrating.)

Posted by: Overdose 15 Jul 2009, 18:56

That's not something nice to say regardless if Americans frequented this forum or not. Also know that english(US) is the standard international english, spoken by the majority of people around the world that are not native english speakers. You need to have a little more tact in your choice of wording about the world.

Now back on topic~ My first language is portuguese, but my self taught english is my second language. I also have considerable knowledge in other Romance languages such as italian, spanish among others. French used to be my second language, we were taught french and latin at school however I forgot much of the written part but I can still understand by ear. I can also speak to some extent a fictional language from the Macross universe called Zentran but I have yet to learn how to read it. I love fictional languages. Blizzard does this very well with Warcraft, I just love the way Common (The human language) sounds. Tolkien is the master however.

Posted by: Pickysaurus 15 Jul 2009, 19:35

I wasn't intending to offend anyone. It just frustrates me. I've always though the first American settlers were somewhat dyslexic because I can't understand how simple things like 'colour' and 'centre' can be lost. The US seem to think they own the world, but forget that without Great Britain there would be no America.
I'm a patriot. I don't mean to offend people I am just proud of my country and my language. Although that is turning out to be illegal in my country T.T
Before Gordon Brown took over it was illegal to fly the Union Flag >.<

Anyways I mean no offence. I'll change it if anyone has any major objections.

[/offtopicrant]

It pretty cool that everyone here is from a diverse background. I wish I could learn Russian.

Posted by: Nidmeister 15 Jul 2009, 19:52

I'm from England too, and am somewhat well educated in the english language, therefore the only spelling mistakes I make are down to my tremor and hitting the wrong keys on the keyboard.
Typos are easy for me, so I have to double check posts. :|

Americanizations are somewhat funny to me, I use them.

Posted by: Beef 15 Jul 2009, 19:54

It's quite complicated here. I was born to Lebanese parents in Montreal so I was first exposed to Arabic as a child. However, my early schooling was in French. Add to that the fact I lived in an English neighborhood. In the end when I moved back to Lebanon, my parents placed me in a tri-lingual school though it prioritized English over French once we reached grade 8 (14 yrs of age) since all the sciences were taught in English (Arabic is somewhat retarded in this aspect). I would still call Arabic my mother tongue but in Lebanon, EVERYBODY and I mean EVERYBODY is fluent in either French or English (more of the former), so English is definitely another primary language. That said I'm also fairly fluent in French too though not to the degree of English or Arabic. I'm also taking Spanish courses now as well.

Posted by: Rayburn 15 Jul 2009, 20:03

I'm not really sure what kind of English I'm speaking. When I started learning the language at school, they used to teach us British English but at some point, our new teacher simply stopped caring and most people started to overuse the zed. After a few years, I changed back to British English; guess I just prefer the way it sounds. It's also worth noting that I picked up most of my informal English from movies and videogames so it might be a bit of a mix between British and American English.

Posted by: Pickysaurus 15 Jul 2009, 20:17

Well there are a whole load of differences as far as spelling is concerned.
British US
Colour Color
Centre Center

etc etc

Posted by: Rayburn 15 Jul 2009, 20:22

I understand the reasoning behind most of the British spelling variant. Words like 'centre' or 'manoeuvre' seem to derive from
French, so for me, there's no logical reason to change them to 'center' or 'maneuver'. I do, however, prefer 'burned' over 'burnt'.

Posted by: Overdose 15 Jul 2009, 20:53

I'm pretty sure 'burned' isn't proper (US) English. It is spoken by some people but it doesn't mean it's correct.

Nevermind. After some research I discovered both 'burned' and 'burnt' are correct as far (US) English goes. It's down to personal preference.

Posted by: Pickysaurus 15 Jul 2009, 20:57

Well it may be french. There's a lot of Latin in English.

In England (and other parts of the world) the language is degenerating (or maybe evolving). Slang is become dominant thanks to the internet

Posted by: ΓΛPΤΘΓ 15 Jul 2009, 21:08

My first language is Cantonese but I write and read much better in English and possibly in general speaking too.

Posted by: Dutchygamer 15 Jul 2009, 21:33

First language is Dutch. Learned English trough school, games and TV.

Posted by: Chyros 15 Jul 2009, 21:38

First language is Dutch though English comes pretty natural to me. I heavily prefer English over American though, and would extremely heavily disagree that "proper" English is somehow defined as American. Though most Americans seem to be better spellers than Brits. I also know German and French but they're not nearly on par with my English or Dutch, and I know a tiny bit of Latin and ancient Greek. When I have time for it I also want to learn Spanish which I think is also a nice language, and useful besides.

Posted by: MR.Kim 15 Jul 2009, 22:25

My first language is Korean and second language is English.

To be honest, English is much better than Korean.

Posted by: DerKrieger 15 Jul 2009, 23:15

My native language is English, though my dad grew up speaking Spanish and taught me a little (I can only understand some Spanish now, and that's mostly because I learned Latin much later). In school I studied German (can speak it pretty well, even today) and Latin, and when I got to university I studied Japanese (not too successful) and am currently learning Russian.

Posted by: ultimentra 15 Jul 2009, 23:20

I take high offense to that. I am a proud American and I can say that the only US citizens that rape the english language are stereotypes and over generalizations. Something other english speaking countries have too. Yes, english is my first language.

Posted by: Sharpnessism 15 Jul 2009, 23:44

Chinese then English (write mostly in British English). I find that American English makes a lot more sense though, with words like centre making no sense if you pronounce it the way it's written.

Yes I know these words are taken from other languages but it'd still make a lot more sense to change 2 letters as it makes a lot more sense.

Posted by: C.o.m.m.a.n.d.e.r 16 Jul 2009, 0:42

first language is english(US) altho i must say i dont like it very much not very interesting to me as ide like to learn Norwegian and German

Posted by: Shock 16 Jul 2009, 1:43

Both stereotypical sounds of British English and Cowboy American sound evenly authentic to me. The fact that the one variant is younger than the other does not mean it should be valued less.

I am of Dutch heritage despite half the town being suspicious of me being a foreigner. (and half of FS of me being a girl, but that's a whole other topic ) and have adopted English as my second language. I fail hard at every other tongue, save a little German.

Posted by: Beef 16 Jul 2009, 1:45

Yeah I guess my written Arabic is horrible whil my spoken Arabic is acceptable. Formal Arabic is a bitch

Posted by: Comr4de 16 Jul 2009, 2:04

Spanish was my first language but as if it wasn't obvious English became my main spoken language as I moved to the US at the age of 9.

Posted by: SgtRho 16 Jul 2009, 2:32

My native Language is German, although I speak better in English and write better in Spanish

Posted by: Admiral FCS 16 Jul 2009, 3:47

Mandarin Chinese with Beijing accents and hints of Northeastern Chinese accents.

English is my second language. I find that both British and American accents are pretty good, though sometimes I favour/favor one over another.

I might as well learn some Star Trek technobabbles as my partial third language.

Posted by: Stalker 16 Jul 2009, 10:15

My first language is German and I learned English at school. We learned British english but TBH I got my English from video games so it's probably more American.
Well, actually my first language is Austrian (German with bad accent).

Posted by: Destiny 16 Jul 2009, 10:56

Either crappy Mandarin Chinese or English...I personally consider English as my first language, and so it shows on my documents. (I sorta hybridized American English (I prefer Z over S) with British )

Posted by: JJ 16 Jul 2009, 12:02

My first language was Mandarin Chinese, then in preschool education my main language for some reason became English, then it reverted back to Chinese after being sent to a Chinese school, so I'm quite good in both. I'm also not bad in Malay, but that language kinda feels pointless for me to learn any better than I do now.

Posted by: ka1000 16 Jul 2009, 12:36

first language is French (haven't seen that one yet). second and third are Dutch and (mostly) British English respectively. i'm a bit of a language freak so i'm rather good at speaking/writing/understanding either of them.

any other frenchies here?

Posted by: Sgt. Mjr. Jazzie Spurs Kid 16 Jul 2009, 13:49

Spanish. D:

Posted by: Kirasama 16 Jul 2009, 14:30

This, i admit i learned english by playing videogames, as back in the day when i started learning english and french everybody believed french was more important(and i didnt learned anything about french)

Posted by: Zhen 16 Jul 2009, 16:48

Mandarin Chinese with the Beijing dialect as my first language, learned English through school, internet and forums.

Posted by: Wanderer 16 Jul 2009, 18:10

Native language is finnish, though my english isn't bad either

Posted by: Mylo 16 Jul 2009, 21:47

My monther tongue is German. Due to English friends, English forums and an English intensive course in school, my English has improved a lot. Now I am fluent in spoken and written English. Furthermore I have a knowledge of Spanish and learn it in school. The small bit of French is not worth to list.

Mylo

Posted by: Tupac 16 Jul 2009, 22:53

I'm from Nicaragua, Asi que mi primer idioma es español, but I speak english too

Posted by: Ascendancy 16 Jul 2009, 23:00

English is obviously my mother tongue.

Though I'm an American, I have tendencies to use British English as well, considering even to me it makes more sense. I'd always write that way in English class in high school and my teacher didn't seem to care much.

Posted by: Ektufall 17 Jul 2009, 0:51

My first language is and will stay latvian (as baltic language tree is dying already I would like to slow that as I can) Also I can say I am more lucky as most of you who want learn russian ,I know it from childhood do to large influence of our neighbour in our country throught centuries but also from fathers family who are from belarussian heritage (belrussian -russian is as US-UK very similar yet diferent) . Must admit I know nothing in plain belarussian . English - well in school was tought the british english ,but all other influence comes from USA (games,movies ,part of songs) . Thanks to blizzard I can mimic sometimes medival akcent. I could more or less get point out of any spoken language when I hear it ,thought I know it can't know them all When I will set out to half island of Indochina hope to learn some on the way as trip will take some years by foot (thats another story)

Posted by: Scope 17 Jul 2009, 4:20

Mon francais est plus ou moin bien mais c'est plutot ma troisieme langue si tu avais lu mon poste sur la premiere page.

Posted by: Pal 17 Jul 2009, 6:11

i first spoke tagalog....then english..
Can you understand this?

Ano ba gusto mo?

Posted by: Lord Atlantis 17 Jul 2009, 8:45

My first language is English, naturally, but also took some German in High School.

Posted by: KamuiK 17 Jul 2009, 15:35

This. It is exactly the same for me. Although I do speak a few japanese words and sentences by now, and I will later try to learn proper Japanese.


I agree to some degree (a rhyme^^). Since I am from Germany, I am often annoyed about words in English not being written as they are pronounced, because in Germany we try to write everything as we pronounce it, so it makes more sense for me to e.g. write 'center' instead of 'centre' because it is pronounced the former way. Although in school we learned British English, most of my English came from games, so this might be a reason as well.


Quite hard to believe for me^^


Très bien mon ami^^

Posted by: NergiZed 19 Jul 2009, 5:01

Wow, there's a surprising amount of people on here that can speak Chinese, even some with Beijing accents. Wonder if any of you guys go to Chinese C&C communities. (acronym is CC&CC )

Posted by: Admiral FCS 19 Jul 2009, 8:33

Well, considering Beijing is about 1/100 of China's population, and considering China is about 1/5 of the World's population, theoretically there should be 1/500 that speaks Mandarin with Beijing accents, but I guess our forum has a higher rate than that.

Posted by: JJ 19 Jul 2009, 9:20

Hmm nop, but I am interested to take a look at those sites.

Posted by: partyzanPaulZy 19 Jul 2009, 19:10

English is the 3rd language I have learned (at least on some better level), I have some problems with double letters and so, sometimes I make typos (so not every bug is fault of my knowledge).

1st I was learning English in school, PC games helped me a bit, then the internet, later I started to watch US/GB movies/films and serials in original speaking (this helped me to differentiate accents like the Scotish accent from the Irish accent).

Another language I've learned in school was German (Ich kenne die Gründe wie: "Ein Bier bitte!" ).
German was 4th and I'll try to not forget it.

The 2nd language I have used to speak is the Czech language, yes, it's not the first language I have ever used.

When I was 3 years old, my mum moved with me to my father, because he finish his military training (which has been cancelled just few years ago from now)
and got the job. I was born in Kyiv (today Ukraine), because my father (Czech) studied there for the plane rigger and met there my mum (Russian).
So my first language is Russian, but I almost forgot it as my father insisted to speak in Czech at home only (my father is Moravian patriot + I needed Czech language more).

Now I am slowly relearning Russian (but i have understood it all the time, panyemayem, negavarim). Same happened to my knowledge of Azbuka (I knew these letters when I was 3 yr old, now I know most of them again). It's normal that very inteligent children can learn letters (and reading) even in so low age.

Note to Slavic languages: The are so similar that if you learn 1 Western Slavic language (like Czech*), you'll understand to other West Slavic languages;
if you learn 1 Eastern Slavic language (like Russian), you'll understand to other East Slavic languages;
if you learn 1 Western and 1 Eastern Slavic languages (Czech and Russian), you'll understand probably to every Slavic language (even Southern Slavic languages like Croatian or Serbian). Czech x Slovac is like Brit.ExAE, Czech x Russian is like Norwegian x German

* t;line-height:100%"> Czech language has one of the most complicated grammar in the world so for many people it's the hardest language to learn (I've heard it's harder than Chinese because of the grammar). Thanks to Habsburg monarchy and their germanization attempts for this (action x reaction).
EDIT: size=1 tag doesn't work

Posted by: ultimentra 19 Jul 2009, 22:48

Previr, Cac dela?

Posted by: DerKrieger 20 Jul 2009, 0:22

I believe you mean "Privjet, Kak dela?"

Posted by: Chyros 20 Jul 2009, 2:07

Chorosho; zdravstvuyte, tovarich.

I'd like to learn Russian if it would've been more useful since all of it sounds like a quite beautiful language. I'd go for Spanish first, though.

Posted by: D' WRTHBRNGR 20 Jul 2009, 7:50

First Language: Filipino, specifically, Tagalog (the main local language here in the Philippines, ano pa nga ba? ). I'm not used to provincial dialects, however.
Second language: Of course, English (US) -- nuff said...

I also know some Russian (from games, mods, Internet, books, etc.). Da!

Posted by: Wi-Ta 20 Jul 2009, 13:45

German as mother tongue
Learned English in school.
Speaking Netherlands.

Posted by: Hans-Kristian 23 Jul 2009, 20:53

My first language is Norwegian. I also understand Swedish and Danish.
My second is English, I learned English from school, Internet, games and also from when I was in the USA. However, I am not very much in to languages so I don't hear/read much different between British English and American English.
My third language must be German, that is because we have to learn a third language in school. (Ich kann nicht viel Deutsch)

Posted by: Tilum 26 Jul 2009, 19:37

Proper English for me. Colour not color. Learnt French and Spanish but most of it is long gone.
~ Tilum

Posted by: CodeCat 29 Jul 2009, 13:02

I speak Dutch and English natively, was taught German and French in school. My French is incredibly rusty but I can still have a decent (though probably messy) conversation in German. I'm currently teaching myself Swedish, in which I can have a basic convo if I have a dictionary nearby (just ask Liten, who I volunteered to be my personal coach). I also taught myself little bits of Icelandic, Finnish, Polish, Old English, Old Norse (if you know Icelandic you know Old Norse, pretty simple) and Gothic.

Posted by: Razven 3 Aug 2009, 8:54

Well, the poll gets both a yes and no from me. I pretty much learned both English, Cantonese and Tagalong at the same rate when I was a kid due to a Filipino maid. However, now I don't remember a word of Tagalong but I've picked up enough Mandarin/Putonghua to hold my own in a conversation. An added bonus is that the written format of the Chinese language is largely the same between Cantonese and Mandarin.

I learned French at some point but that's all escaped my brain. My Spanish friends are making me learn Spanish but the only phrase I can still say is "LE PUTA MADRE." I think I like speaking English the most...

I also speak Canadian, Singlish and lolcats.

Posted by: Sgt. Damien 16 Aug 2009, 0:24

I'm from The Netherlands, so my first language was Dutch. Born in a city named : "Zwolle" and now I live near Amsterdam .

Posted by: Algermmon 25 Aug 2009, 19:12

Born in the UK and like Razven currently resides in Hong Kong. First learnt Cantonese but I speak English way better. Illiterate in Chinese as well. Learning French.

Posted by: Mylo 25 Aug 2009, 21:48

German as mother tongue, English as my first and Spanish as my second foreign language.

Mr. Mylo

Posted by: Wi-Ta 25 Aug 2009, 22:00

Posted by: KamuiK 26 Aug 2009, 2:38

I c wut u did thar On a more serious note, seems he just forgot his last post.

Posted by: Wi-Ta 26 Aug 2009, 14:33

No need to be serious.
I find this funny

Posted by: Mylo 27 Aug 2009, 0:06

... Damn I really failed hard here. We should all forget that and go back to topic^^ I can'T see anyone who speaks russian?

Mylo

Posted by: NergiZed 27 Aug 2009, 5:25

I know a few people that speak Russian; from what I've heard, it's a really tough language to learn.

Posted by: partyzanPaulZy 27 Aug 2009, 21:05

- except of other Slavic nations,
for other Slavics it's the easiest big language to learn because of many similarities.

Even that German was hard (much harder than English) for me as it has more different grammar system - only nominativ, genitiv, dativ and akusativ (no vocativ, no locative, no instrumental), all nouns start with big letter...

I can't even imagine how hard is Arabian, Chinese or Swahili...

Posted by: KamuiK 27 Aug 2009, 21:12

Some people say that German and Japanese are the hardest to learn languages existing. However, I agree that Japanese is very hard. As for German, I cannot say since I am German myself.

Posted by: Kaihime 27 Aug 2009, 21:31

Depends on which Chinese language since Chinese itself is not a language.

Posted by: Zhao 29 Aug 2009, 8:27

ALL ENGLISH , Nothing else....

Posted by: alax 13 Sep 2009, 7:10

without the british we would not exist BUT without US you would probably be speaking German right now ... hope i dont need to explain





that makes two





german isnt that hard the majority of the english language comes from latin greek and german
of course my dads side of family originally came from germany if im not mistaken

Posted by: NergiZed 13 Sep 2009, 8:29

Mandarin Chinese has prolly one of the simplest grammar out of all the languages I know. The hard part are memorizing the characters and pronouncing them. Overall, I find it the easier to learn out of my two first languages, even though I'm clearly better at my English. (I don't use my Chinese enough.)

Posted by: Vidar 13 Sep 2009, 13:15

German language for me here...english second...now learning dansk

Posted by: Lord Atlantis 13 Sep 2009, 17:51

English.

Posted by: DerKrieger 14 Sep 2009, 1:22

I tried learning Japanese a while back...grammar wasn't too bad, memorizing kanji/hanzi could be fairly difficult, and vocab was tricky because for the most part there were no cognates.



Yea, Russian is one of the most difficult languages to learn (at least for English speakers). Didn't stop me from taking it in school (and I'm not doing too poorly at it either).