Seems there are a lot of people here studying Japanese, so I wanted to know how many are or what other languages people may be studying. Myself am studying Japanese only at the moment, but hopefully can pick my Spanish back up once I pass the JLPT.

Also what materials do you use? what do you like/dislike about them and why are you studying that particular language?

I took French in jr. high and high school, I'd like to pick it up again one day.
And I wing Japanese.

Not studying any languages. I speak Croatian and English fluently, don't really have any interest in studying other languages. Although, would be nice to know Japanese, so I wouldn't have to be so careful at reading subtitles while watching anime and eating xD

I'm very into languages.

English - of course by school (grade 5), but I love this language very much and I'm trying to keep on improving or learning more words.

Japanese - since I was a kid I loved Japanese culture so I wanted to learn the language. I'm still a beginner, know only about 300 kanji, and the grammatics is enough for the basics. When I'm watching dorama I try to understand everything what they said. I can read subs very quick so I think about Japanese words they could mention.

Spanish - had to choose it for high school. (Other choices: French, Latin) - it's a nice one language.

Basic knowledge in:
French, Romanian, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Russian, Korean and and and... even German Sign Language ^_^

I also can read Cryillic Alphabet and Korean Alphabet very fluently.


To me it's not important to be able to speak them all (I hate talking after all) - I just love that I'm able to write/read in those languages.
Like Cinnamon from Murakami's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle."

Whoa, Mikan, that's pretty impressive

I only speak english, i know a little german from school but thats it. I would like to learn Japanese for the same reason as Dacho. I could watch RAWS instead of having to wait longer for the subs of animes.

I'm learning French, but I'm not very good at the whole grammar thing to be honest. I've studied some Latin. I'll probably learn more Latin next year, but in the first year of high school you can only study Latin for a month or so.
Well, and English of course. And I'm able to understand most Norwegian, but I think most Danes should be able to understand at least some Norwegian. :b... And I understand quite a lot of written Swedish, but I'm not very good at understanding it when it's spoken.

My native(and only fluent language) is English.

I took German 1&2(well, half of 2) in high school. At one point, I was able to speak pretty decent in German, being able to get across/understand the main stuff, and then some special stuff. Given that I haven't studied it or practiced it since finishing school, I have forgotten a lot of the conjugations and terms, etc.

Living next to the Mexican border, I also know some spanish, mostly what I've picked up. I need to brush up on this some day, get fluent in the language.

I have learned some Japanese words/phrases from watching anime... but I don't know anything about the written language. I would like to learn more some day.

I'm terrible at anything other than English. I speak Einkaufen Deutsch (shopping German), but sadly, I'm terrible at understanding it. That matters little, since the Swiss are also terrible at speaking German (Swiss German != Hoch Deutsch). But sometimes, I actually am surprised at how much I can understand.

On Monday, a man brought us a fancy new steamer/vacuum. He spoke very little English, but his German was good, and I was able to understand a lot. My partner had to be there, since he does speak fluent German. The machine, I'll add, is pretty cool. It's like vacuuming and mopping at the same time, only better. It also is good for washing windows. The water here is extremely hard, and the steam leaves the minerals in the machine, so no hard water residue is left when you clean.

My partner's native language is Dutch. I don't speak more than a couple words, much to the dismay of his family. Dutch is, IMO, nearly impossible to get right. The vowels are way too many, and subtle. My partner can't voice them clearly enough for me to hear the differences. Besides, we've only lived in English and German speaking countries, not counting South Africa, where Afrikaans was a bit more common than English, and otherwise, Xhosa was the local language. Xhosa pronunciation is probably more difficult than even Dutch. Only Xhosa word I remember is "Engosse" (thank you, pronounced en gos' sah). They use the click sound found in San (proper word for Bushmen) that I can't reproduce.

English(well durr)

Japanese - can't read kanji for shit(dude it's like a bitch on her period i swear), but i can read/write hiragana and romaji and some katakana.

French - almost fluently

Mandarin Chinese - i am really only decent in pinyin. i know the basics of it but speaking the 4 tones is just too hard right now.

I've always wanted to study Russian, but I don't have the willpower to do it on my own. If there's ever a class around here for it, I'm taking it. I've always had this odd fascination with Russia. I think I may have lived there in a previous life lol

I have to say that after reading many of these posts,
I feel like a magnified zero. How nice it would be if
I were even semi-capable in another language.

Good for those of you that are able to communicate
in or understand other languages.
When I was in school, I slept through Spanish class. It
WAS 3rd period after all.

I've always wished to learn Japanese. I find the language fascinating and if I know it, I don't have to read subtitles when watching animes and Japanese dramas. And I can communicate with my future Japanese boyfriend (if I have one)..

I learnt French once but I've forgotten much of it. Lack of practice. Still, I find it a sexy language.

I'm fairly close to fluent in Japanese, and there are a ton of others I want to learn, some of which will probably be difficult, since most people have never even heard of them. I've always been a bit of a language nut. I took French and Latin in school, but I hardly remember them.

I have learned some Korean and Japanese.
In Korean, the pronunciation is the hardest.. in Japanese, the Kanji.
But Japanese feels easier because there is more to relate to, like all the Anime and Movies along with their OSTs. It's easier to get the hang of it, to develop a feeling for the language.. somehow.
What bothers me the most about both of them is that they never useanyspacingsbetweentheirwordsunnecessarilymakingalreadydifficultsignsevenhardertoread.

English - first language

French - studied formally until nearly fluent, currently "brushing up"

Spanish - studied formally until semi-fluent, kept it up while living in a bilingual (English & Spanish speaking) city, currently "brushing up"

Russian - currently studying, using books, CD's, and the internet

Arabic - just got some books and CD's today, looking forward to this next adventure

German - learned some from my dad while growing up, hope to learn more one day

I know swedish and english fluently and some japanese far from fluently. I understand most basic japanese grammar but my vocabulary is only around 1500-2000 words and I understand maybe 400 kanji fully in reading and a little over a 1000 through their symbolic meaning.

The big obstacle for me in improving my japanese beyond this point is that I have to check hundreds of new words in dictionaries if I for example play video games. I can read and understand full sentences in japanese rpg's sometimes, but at other times it's full of unknown words and idiomatic expressions which makes me unable to translate/understand it properly.

Most video games aren't heavy on kanji. They include basic kanji and you will definitely see expressions like 決定 or 武器 a lot using kanji, because　in the menus it's much more convenient with kanji, but in the actual dialogue only the most prominent words in a sentence seem to be written in kanji and everything else in kana. This goes even for the most text heavy games.　It's much more children-friendly language than real books for example.

Would be nice with a discuss japanese language thread on here where we could learn from each other.

I am trying hard to learn french, since my mom is french. Sadly I was not raised bilingually. But she is helping me to learn it now.

I really want to study German and Russian. I am increasingly intrigued by Russia. I want to go there someday.

I'm trying to learn Latin...sort of carrying on from were I left off several years ago in school.

I've also had a go at Anglo-Saxon, but I'm concentrating on Latin for the time being.

I'd like to learn Italian, German and Icelandic/Old Norse. I think I'd want a language penpal (nattive speaker) to practice with for the former two.

I only know English fluently, and can be understood in Polish. I've learned some Latin over the years, but only how English relates to Latin. I also know some broken Spanish, but never actually use it. High school Spanish was so pointless. I would have actually learned had they taught French or Japanese.

I'm really amazed by the number of the members here who can speak Japanese.

Japanese with my DS game, anime, and the internet.
I have a fair recall of my high school spanish.
I'm definitely not good enough at languages to learn more than one at a time.

I've just begun Japanese, but basically all I've been doing is Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. The plan is to finish that within the next 8 days, and afterwords move onto Minna no Nihongo or just go through some basic grammar and do either Kanji Odyssey 2001 or Core 2000 on Smart FM combined with stuff like Breaking into Japanese Literature. The goal is something AJATT-esque, modified to suit my learning style. Once I achieve some basic reading ability, I plan to give up most of my English internet and entertainment(already done most of that, though) and do some hardcore immersion.

I'm really interested in that style of language learning. I attempted it with Spanish a little while ago, and I improved dramatically in a very short period of time. But Spanish doesn't seem to have much decent entertainment so it was a lot more difficult. So that's pretty much why I chose Japanese. I have a weird desire to be a polyglot, even though I hate talking to people. Hm.

When I was younger I learned a bit of Japanese and started Mandarin. Right now I don't know almost anything about those two except basic phrases and words.
I can speak my native language, English, Spanish (ugly), Spanish dialects as well (ugly). I understand Italian, Portuguese and most of the slavic languages most of the time.

My japanese understanding improved, but I'm still much better at understanding than communicating in it. My vocabulary is around 3500 words now I think. Still not enough to read a newspaper without a dictionary.

I also forgot to mention that I can understand german pretty well, though I don't speak it. German is closer to swedish than english in some ways and two generations ago it was the mandatory second language for swedish people to learn. Still today I think it's estimated that 1/4 of all swedes in higher education speak german. It's the academic language of choice for many while american english is the popular language learned naturally by most young people through movies and music. British english is less common here than american enligh. No one says "flat" "lift" etc for example.

I know some basic phrases and words in greek also btw, and even some grammar. Greek is the most complex language I know of. Japanese is easy in comparison despite the alphabet. My greek teacher who also spoke french and spanish used to say the latin languages are like an automated car compared to greek. I guess that's true considering how easy spanish seems. I think spanish is about as easy, if not easier, as japanese.