Dora M

I have to admit that after nearly 15 years of speaking English, I have trouble with my native language. I have a translator application on my iphone for all occasions. I often find myself looking up German words that I seem to have somehow "displaced". For me the way to get back on track is to read, watch movies or listen to music to refresh my fluency.

I grew up bilingual. In my home we spoke German and Serbo-Croation. When I was 11 years old, I started learning English at school for four years. After that I continued at College for another 3 years. Also, I learned French for a couple of years, but never had much chance to practice it, so I can still understand a lot of it but I can't speak it very well.

It's funny how academic most responses are here. Has passion and fun gone out the window with all that hard study of grammar and vocabulary? I think every day you open your mouth and say something you run the risk of acceptance or rejection, be that in your native tongue or in a foreign language. I personally just talk in whatever language I can to get what I want. I'll even talk with arms and legs if necessary.

From what they told me, the first word I ever uttered was "vinja", pointing at a cow. After some analysis my Serbian relatives decided that I must have meant "svinja", which means pig. It was probably long decided before I was even born that I would be an enormous animal lover, preferring them to humans.

Germans, Austrians and the Swiss are usually happy to have a good conversation with you in their native language and help you along with any difficulties that you might have. In my experience they don't often get the opportunity to practice their own foreign language skills, so naturally they want to try it out with you. :grin:

A little while ago I came across a Spanish phrasebook. I had to laugh out loud when I got to the section where they explain how to deal with romantic situations. I have tried some of those phrases with great success, just not the kind I was hoping for... One of my favourites is : "Quiero ser un bombon para derretirme en tu boca..." (correct me if I wrote it wrong) And PS: Could you please teach some really original ones? I need to try them out on my boyfriend.

I don't know about those publicised fictional languages. My partner and I invented our very own language over the years. A mixture of Spanish, English and German words, strung together and formed into new words with unique meanings to describe things in a different way. Mostly feelings that can't be readily expressed with available words.

Absolutely, it's even embarrassing at times. I grew up speaking German and Serbo-Croatian, but speaking almost exclusively English now for many years, I find myself looking in the dictionary for certain German words. All of my German speaking acquaintances agree that I now have a slight English accent as well.

I teach my boyfriend German by exclusively talking in German to him, while I place different things in his hands and say: "Das ist ein Apfel, und das ist ein Loeffel..." And when we go for walks I point at all kinds of things and ask him to repeat after me. Basically I teach him as if he were a kid, and he loves it. We also look at children's books and comics. It's a lot of fun. It's amazing how much knowledge he has accumulated in this way.

I find the parallel system often amusing. Because there are certain phrases that only exist in one language, and when translated their meaning might be correct, but the story somehow loses essence and becomes something else. It's the same with movies. I can't believe how bad and misleading the subtitles are. Many jokes and punts simply get lost in the translation.

Hi, I think if you really want to understand any poet or artist of any kind, you will find a way. Language alone is not necessarily the biggest difficulty. In my experience, if I am interested in a particular text in another language, it helps me if I even understand only a few lines. Then I string them together with the rest and pictures emerge. There is a different type of understanding, especially in poetry. Vocabulary helps to fill the gaps. But in my opinion there is so much more to it.

Hi Everyone, I am of Austrian and Serbo-Croatian speaking background. I migrated to Australia many years ago and have been working as a freelance German-English translator. I have started to study Spanish a while ago and thought that this forum would be a nice way to learn and share new skills. :-)