Languages Options

[Crimson Jack]

Another thread got me thinking about the way language skills work in SR. Most people I know IRL, don't know more than one additional language and this is primarily because they had to take Spanish or German in high school. Most of this is actually less than conversant, but for this poll conversant will mean that one could communicate on some level to obtain information and relay the same to those of another language. Fluent would mean exactly what it means.

How well do each of you know another language? Myself, I can only speak one other language (Spanish)... and its not what I would consider fluent. Good, but not great. I imagine that some of you in European nations are more prone to be multi-lingual.

[L.D]

English (fluent) and Polish (conversant) plus a basic grasp of French (understand pretty much actually, but I can't speak it) and Spanish (a bit like French, but I understand even less)... I prolly shouldn't mention Japanese, but I'll do it anyway. Not that I know much of it anymore, but some really, really basic stuff I still remember.

This is of course in addition to Swedish.

[JaronK]

I speak English (native) and Spanish (Conversant... 6 years of schooling, and a bit of time in Mexico). My spanish is slipping, though.

JaronK

[hahnsoo]

I think it is highly different if you are American than if you are European. Most Europeans that I know speak two or more languages fluently. Granted, most Europeans that my sorry American ass would know almost by default would speak English and their native tongue, so that's a skewed sample, but language studies are emphasized more often and at an earlier age in non-American schools.

[hermit]

English (fluent) and French (converstand). I understand French much better than I can speak it. Also, I plan to take spanish lessons next semester.

Native language is German.

[Crimson Jack]

[TeOdio]

I speak Anglish, the native tongue of the bastards that raped my Welsh and Irish ancestors. :twirl:
I slept through 4 years of Spanish, but ended up marrying a woman from Mexico. She can speak English, Italian, French, and a smattering of German in addition to English. I ramped up my Spanish to try and keep up, plus it's a cool language. I'd like to learn Arabic and Japanese, I love the sound of those languages as well.
:nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen:

[L.D]

Before you try and learn Japanese you should go and read this.

But don't take it too seriously... :grinbig:

[torzzzzz]

My own English, but I can also converse in Welsh and Arabic,
But don't ask me to write in them I have enough trouble doing that in English!

torz x :grinbig:

[Prospero]

I'm pretty fluent in Hungarian (since I lived there for 2 years and married a Hungarian to boot) and my French is decently conversant after five minutes or so to get it up to speed (after 6 years of classes and a few weeks in France and (Southern) Belgium). I'd love to have put Irish on there, but after not using it at all for several years... it's not so good. Used to be conversant (which I justify by saying I could converse reasonably well drunk or sober with people in the Gaeltacht in Ireland). My Old English is still okay, but more with the reading and not so much with the speaking. My wife (not an SR player) is the impressive one - she speaks English, German and Hungarian (her native language) fluently as well as a bit of Russian. Hell, she teaches German in English every day, which blows me away. I couldn't imagine teaching, say, French in Hungarian.

I actually like the way languages work in SR. Frankly, as they teach you in linguistics classes, most of the world is at least bilingual (and mainly multilingual) to some extent, at least. Monolingualism is really only the norm AFAIK in N. America (which isn't to say that there aren't monolingual people in other parts of the world, just that its not so common). I think SR's rules allow characters to be bi-and multi-lingual pretty easily, which I think is good. I think bi- and multi-lingualism is only going to get more common in the future, especially with all the balkanizing SR has inflicted on the world.

Anyway, just my 2 :nuyen: . Well, that was pretty long. Maybe it's more like my 4 :nuyen: . :spin:

[Ancient History]

Does Sperethiel count?

[Critias]

I think the main reason we Americans have a tendency (overall) towards speaking only English isn't because none of us are interested, it's because the education system waits 'till we're old enough to develop an interest (and therefore be very set in our English-speaking ways) before making classes of any sort available to us.

By the time you're a freshman in high school you're locked into your native tongue fairly securely, I'd say, and being offered a class where you spend one whole whopping hour a day working on another language isn't going to do much to change your ways and bring about real fluency. I know a few people that took one language and stuck with it for four years of high school and some college, and then (after moving or at least taking a long trip to whatever area speaks their secondary language) they can get by. Barely.

It's unfortunate. Looking back, I certainly wish I'd been able to start learning something much, much, earlier. Mandatory second language classes in elementary school would never be a popular enough idea to become a reality, but I think they should be.

[Nath]

French (native) and English (thanks to Ultima VII and Dumpshock). German just did not work for me, I tried hard but no. But I plan on retrying, as well as greek. I'm also fluent in C and Pascal :D

[Prospero]

I'm with you 110%. But I think the reason Americans won't get on the language bandwagon more fully is that we don't have to. I mean, when we travel, English is the lingua franca, so we don't absolutely have to speak anything else. It might help, yeah, but it's far from necessary unless you're talking long-term living somwhere else. And in our own country, there's also no need. Yeah, there are a lot of Spanish speakers, but if they want to make money, they usually have to learn English. Same with other ethnic groups. Throughout history, that's how languages got spread - the more power a social group has, the more widespread their language becomes and the less they can afford to use other peoples'. English, because of the economic and social clout of the English speaking countries, gets top billing and so we don't have to bother with anything else. It's too bad, because learning another langauge is really important, I think, and the U.S. is gonna be screwed when the language of power shifts to something else in the future sometime.

Also - to bring it back to Shadowrun - I think the whole language-and-power connection is something that is strongly at work in SR. Look at the NAN. Lots of people (compared to today's figures) speak what are, in our world, often nearly dead Native American langauges. Why? Because those social groups have the power in their respective nations, so their language will propigate.

[Jebu]

Native Finnish, fluent English (written at least), decent Swedish (haven't needed since school days), weak German (optional at school, haven't used after that), and some knowledge of several other languages, not really usable in conversation, I'm just interested in linguistics.

[Grinder]

Native german, fluent english und better-understanding-than-talking french. Picked up some swedish and norwegian phrases over the years - the festivals i'm visiting during the summer months usually sees a lot of scandinavian folks which end up pretty drunk... me too.... :D

[Drain Brain]

Aside from English, as a native, I am a little more than conversant in French - a compulsory course at English prep and secondary schools. I am also slightly more than conversant in that obscure tongue they call "American" - although I'm nowhere near fluent.

I'd love to be able to speak more languages, but it's a talent some people have - and I don't. By the time we finished highschool (see me showing off my American skills...) a chummer of mine was fluent in French, German and Russian! I understand he's now half way along Japanese... or Korean. Can't remember which.

[The Grifter]

English, conversant Spanish, a little bit of Arabic (enough to tell someone to drop their weapons or to ask for water), and highly skilled in Jive. LOL

[hermit]

[Xirces]

[Critias]

[Demosthenes]

Native English, near-native Irish Gaelic, fluent Italian, fluent German (I can sometimes convince people I'm Austrian) and somewhat rusty, though still get-by-okay French.

I started learning Irish Gaelic when I was two years old, in the home, studied French from eight through til I was eighteen, German from twelve to twenty-four, and learned Italian from my wife (who is Italian).
I was lucky in that almost all my teachers were native speakers who had a real enthusiasm for teaching.

Learning and retaining languages is really about two things: it's partly about talent, I guess (I'd be lying if I didn't say I've been told by all my teachers that I have a talent for languages and linguistics), but it's also about practise, practise and more practise.

Learning any second language in early, in my experience, really helps - provided you enjoy the experience.
Children here in Ireland have to learn Irish from an early age, but it's so poorly taught that most of them hate it. So most of them don't learn it...

[mmu1]

Native Polish, Native (technically a misnomer, since I wasn't born in the US, but calling the language I think in most of the time "fluent" doesn't seem right, especially since I don't even have a foreign accent anymore) English, broken Russian and French.

Could get Russian to "conversant" easily if I wanted to, but I don't, since it was something I was forced to learn while growing up in Poland, the (high school) French would take a lot of work before I could do something with it besides order a ham and cheese sandwich.

[Sokei]

[hermit]