What foreign language have you dedicated the most effort to

[Buran]

In terms of years spent, French. In terms of the actual level of interest and effort, Spanish. I've only studied it for a bit over a year, but my spoken Spanish is already a lot better than my spoken French.

[CatDoom]

I'm about as monolingual as anybody, but in terms of languages I studied in school, Spanish is the one I dedicated the most effort to, since it's a pretty practical language to learn here in California. I hope to come back to it one of these days, so that I can develop some actual competence with the language; as it stands, I can sometimes puzzle out some written Spanish, but I can only very rarely make any sense of spoken Spanish.

[clawgrip]

In the first part of my life I went to a French immersion school and became relatively fluent in French, but it has been on the decline since then. I can still muddle my way through everyday conversations, if the person is patient and has good intuition.

The language I have devoted the most time and effort to is definitely Japanese. I guess I have spent about half my life on it now. These days I use it at work and at home every day, and I get practice in all four areas (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) pretty much every day as well (don't usually do much writing on the weekends though). Yet, after all the years of studying and practical application, I still fumble around in highly polite speech (which I need to use at work from time to time), because until recently I have not had a major need for it. I also am pretty weak in several specialized areas, like politics and so forth.

[richard1631978]

I had 3 years of French lessons at school & have brushed it up several times since. Having a French speaking girlfriend 3 years ago helped a lot.

Also at school I did a year of German but can't remember much of it.

I've picked up the odd bit of Japanese from my interest in the country, & have made some effort for the last year & a bit, but still can't make much headway.

[----]

I've studied Spanish on and off since I was in the single digits, for school reasons and also for people I was friends with, but I still am not really fluent in it at all.

[jal]

Most effort: Polish. That's the only foreign language I actually tried to study (I failed hopelessly, btw). In school I studied French, German and English, but I didn't put much effort in them, resulting in very bad grades.


JAL

[Viktor77]

Most effort: Polish. That's the only foreign language I actually tried to study (I failed hopelessly, btw). In school I studied French, German and English, but I didn't put much effort in them, resulting in very bad grades.


JAL

I never realized you studied Polish! Have you used it over at the write in a foreign language thread?

[Bristel]

Japanese.

Then probably Spanish, French, Catalan, Irish, in that order.

[Αυτοβοτα]

Japanese.

But I'm better at Spanish, go figure.

[jal]

I never realized you studied Polish! Have you used it over at the write in a foreign language thread?

Very occasionally. But since it's almost 20 years ago I studied it, there's currently not much that I can produce.


JAL

[Vijay]

Malayalam isn't really a "foreign" language to me; after all, it's the first language I was ever able to speak. Until I was about four years old, I only spoke Malayalam, but then I was suddenly forced to learn English instead. My parents speak Malayalam natively, and I live with them, so I hear it being spoken all the time (though Malayalees also code-switch between Malayalam and English all the time, so of course I hear lots of that as well), but it took me forever to get anywhere in terms of (re)learning Malayalam, and that's the one language I've had to spend the most time consciously learning. Fortunately, now, I actually speak it pretty well, to the point where my dad tries to challenge me with words I might not know. I'm sure there are still a lot of fairly simple words I don't know and probably syntactic constructions I'm not familiar with yet, either, but...well, fuck it, I can read novels! That's pretty huge for me.

[jmcd]

It's cool that you managed to (re)learn it. I presume you moved. Where you move to?

[Vijay]

It's cool that you managed to (re)learn it.

Thanks!

I presume you moved. Where you move to?

Well, not really. I mean, I was born here in the US and have lived here my whole life, and I have moved between cities in this country, but my parents are native speakers of Malayalam, so they used that with me (at first), not English. But then they sent me to pre-school, where the teachers assumed I was mentally retarded largely because I didn't speak English and apparently made my parents use only English with me. Ironically, it wasn't until after I'd kind of lost my Malayalam already that my family took me on my first trip to India.

[jmcd]

Pff I wonder how those unteachers would last trying to learn Malayalam.

[Vijay]

Five seconds!

EDIT: Omg, I just realized a whole week later you said "how," not "how long"!

[Arzena]

Arabic. Modern Standard for the past four years at university. Sprinkled with conversational competency in Egyptian Arabic. But since I'm staying in Morocco for the year, most of my effort goes to Moroccan Arabic now.

[jmcd]

@Arzena: Is it easy to use Egyptian Arabic in Morroco or vice versa?

Five seconds!

EDIT: Omg, I just realized a whole week later you said "how," not "how long"!

And I just realised you were referring to the unit of time 'second' and not saying 'I second that'x5

Anyway, AFAICT you have seemingly relearnt better Malayalam and learnt better German than I. I'm half German, I have a degree which is double-majored in the language and my mum spoke me in the language till I was 3 and since I am 18 but my German is still lagging behind the other languages I know well.

[Viktor77]

Anyway, AFAICT you have seemingly relearnt better Malayalam and learnt better German than I. I'm half German, I have a degree which is double-majored in the language and my mum spoke me in the language till I was 3 and since I am 18 but my German is still lagging behind the other languages I know well.

I have a degree in French and am pursuing an advanced degree in French and he was using French better than me too. Though for me my focus has been more on spoken informal French lately and so my written French hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. If I'm really careful I can write things well. I also have to work more on my spoken formal French. I don't remember the last time I used "nous" as the subject of a verb you know...or explicitly stated "ne" except where there was a following vowel. But even there I'm terrible, I say things like "j'ai pas," "t'as pas" and particularly "c'est pas" all the time. That won't fly in a formal situation me thinks, but perhaps. I haven't been paying attention to "ne" usage in formal oral speech (like the news) to see if it's still there because I'm too used to listening for the other indicators of negativity.*

*Except old women. I remember old woman French well. It sounds like it came out of a French 101 textbook. It's usually so well enunciated. Old man French on the other hand is...well...often undecipherable. It seems older men use far more dialect than older women.

[jal]

I don't remember the last time I used "nous" as the subject of a verb

What do you use then? "on"?


JAL

[Viktor77]

I don't remember the last time I used "nous" as the subject of a verb

What do you use then? "on"?

Yea, "on." So much "on." I say it, I write it, everyone else uses it. It's actually a bit difficult to use "nous" nowadays. But I've acquired some terrible habits like saying: Nous, on va y aller. Or On aime notre nouveau truc.

[jal]

Yea, "on." So much "on." I say it, I write it, everyone else uses it. It's actually a bit difficult to use "nous" nowadays. But I've acquired some terrible habits like saying, Nous, on va aller à, or On aime notre nouveau truc. The latter is particularly bad.

Is "on" replacing "nous" completely? And is there a difference in that respect between the various regions in France and other countries (e.g. Walloon)? And what's the possesive of "on"?


JAL

[Viktor77]

Is "on" replacing "nous" completely? And is there a difference in that respect between the various regions in France and other countries (e.g. Walloon)? And what's the possesive of "on"?

I'd say it has been replacing "nous" for a few decades now. I don't think it varies by region, but more by age. Although "on" as "nous" is common all the way up to the oldest members of society. It's now more a difference of register. You would never recieve an official letter written using "on" for "nous," for example, and I would imagine that if one were giving a formal presentation one would avoid "on."

The possessive should be "son/sa/ses" but no one uses it. Everyone uses "notre/nos" as the possessive, and "nous" as the emphatic. The only time you would see "On constate son opinion..." is where "on" means "one," otherwise it is "On constate notre opinion...."

BUT this isn't technically standard French and that's why I said it's not a great habit. It's colloquial and familiar French. I use it so much now that it's hard to switch to "nous" now.

*Edit* I'm listening to a French rondtable show and they are using "on" all the time, even the older members. And they're doing the same thing, mixing "nous" and "on." I never paid this much attention to it but perhaps it is even more accepted that I thought. They even use it on the news.

[Vijay]

I have a degree in French and am pursuing an advanced degree in French and he was using French better than me too. Though for me my focus has been more on spoken informal French lately and so my written French hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

Haha that's just because I haven't used much informal French then.
EDIT:

@Arzena: Is it easy to use Egyptian Arabic in Morroco or vice versa?

My understanding is the answer to both of those questions is basically "no," though you might luck out a little more with Egyptian Arabic in Morocco since lots of people all over the Arab World are familiar with Egyptian Arabic via media, TV, etc. Not everyone, though - I know a Moroccan guy on another forum who says Egyptian Arabic sounds unintelligible to him. I also remember him saying that if a Moroccan said in their native dialect that they were eating fish, an Egyptian would just think they were saying something about a whale.

[jmcd]

It seems they're well on their way to becoming the Semitic equivalent to the Romance languages then.

[Vijay]

I think they're already either that or more extreme.