We switched from ß to ss in all words with a preceding short vowel in 1996: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_der_deutschen_Rechtschreibung_von_1996
So, it's "Fuß" and "Maß", because those are pronounced with a long vowel, but then "Fass" and "muss" and "Biss", because those are pronounced with a short vowel.
And in this case, "bisschen" is spelled with a small "b" for reasons that I'm not entirely sure are logical. 😅
It would be spelled with a capital letter, if "Bisschen" was a unit of measurement here (i.e. a small bite), like a "Liter" is.
But because it was used so much and without really referring to a specific measurement, it eventually began being spelled lowercase, similar to "wenig" or "etwas" ("ein wenig Deutsch", "etwas Deutsch"). Apparently, this kind of word is called an "Indefinitpronomen".
Thanks! It's surprisingly difficult to get Germans to correct me on things. Most of them are just happy that I can speak it at all, so they tell me not to worry about the little stuff. 😂
It is indeed normal to use 'du' pretty much everywhere on the internet. Even in French i never see 'vous' (which to me feels more common than Sie in German usually).
Well, if I were to post it to a community on e.g. feddit.org, I would write it as:
Welche Fremdsprachen sprecht ihr so?
"Fremdsprachen" just means "foreign languages", since I know that responding folks speak German.
Then "sprecht ihr" rather than "sprechen Sie", because addressing a group of people with direct pronoun is unusual in German.
As someone else already said, using "Sie" is also far too formal for this context. People refer to each other as "Du" on most of the internet.
But "Welche Sprachen sprichst Du?" still gives me vibes of a marketing firm hoping to drive engagement by referring to people directly.
And then the "so", I have no idea what that is linguistically, but it basically makes the question more casual. It invites for people to tell a story or to have a chat.
/\ that's the more formal way of addressing either a single person or multiple (yeah, this formal pronoun is a bit weird and can be read multiple ways). If you wanna address a group of people more informally: "Welche Sprachen sprecht ihr?".
“à l’école”, but otherwise flawless. You don’t see complex sentences with properly conjugated verbs from a lot of second language speakers, so I have a feeling your French is indeed pretty good.
Unsurprising. I'm still well in the stage where I'm formulating thoughts in English, then translating into Swedish. Very occasionally something pops out spontaneously, fully-formed, and in Swedish.
I'm mostly thrilled to have got "i" right there, because I haven't quite memorized i/på with time expressions. It will come.
How well does your formulation convey the nuance that I've been learning (off and on, often passively), but often not actively studying? The verbs "att studera"/"att plugga" feel more to me like actively working, but of course, my feelings in this regard are more about English "study" than those Swedish words.
Mostly self study from a variety of sources. I lived part time in Stockholm for four years, but it was far easier than I'd expected to speak only English, so although my reading and writing improved, my speaking and listening didn't. Every time I tried, they switched to English on me. I don't blame them.
Now I'm a bit stuck: I can't find much to listen to that's at my level. I'm past the beginner stuff but can't keep up with Swedish spoken at full speed.
I'm able to speak German (native speaker) and English (fluent).
Also, as a German speaker, I'd like to correct the question in the post:
Formal would be "Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie?".
More fitting for a casual environment (such as Lemmy) would be "Welche Sprachen sprecht Ihr?" though :)
This is, because in German there are formal and informal ways of addressing people, both with their distinctive pronouns. Usually, when talking to people you don't know personally, you'll address them formally and then, when offered to, switch to the informal style once you know them. Online or among the younger generation it is much more common to just use the informal case though.
(Russian?):
When I was in highschool I started learning russian, but since then I've forgotten most of it, I can only say hi, good (morning/afternoon/evening) and other easy things. I don't have a russian keyboard but it's 'Privyet', 'Dobraye utra', 'Dobrij bchyer', 'Spakoinai nochi', 'Spasiba', 'Izvinitye, ya nye ponimayu, ya nye goborit po-russkij', 'ya nichyevo nye snayu'.
(German?):
Ich lerne Deutch im Moment mit meine Freundin. Aber ich bin nicht gut.
Si quieres algunas observaciones... "¿Qué idiomas hablan ustedes?" Sería lo correcto (de acuerdo a la RAE). Creo que utilizaste la conjugación de la segunda persona singular del verbo hablar "tú hablas", en vez del plural "ustedes hablan". Et en français, je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais mon cerveau me dit que "¿Quelles langues parlez vous?" Va mieux. Und auf Deutch, ich denke dass "Welche Sprachen sprechen sie?" richtiger ist.
I lived for some time in Japan so I learned to talk and to read the kanji useful in the everyday life (like in the restaurant or the bus). But I feel like reading the news is still too hard and I do not even know where to start.
The best way to do it is to try reading an article and stop at every kanji you don't know to look it up. It's a slow process but the struggle's what makes it easier to remember. Maybe try it with manga first as the panels help give context to what's being said and the shounen stuff has hiragana above the kanji to help look it up.
I have a dictionary app called 'akebi' that shows me the words, the kanjis and the stroke order; and I also use google keyboard with the onscreen-drawing pad for japanese, so every kanji and kana I wrote on my previous comment was hand drawn by me. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but it really helps.
Also, learning about the origins of kanji, it's radicals and history helps a lot, you'll start creating connections in your head about pronunciation and meaning. You'll associate meaning and sound to kanjis a lot faster that way. I've come to the point of hearing a word, learning it's meaning and then I come up with the possible kanjis that make it up, and surprisingly I'm right 60 to 80% of the time!
Try calligraphy too. I learned all the kanjis that originated hiragana, and sometimes I see them in the wild and immediately know their pronunciation (60% of the time)
I'ts a matter of patience, and motivation, A LOT of motivation.
in addition to my native brazilian portuguese, i'm fluent in english and basic to intermediate level in spanish and french. i can understand and speak roughly some german and russian too (started the courses, but never finished). my objective is to someday learn both german and russian up to intermediate level, and then go for some arabic, mandarin, kongo, nheengatu (an old creole language that mixed tupi-guarani and portuguese) and esperanto.
fluent in Maltese (native) and English. Conversational in Italian. I was one of the last generations to grow up without the internet, so we had to watch TV. And we're in close proximty to italy so we could get their channels. It is much less common nowadays for kids to also know Italian here. But people my age have no idea what Dragon Ball Z sounds like in english. We all watched it in Italian.
Yes Dutch is my first language. German can be strange to learn, much of the vocabulary is similar, but sometimes strangely divergent. The grammar is more straightforward, and more rigid, but can be hard to learn. Gender of the words is just gambling as I'll never learn that by heart.
I much prefer french, tbh it feels more natural to me, maybe just because it's a bit more distant, linguistically. Therefore it feels like it runs on different hardware, mentally.
Mae o’n braf! I’ve been using SaySomethingIn’s Automagic Welsh tutor. It’s really nice for being able to set your own learning pace. I haven’t really practiced with anyone in earnest, but I did take a trip to North Wales earlier this year and did ok! They were shocked that an American would choose to learn Welsh
Ma langue maternelle est le français. Je suis né et vis au Québec, d’une famille canadienne française assez typique. Mes habiletés d’écriture sont plutôt fortes à en croire mes notes à l’école, mais je les pratique très peu. Je ne le parle pas aussi bien que je l’écris…
Otherwise I’m pretty proficient in English. I’d say I’m more or less bilingual at this point. I cannot seem to enjoy fiction books nearly as much in the language though. I can’t really appreciate the differences in style well enough, I think.
Je suis en Montérégie, c’est très plat dans mon coin, donc non, heureusement. Mais l’eau s’est accumulée un peu partout dans le coin pareil, à des endroits où j’en avais jamais vu…
Fluent in Norwegian and English. Norwegian allows me to basically fully understand Swedish and Danish, but my mimicking/mocking of those languages does probably not count as languages I can speak.
I also have some very rusty german education which would probably allow me to be understood, but hardly enough to have a conversation.
Nederlands is my native language. And I speak English, some German and I can make a fool of myself in French. And I can order a beer in Spanish and thank you for it.
My native language is French, but I also speak fluent English and a little 日本語 and Spanish.
日本語はもっと難しいだったな。
El español era más fácil de aprender gracias a sus similitudes con el francés, pero, no hablo muy bien😅.
Oh btw, it is not "Que langue fait-vous parler" (blind traduction of the english "What language do-you speak") but rather "Quelles langues parlez-vous?" ("What languages speaks-you?").
We don't use "do" for interrogative in french. The endings for "parler" (to speak) are: Je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent.
To make interogative phrases, just invert the pronoun and the verb: tu parles -> parles-tu?
So "What language you speak" -> "What language speaks-you?".
Sorry for the awkward course ;)
Mi parolas iomete da Esperanton, y yo hablo tambien un poquito Español, pero medyo fluent ako sa Pilipino, ang wika taga sa Pilipinas. I’m pretty good at English, too.
Greek, English, and I understand a bit of French, since my husband is French. I lived for 9 months in Germany too, and I could understand a bit of that too, but that was 30 years ago and I've forgotten most of it.
Truth is, I don't really like verbal communication, in any language. I have trouble finding words (including my native one), it's as if my brain is not optimized for language. It gets worse when I'm sick (I have multiple autoimmune issues), it's as if language becomes a barrier. My husband becomes aggravated when I can't find the right words to communicate. I wish we had telepathy, communicating with feelings.
I'm a native Portuguese speaker, fluent in English and can understand Spanish and French.
Despite having had 3 years of French in school, I can no longer speak properly, and my writing is really bad, but I can understand pretty well. Spanish just comes to me because of the similarities with Portuguese, I never formally learned it.
School languages are absolutely worthless unless you kept practising afterwards. You generally aren't there wanting to learn and don't have natural conversation partnerships to practice with.
Ich habe Deutsch in der Schule gelernt. Ich benutze es sehr seltsam, aber ich habe fast nichts vergessen, weil unsere Lehrerinen sehr sehr Böse war. Deutsch in der Schule hat meine Leben 10 jahren verkurtzt.
Έχω μάθει και τα Ελληνικά. Ένα από τα όνειρά μου είναι να διαβάζω τα κείμενα στα αρχαία ελληνικά, αλλά αυτό ήταν τρόπο δύσκολο. Γιατί αποφάσισε να μαθαίνω πρότω τα νέα Ελληνικα, καί σύντομα τα αρχαία είναι πολύ πιό εύκολα.
I can understand a fair amount of Russian, but I can't necessarilly speak it as well.
Native English speaker. I learned some French in school and enough Japanese to get through a judo match. I struggle to retain other languages. Everywhere I go everyone speaks English and it's hard to justify learning a new one even everyone in a 1000 mile radius speaks English.
English, and the teeniest, tiniest bit of Spanish.
My Spanish is in a southern accent, and doesn't even reach the fluency of a damn toddler.
I have more latin under my belt from medical terminology, which I guess is sort of a language of its own. I've been out of the field for over a decade, and I still do well with it casually reading publications that interest me. But I don't really have enough of the latin to equate to being able to speak latin, or even read it. Same with the greek that's folded into medicalese.
So just english in any real sense, though I can kinda read Spanish well enough I guess, as long as I have access to a dictionary lol.
Native English, conversational japanese, survival German (I was conversational at one point, but it's mostly gone), a tiny bit of french (same as German), very basic Spanish, and a tiny bit of Hebrew (I wanted to learn something in the semitic family and it seemed less intimidating than Arabic to start with)
English is the only language I'm even vaguely proficient in, really.
Le francais est le loin ma deuxieme langue la plus forte. Mais ce n'est toujours pas tres bon, et je dois passer beaucoup de temps pour ecrire dans francais, et generalement rechercher quelques mots ou expressions. Mais ma grammaire est assez bonne, je pense.
I also spent a few years learning Spanish, but almost none of it stuck. And a few years learning Korean while living in Korea. I learnt a few of the necessary words and phrases relating to restaurants and taxis, and some very rudimentary grammar. And being able to read the script is a neat party trick. And one year of actual Vietnamese education + a few more years of peripheral exposure to the language while I lived there. Even less of it stuck than the Spanish though.
Depends on who you ask. I'm American and went to the UK. I was looking to pick up my rental car, you know, so I could drive on the wrong side of the road and found a sign that read, "rental car collection." I had to ask a local who was doing the collecting, because I don't speak English. " If I was collecting the car, it's a pick up. If they were collecting the car it's a drop off. So....
Fluently? Only English. But I spent 20 years in the US military, nearly 8 of them living full-time in foreign countries. So I did my best to learn at least a little of the languages I was exposed to in my travels.
I was stationed in Japan for 3 years. I learned how to get around and order food in Japanese, plus some limited conversation. I'm actually studying to read the language now. I could read Hirigana and Katakana (the Japanese alphabets) when I lived there. But it takes their students their entire school lives to learn how to read Kanji (the complex Chinese-borrowed symbols that represent entire words), so that one will keep me busy for a while.
When I was stationed in Germany, I learned some basic German, thanks to having friendly neighbors who spoke nearly fluent English. They helped me correct and improve my German language skills. But I was only in the country for a couple years, so I didn't get very advanced with it.
I took 4 years of French in high school. I thought I was pretty decent at it, but every time I attempted to speak the language in France, the locals immediately switched over to English to converse with me.
Random related tangent: my wife and I took a vacation to Berlin once, and my wife, like me, spent several years studying French in high school. She decided to test her German language skills with the locals, and when she spoke, they immediately switched to French for her. Turns out, she speaks German with a heavy French accent. She was able to finish her conversation in French.
I'm currently studying Norwegian. My 3x great grandfather immigrated to America from Norway, and I still have living descendants of my ancestors over there. My dad and I went to visit them once, and I would like to be able to speak their native language the next time I go back. It used to be a rule that everyone in my family line learned English and Norwegian, but my grandfather died when my dad was only 2, so my dad never learned Norwegian, and thus neither did I.
I learned some extremely limited Korean. I was assigned to South Korea twice, for a year each time, and the military wouldn't let me live off-base amongst the locals, so I didn't get much free time to explore the country and learn the language. But I made an effort to learn some phrases so I could be polite in public, order food, and find my way back to the military base if I got lost.
Other languages that I've been exposed to and picked up a handful of words/phrases, but never seriously attempted to study: Italian, Arabic, Spanish, and Hawaiian.
Como lengua materna, el español. (For my mother language, Spanish)
English being my second language.
日本語も少しできます。(I can also understand a little bit of Japanese).
My first attempt at learning it was like 13 years ago, when I was 14. A later attempt was 7 years ago, didn't last much on them for lack of organisation but still retained a little bit more of knowledge. My third round is still ongoing and has crossed the year mark).
Besides those, some time during my high school days I also studied a bit of French and mostly Italian. I wouldn't be able to speak either fluently but I may grasp a little bit more than relying solely on mutual intelligibility.
Some languages I have interest in learning even if just a bit, in no particular order: Mandarin, Russian, Korean, German, Hokkien, Cantonese.
English and Turkish as native languages, I've also studied French as a prep-year for highschool so I can understand it but don't speak it fluently, same with Italian, somehow. Other than that I've been learning Mandarin for a year and I'll take the HSK 3 exam in a few months :D
Native English speaker. I learned some French in school and enough Japanese to get through a judo match. I struggle to retain other languages. Everywhere I go everyone speaks English and it's hard to justify learning a new one even everyone in a 1000 mile radius speaks English.
I am a native Tigrigna speaker, fluent in English, conversational in Dutch and Tigre. I have learned Arabic and Chinese but I don't speak it very well.
Hablo español de forma nativa.
I can read, write and understand by ear English, but I refuse to speak it because the pronunciation rules of English are shit.
German (native), English (not native-level but compared to my work colleagues I might as well be lol) and some American Sign Language (I can carry a simple conversation as long as I may fingerspell words I don't know yet/anymore)
Native German, fluent English, full working proficiency in Norwegian, (understand Swedish and Danish as a direct consequence), somewhat proficient in Dutch and French, and my Chinese is enough to get by. Couldn't hold a longer conversation though.
I mean. im not so good at english as a native speaker. near the end of college my friend and I traded transcripts and his comment was. you get pretty good grades. oh except in spanish. when I had classes that were straight up english classes I similarly did not do well.