I'm just curious after the plaintext ohb I hosted!

which languages do you speak, which are ur native languages and which did u learn later in ur life? and are there any languages you are very interested in and still want to learn?

maybe, since we are an international Community, some people cld even connect over here to learn languages better, it always rocks to learn from native speakers imo

my native language is thai, since im thai (of course). i learnt english later down the line since im a toddler tho, so it's kinda why im "fluent" in english. been trying to learn japanese and i can make out some sentences and words but not much yet. :[
i want to learn german and/or portugal tbh <:)

i spoke korean and english since i was a kid, then i went to school and forgot a bunch of korean. i still spoke a lot of korean to my mother, so i retaind some. my fluent language is konglish now, but since i know conversational korean (and expect it depending on context) i am very much awkward if i go somewhere korean and someone approaches me in english. like do i look like a foreigner to you mrs kim

around middle school to high school, i wanted to learn jp but since i was raised to avoid all things japan (korean racism yaaaaay) i had to learn spanish instead. i used spanish online, prticulalry in the rhythm game community, where i learned a bunch of curse words. then i skedaddld my ass down to mexico and used it there. since then, i have Not Used It and my spanish absolutely sucks. i also have a terrible konglish accent if i try to speak spanish nowadays. reading and listening comprehension is still sharp tho (?)

german. i only started learning it cuz i like this german girl, u see. but i have touchd the language a while before then!!! once when i was in primary, i had a teacher who was obsessed with teaching us kids things outside the curriculum.. one day she brought a german book to class and we had to study it. by the time i moved into middle school, i forgot everything except for counting 1-5 and that "tunnel" was "tunnel".

i wld like to learn some languages and actually use and retain them for once.. i have thought abt studying:
filipino (to mess with everyones heads, bc some ppl i meet irl think i am filipino)
gujarati (some of my frens in school spoke dis and they sed it was ez)
japanese (to read the tmidi documentation/manual and figure out wth "JAM" does)

honourable mentions
i touched cantonese when i was 12 and developed some intense allergic reaction

i’ve always wanted to learn french but i find language learning incredibly difficult ^^

i know how to speak some lingala. its my native language! but i dont know much of it >_> im way more familiar with english. ive spent my entire life in england and teh english language, so i am not too suprised

a few days ago i wanted to learn japanese, but i later switched to learning toki pona! i have been super into it all of a sudden

language learning has shown me how goofy and wonderful and weird language and communication is. like. oh wow! it is so fun. to all language learners: may your language learning process go well!

i'm from puerto rico, i speak spanish as my first language. I learned english when fairly young and for the past 7 years i've lived in montreal so i learned french as an adult.

English, Turkish and Spanish

English, learned Spanish, would like to learn American Sign Language but don’t have a practical reason for learning it

My native language is Spanish (i happen to be from Argentina). I originally started learning English since i was like 7 years old trying to understand what was being said in Super Mario Bros Z x3, then i slowly actually started studying it to the point that i picked it up as a second language. I feel like while my written English is quite sharp, the way i speak it leaves a lot to be desired ;_; (along with the fact that i just hate my voice due to voice dysphoria)
I want to learn Japanese because I'm a weeb and also because someone i used to date was really good at it, but it's really hard learning a language where the rules and structures are wildly different from the so called "Romance languages"

at this point pretty much just english! i took spanish in high school and college and was comfortably conversational in it 13 years ago, but i sure as hell am not now. i can read it pretty well though if given a bit of time to parse the text, just have difficulty calling up vocab and conjugations on my own

i'd love to learn some japanese and portuguese but i've said that for so many years at this point and never make it a priority, so i'm not sure if it'll ever happen without some large, specific impetus

in addition to english i can also speak a fair bit of french, at least enough to give directions to the elderly and understand my dear old dad when he calls to say he's disappointed in me (he's a french professor (like a professor of french, not from france) and was certain that i would follow in his footsteps for some reason).

that aside i also learned a bit about old english/anglo-saxon and middle english in a couple classes i took while i was studying in scotland for a semester, and it was pretty neat. i promptly forgot it all, but i would like to relearn it at some point, and maybe even try to learn some of the other languages that arose from proto-germanic.

very interesting posts from everyone so far!
to me, (as some already said here), learning a language is like expanding my own mind in a way that is otherwise not possible. it allows me a new point of view on the world since every language is unique in how it represents the world. very fascinating stuff.

this already starts with a basic example: "you are a lucky person" is a sentence that you can't translate accurately in German because we lack an equivalent to the word "lucky". and this just gets more and more interesting with more complex sentences and situations.

as for myself, I learned German as my first language and can speak and understand it perfectly, and since I'm from northern Germany, I also understand almost all of lower German, even tho I can't rly speak it apart from a few catchphrases.
I had English lessons in school but u can't call this "I learned the language" because all I did was memorizing stuff for the next exam and then forgetting about it again.
I only actually started learning English when I joined botb in 2018.

I also had 5 years of french lessons in school, but it's the same case here with my school English skills (nonexistent).

I am now currently learning Korean (due to (for some people) obvious reasons) and even tho I do very slow progress only, I force myself to do a little lesson on Duolingo every day. it's very different from the languages I'm used to so it's especially interesting to me!

A64 and damifortune are the first and only people I've ever seen online say they want to learn portuguese lol, which happens to be my first language. English is my second one because, you know, cultural globalization is a thing.

Other than that, I wanted to learn french, italian and spanish. I did study all of them for a while. But it would require longer daily commitment for me to become fluent in any of them. And I keep shifting my priorities.

Also, I agree with the post before mine in that learning a language expands the mind.

kan amerikansk engelska, men jag jobbar på svenska medan jag bor här

i speak romanian (i was born there) and english (i live there)

i would like to learn spanish and japanese down the line

My first language is old plain Spanish.

We learn English since kindergarten (oh my, a German word to describe how I started to speak English in a Spanish-speaking country), but I really started to get better thanks to... yes, video games. Translated versions were not a common thing yet, all we had then was the most beautiful form of Engrish to play our beloved pixeled games.

I'm also fluent in French, which I learned later in life in order to study abroad. My story in France wasn't a good one, I dropped my studies, but the language stayed forever.

Finally, I'm eternally trying to learn Japanese. I even took formal courses a long time ago, but this language still rests in the eternal weeb dream.

Native language is English. Learning Spanish (basic proficiency) and Japanese (beginner). I want to be able to communicate with the Japanese VGM community and Vtuber community.

i learned polish as my first language because i was born in poland, but i moved to the UK early on in my life so i was forced to learn english or basically not survive. my english is considerably better than my polish which gets a bit weird sometimes because polish is technically my "native" language even though i have a lot of gaps in my vocabulary. i never really went through polish school (at least not completely) so i kinda had to pick things up over the years from conversations with family and stuff. i can navigate around using it without too much trouble (speaking at least, reading and writing is a slow chore) but relaying more technical ideas is difficult because i know everything in english and think in english 99.9% of the time. it is frustrating sometimes to explain something but lacking the words and having to work around that, it can be pretty draining.

basically it's good enough to talk to my extended family when i visit them and that's what matters the most. doesn't really have much use besides that. i have little to no interest in learning any other language, i don't think i have the capacity because i feel like i have enough mental load as is and i think i'd just hate it anyway. i did take french in school because it was mandatory but my mind has long thrown away the little i learned then heh...

Native English speaker here, but also barely conversational in Mandarin Chinese from growing up in a Chinese household and then taking Chinese for foreign language credit requirements in high school since it would be "easy" despite not knowing how to write the characters.

For languages I'd want to learn, I'd say:
- actually becoming fluent in Chinese, lol
- Spanish, since it looks relatively easy to learn and potentially useful where I live in Texas
- Japanese, just to be able to peer into their communities for chiptune, gaming, anime, etc.
- Korean, since it's easy to learn from what I've heard

because school i've been forced to have a sample of alot of languages. had to do French for a year, absolutely hated it, did Latin for 4 years and id describe that as one of the biggest academic waste of times EVER lol.

the only language I did really enjoy learning was Spanish. enjoyed speaking it and it seemed pretty logical, which i liked about it. unfortunately i sucked at writing it. id also like to learn ulsters scots/scots for cultural bullshit, but thats about it.

dobra's name always makes me smile in a good way because it means "fold" as a portuguese noun

lmao, I've had something similar. Once someone dm'd me in Polish asking about something, to which I had to explain I can't speak polish. That's how I learnt Dobra means "Okay" or "Alright", something along those lines

i speak english 99% of the time (US born) but i can speak and read some spanish thanks to school

My first language was Spanish. I learned English when I was young and lost my ability to speak Spanish unfortunately. Currently trying to regain my knowledge of speaking Spanish and can say small sentences.

my native languages are German and Turkish (because 100% FULL BLOODED TURK RRRAAAAHH), and I speak English since I'm five (a really long time when considering I'll turn 18 next January).

Speaking of languages I want to learn, these are the ones on my "bucket list":
- Russian
- Finnish
- Japanese

Semi-related: I love how cosmopolitan this community is.

Someone from a timezone ahead of mine may host a battle while it's early in the morning here.

I think that is so cool!

English is my first language, but I'm proud that I can understand a lot of basic written Spanish, and also some written French.

I took a few years of Spanish classes in school and used to be much more fluent (although I'm trying to maintain what little skills I still have); meanwhile I'm slowly trying to teach myself French. Comics, music, Pimsleur audio courses, _{and Duolingo} have been helpful. Would love to do some more international traveling when I'm feeling more confident.

now that we all put in some info here, people who learn language x might be able to connect with a person which speaks language x fluently.
that stuff is rly cool and helps a lot!

I'm Brazilian, so I'm a native Portuguese speaker. But I started studying English when I was a young child, and the miracle of the internet gave me plenty of opportunity to practice my English to the point where I'm very fluent at it.

I have a habit of talking to myself a lot and repeating sentences to myself, like I'm literally reading what I'm typing to myself right now, so even though I don't have that much conversational experience, my English speaking ability is surprisingly good, especially from what I've picked up from listening to other people talking in English when I was younger through the miracle of Youtube; as a result I do have a very weird accent though, it's kind of a hybrid of British and American with a pinch of Aussie lmao... (don't ask me to hear it tho, I do have voice dysphoria :c)

Apart from Portuguese and English, I've also studied Spanish in school, but I suck at it. I'm able to understand it perfectly well, especially because it has enough similarities with Portuguese, but I don't have the experience to be able to form sentences with it, so I can't properly talk or type in Spanish. (I can talk in what's called "Portuñol", though, which is the fusion of both languages via false cognates and stereotypes lmao)

As for languages I'd like to learn, Japanese is at the top of my mind... I just love weeb culture, there's no denying it uwu, and I'd just love to be able to get in touch with that side of the world and speak their language...

I know Russian perfectly, but I would like to learn English. I know it, but not very well, and Japanese, my dream is to fly to Japan and learn more about retroculture, to look at its nature, especially I want to see the sakura in person, I understand how the whole world treats us now, I do not want to go into politics, I do not even know what is happening, but I hope for your understanding, this text I wrote through a translator, I apologize if my English is broken somewhere).

Primarily English enough Quebecois French to get by while still sounding like a total foreigner hahaha

Is 1337 a language? 🤣

English is my primary

Japanese I can speak and understand verrrrrry little (for now!)

Would also like to learn Spanish!

random article about how learning a language can not only give you access to different cultures but also helps your brain development in general.
https://www.whitbyschool.org/passionforlearning/learning-a-new-language-helps-brain-development

there is a lot more to read about this which is extremely interesting to me

i’m pretty young so i don’t have too much to say, but ig i speak korean (can fluently curse lol) and english. wanna learn japanese because the pokémon emerald/link’s awakening cart i bought was japanese

native portuguese speaker, speak decent english and toki pona, and currently trying japanese (for the last 2 years actually). i have tried esperanto before but I gave up since it was not particularly useful and i have some issues with the language itself. might try russian, indonesian, french, latin and perhaps even chinese in the future.

dutch (nederlands)

Estonian is my native language, English is secondary and what I actually use the most in my everyday communications, in school I also had to learn Russian but I don't actually know much of it even after the 7 years of it because it just didn't get any use, and now I am slowly learning Norwegian because I live in Norway now.

Spanish is my native language, English is my secondary and "work language", I know the basics of Portuguese (Brazilian) but not well enough to talk to people, I can sort of look at French and Catalan and interpret what's being said, and that's pretty much it. I guess I'd like to finish learning Portuguese and French but it's not that big of a priority right now. There was a time when I wanted to learn Japanese, but right now... I'm not so sure anymore. lol

ctrl+f "japanese" yields 18 results haha

native language is english. it was probably supposed to be hindi but that didn't happen and now i am the one indian person out of a billion in the entire world who cannot speak hindi, to the bewilderment of other indians who correctly spot my ethnicity by my face (especially by nepalese in japan)

i was a monolingual beta and then i started studying japanese when i was 20. now i live in japan and it is my primary daily language. i only speak english maybe 2 or 3 times a month

however i still read english everyday.

Well, I only speak Spanish.
Unfortunately, when we studied English at school, it wasn't something that really appealed to me.
The teachers were unable to translate my thoughts from Spanish to English, so I decided to stick to Spanish which is a very rich and beautiful language.

my native language is Indonesian, hence my flag

I also have a regional language which that is Javanese
but unfortunately I don't speak very frequently
which is such a shame especially being a Javanese person
_{(though I still can comprehend what people are trying to say, a bit)}

I grew up learning English more since I was a kid.

ik woon in nederland maar ik spreek geen nederlands

An idioma thread, how fun! This is one my favorite topics in life, I believe there's no better way to learn a culture than to learn their language.

I grew up in Mexico so my native language is Spanish, although since I grew up watching satellite TV (Blues Clues, Bob the Builder, and Cartoon Network) and playing videogames on my dad's Pentium II, I could say English is my second native language. In kindergarten, my teachers were frustrated with me because I only knew my colors in English and not in Spanish (to be fair, I do believe I was messing with them).

I moved to the US when I was 7 and finished becoming fluent in English by the end of 4th grade. I had a sudden realization while at a movie theater that I could switch my thoughts between Spanish and English and not have to constantly translate every English word to Spanish!

I also took 4 years of high school French, which I took very seriously and I would consider myself conversationally and grammatically fluent. I look forward to visiting France one day.

During college, I fell in love with bossa nova after playing Tom Jobim's "Meditation" with my college jazz ensemble. It was the most beautiful melody I had ever heard in my life, and so I dedicated the next 5 years to learning the music and by chance the Portuguese language. I discovered João Gilberto, Roberto Carlos, Tim Maia, Los Hermanos, and became somewhat decent in speaking Portuguese after spending many early hours of the AM on VR Chat speaking com o povo brasileiro. My favorite song that I play on the violão is "Chega de Saudade".

3 years ago, I met my wife who is Hmong. (A people indigenous to China that took refuge in Thailand/Laos and were allowed to come to the US after persecution for fighting in the Secret War in Laos). Her parents are immigrants from refugee camps in Laos. One of the very first things I tried to impress her with was to learn her language. I can talk to my mother and father-in-law and understand 50% of what they say to me. I also work somewhere where half of the production floor employees are Hmong, there is always a look of shock when they see a Mexican guy speaking their language.

Thanks for reading my language story.

selamat datang! nama saya yann. there, that's about my knowledge of indonesian... oh also bankrut saya! spent a coupla weeks in bali 20 years ago, learnt how to count and say hello depending on the moment of the day. my mom learnt how to say "i study indonesian" but she mixed with "i teach" (mengajar/belajar? am i remembering this?), so she said a taxi driver she taught indonesian ^^. never been to java and i have no idea how bali is like today but it was a very welcoming place in my experience, and i guess greeting people and discussing prices in their language brings a lot of laughter and friendliness.

my mother tongue is french, i speak english to some extent, spanish to a lesser extent, which i learnt in latin america, mostly argentina, which makes it easier to understand portuguese because the pronunciation in argentina is closer to portuguese. also my girlfriend is portuguese so i'm getting accustomed to it. can't speak but i understand if people talk not too fast. same with italian (my ex is italian) i'm good with the accent and i'm sometimes asked by italians whether i'm italian, but the illusion cannot last too long because my grammar is terrible and my accent doesn't resist scrutiny.

as many french, i studied attended german for 9 years but can't speak. i do remember some sentences though, like "mach das fenster zu" or "das telefon klingelt". i do have basic vocabulary but i forgot all the grammar. ipi, you said "ik woon" which i guess translates to german as "ich wohne" and "ik spreek" as "ich spreche"?

whenever i meet someone who's from a country whose language i know nothing about, i try to learn a few words/grammar from them. i'm interested in languages. I like finding ways to connect languages too, and transform from one language to another, for instance:

a word that begins with the letter é in french, will often be linked to a word that starts with an s in italian or english (the é accent on the e generally means an s has been taken out from old french):
école > school
épagneul > spaniel
époux > spouse
épier > to spy
épars > sparse
état > state
écaille > scale (fish)
échelle > scale
écran > screen
écume > scum
épeller > to spell
étage > stage (different meaning but related)
étude > study
écosse > scotland
...

the ^ accent in french also indicates a removed s:
île > island / isla / isola
bête > beast
tête > testa (italian)
fête > party (related to feast)
arrêter > to stop (related to arrest)
hôte > host
hôpital > hospital
hâte > haste
pâte > dough, paste
rôtir > to roast
côte > coast
dégoût > disgust
honnête > honest
forêt > forest
prêtre > priest
châtrer > to castrate
...

the u in french can often be replaced with an l too, especially after an a or an o:
sou > sol (spanish)
paume > palm
baume > balm
cou > neck (related to collar)
fou > crazy (related to folly)
saut > jump (salto)
psaume > psalm
souder > to solder
héraut > herald
coup > golpe (spanish), colpo (italian)
poudre > polvere (italian), polvo (spanish)
chaud > caldo (spanish)
château > castle (with the â > as too)
...

i found many words that begin with an h in spanish, that begin with an f in many other languages:
horno > four (french, presumably related to furnace)
hormiga > fourmi (related to formic)
hinojo > fenouil (french), finocchio (italian)
higado > foie, figado (portuguese), fegato (italian)
hablar > falar (portuguese) related to fable and many french words
hoja > feuille (french), foglia (italian)
hijo, hija > fils, fille; filho, filha (portuguese)
hilo > fil (french)
hacer > fazer (portuguese), faire (french), fare (italian)
harina > farine
hermano > frère (french), fratello (italian) related to fraternity
higo > figue (french), fig (english)
hondo > profound
the inverse, from F to H: fuera > hors
...

now i'm realizing no one needs this with their internet connections but i like this game of connecting words :) sry i! if you have other similar games please share! :)

Well my native language is Spanish althought i know english too, honestly if there was something i really wish i could learn probably would be japanese just because why not it seems fun although it's very hard to learn new languages so eeeh

Probably one day who knows x3

Anjayyy keren bang @YQN 👏👏👏

Saya mengajar -> I teach
Saya belajar -> I study

bagus! terima kasih! "Anjayyy keren bang": you lost me there, what does anjay mean?

I'm Filipino, so I learned how to speak English and Filipino at roughly the same time. But the Philippines is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, with around 180 languages spoken across the archipelago. It's a guarantee that you'll suddenly hear a totally different language if you end up driving around long enough! Even Tagalog, the language most people associate with the Philippines, is totally different in Region IV compared to the standardized version (the one we call Filipino) spoken in the national capital region.

My mom is from Western Visayas, and speaks Hiligaynon, Bisaya, and Kinaray-a in addition to English and Filipino. She regrets never teaching me Hiligaynon—although I can understand it to some extent, someday I'd like to learn it properly.

Philippine languages aside, I've dabbled a bit in Spanish, but I can't say that I'm fluent enough to hold a conversation. Lo siento.

@YQN

"anjay" is a slang from the word "anjing". It's an interjection - often used in excitement. Sometimes "anjing" can be often misled as vulgar - similarly saying bitch. Hence there's the "euphemism version", which that is the word "anjay".

Ofc this word doesn't came up in Indonesian dictionary, but they have it's own UrbDic definition.

'

I'm saying anjay here because I'm so adore there's Indo speaker here xD

Heyhey !
Native French speaker ; I've learnt English since I was young, more than 10 years ago (I'm now 20), via games and youtube mainly (and a bit via classes)
I'm still learning English in fact ; I wanna speak it almost as naturally as french, 'cause it's so useful and worldwide, and basically a good part of my friends (online friends) are speaking English too

Tho I do want to learn a third language ; not very original I think, coming from a french nerd.. I wanna learn Japanese, 'cause I kinda like the country (I don't know much tho), and mainly for online content, to understand what's written/said, to search for some specific content and to navigate through the japanese part of the internet -w-
But that's something I'll only start to learn after a while ; I still have a lot that I wanna learn in other domains currently

@Collidy sounds like the same as "putain" in French, which means prostitute but we use it to express whatever strong emotion or surprise, like "OMG" or "holy shit" for english speakers

list of confusing japanese words stolen from english:









　















i have way more but i'm going to bed now

English is my native language, maar ik spreek en beetje Nederlands :)! Spanish is sooort of my heritage language, so I do wanna get up to speed with it at some point ;)

Oh and I took Latin in high school and remember nothing lol

I speak German and English ... and I'm interested in Vulcan and Klingon (and even in Ferengi to read the Rules of Acquisition in its purest form).

Estonian is my native language but I express myself better in English since that is what I do 99% of my communication in for many years now lol. I learned Russian in school for like 7 years but because of no actual use it never stuck (and the teaching methodology sucked very much too). Now I am officially learning Norwegian (along with bunch of Ukrainians, whom I understand more than Norwegians, due those 7 years of Russian classes lololol).

Portuguese is my native language, studied both English and Spanish in school and have been studying japanese for the past few years

I can understand a fair bit of both japanese and spanish but do not make me speak them. I WILL use broken language

what languages do you speak or want to speak?

daily speak in indonesian :D frquently in english very little :D

I speak French, English

I wanna speak Spanish, Catalan, Arabic, Russian, German, French Creole

I speak a little bit of Spanish and Catalan

speak: portuguese, galician, leonese ( mirandese dialect as well, spoken in northeastern continental Portugal), italian, castilian (a.k.a spanish), english (a bit... xD)
trying to learn: latin, catalan, euskadi (a.k.a basque), french, german, cantonese, japanese, ukranian (knowing cyrillic writing helps a lot), farsi, arabic, telugu, tamil, hangul, etc.

🇧🇷) Ah sim, português brasileiro e um cadinho de inglês.
🇬🇧) Yea, Brazilian Portuguese and just a bit of English.

native english speaker, it is the United States(C)

rusty at german & japanese. german i took in high school for two years and dropped off of due to lack of passion. didn't help that the high school i was going to was fully online which sucks the passion to do well away from you like a vacuum because no one talks to you nor do they want to. japanese i still wanna learn moreso, tho it's been a hot minute since i've actively practiced it

estudio español

i do wanna learn portugese and korean someday, maybe some french as well? conlangs are a maybe as well, interested to see anyone who knows/is wanting to know something like toki pona or batbia

i speak well, brazillian or portuguese whatever you can say i guess

i absolute suck at spanish but i wanna learn it

i barely know japanese words as the only one i know is the "hello" word

though i know some few russian words such as the name of the language and hello and yes, basically turned into "русский" and "привет" and "да"

@goluigi and what about japanese words stolen from portuguese, like katana, kasutera, koppu, beranda, bīdoro, furasuko, kandeya, kappa, manto, pan, shurasuko...

english, and enough german that I wouldnt completely embarrass myself in bayern but swabian would be a struggle

grew up with english and swedish so those are the two langsz that i speak. have dabbled a bit with french and japanese though

I'm also an English speaker by default, but I have learned words and phrases in other languages such as German, French, and Spanish, though I've also learned more on Japanese as well.

english fluent, russian good enough, japanese beginner, smattering of spanish