I speak fluent English and am able to communicate in Mandarin Chinese. As a child growing up, I went to Chinese school classes for 3 hours each Saturday. I learnt a lot in terms of spoken Mandarin, and while we also learnt to read and write in Simplified Chinese, I've noticed that I actually can't read or write a lot of the terms and characters I can say out loud. So I can pretty much have a conversation face to face with another Mandarin speaking person but my limited written and reading vocabulary means I pretty much can't read a newspaper in Chinese.

Personally I would like to improve my Chinese, and be able to speak in Cantonese, at the moment, my knowledge of Cantonese Chinese dialect is very limited.

In terms of other languages I'd like to learn, ideally for me, I'd like to learn Japanese and German. Though I think German would be incredibly hard to learn.

I knew some French, but forgot it after I moved to a place where I didn't need it. The most I can do is pick up words for food.

I would love to try and teach people some Finnish if you wish so! ^_^ I'm a Finn myself, so speaking and writing is pretty easy to me - okay, speaking not, writing yes.

I'd be happy if I did speak English better, but I guess that's just something which comes with the time.
But I do want to learn German & French. Maybe Italian.
If I'm unlucky, I'll start to study some basic French.

@mimmu: OwO that's soo cool! I would say I would help you with English, but if you talked to anyone I know i'm not even that good at speaking it... and I lived here all my life! (do you mean lucky.. or did you really mean unlucky?) I loved listening to French, my best friend took it in high school and I would go and sit in on her classes~

It seems a lot of us like to learn German!

hiiiii~ o 3 o reaper pinged me to the thread~ o u o
o 3 o languages! i love languages. > o > <333 i
need to brush up on my french... anyone want to
help out? q u q

so far, the languages i know are english, japanese,
and hmong (mao). o u o i'm currently working on
korean~ * 7 *

i really wish i had some korean relatives. q u q
that's how i learned my languages~ o 3 o by
growing up around relatives who mostly could not
speak english. lol x u x best way to learn~ * 7 *

oooh~ my first high school offered a german class~
i wanted to join, but i had to choose between
mandarin and german~ o 3 o

i think learning languages is important! it opens
up new gateways to different places, and how
people treat you~ o 3o <33

if anyone ever needs help with japanese, you
can always come to me! although, if you're
writing characters, please try to keep it as
hiragana and katakana. q u q i grew up in
america and i'm still trying to learn all of the
kanji. > _ > but other than that, i can help out
with it. o u ob yaay~

@whitexsuicide it's pretty funny accually. I'd love to learn some French from school, because the French teacher is absolutely awesome! And helpful, she teaches me Swedish already. But yeah, the joke is, I'll have a course of more English (it's hardly to describe the course, because my online translator/vocabulary doesn't give me anything OHMYGOD A CAT IN OUR GARDEN IT'S SO CUTE substitute for the Finnish word, eh) or course of the basic of French. ^_^
okay, it's not that unlucky thing, but I really do wish to get the course of English...

I do see Sign Language as another language because it is, despite it is American Sign Language, and I'm from the States. I can communicate fairly efficiently in Sign. =] People may not see it as a 'foreign' language, but given that most schools that I've gone to see it as a language requirement, I'm calling it one.

Mimmu: My family is from Finland (not sure where though. XD)- on my dad's side, and I have a last name that people frequently mispronounce. *lol* But I don't know any Finnish myself.

I think Sign language is a language, no doubt of that. But, I did think it was like chemistry/physics language (E = Energy = Energia = etc. but the E still remains). So, am I wrong?

Well yeah, when you are talking about English then usually they do spell other languages wrongly. For example simply "Hei" is spelled more like hai (=shark) if you try to spell it like you English xD
so no wonder. though I pity you. and now I'm wondering how in heavens would English people try to pronounce my surname. heh. >u<

About sign languages... I have heard/read from somewhere that... sign languages are different base on... country/places?

Paranoid Doll~ welcome~ We have a Kanji Club over at Nation. It is not a big huuuuge thread, only 4 or 5 regulars and raaaaare various visitors. We need more people to celebrate the Japanese~ http://www.menewsha.com/forum/commun...ubhouse-o.html
(excuse my outlink.)

Mimmu: Yeah, it's a complicated language. That's for sure. And what do you talking about?

Yeah, it makes me laugh though, as I'm more just used to it - the mispronoucing of my last name. LOL. I know that I probably am too - but it's the more Americanized version of it, I'm sure.

Xuv: Yes, every country has it's own version of Sign, that's unique to their country..

wow... then... it seem to be Sign Language should have its total different category? It consist of so MANY country different types!

Well, Sign Language is the basic category. It is a language. And then each country has their own version of it. ASL - American Sign Language, BSL - British Sign Language, FSL - French Sign Language... to just name a few. And then within a country you have regional differences. So you can tell at least in ASL, where someone went to school because of their sign 'accent'. If that makes any sense? So just because one knows ASL doesn't mean that they can travel out of country and be able to talk to Deaf people or others who know sign language, because it's different. I don't totally get what you mean it's own category. It is a language, despite it's differences between countries.

I didn't say it is not a language. I am just saying it seems to be a LARGER language than I thought, which I am thinking it is a bigger category that branch out MORE underneath.

I was aware about different sign languages in Asia, but I was under impression that western share similar sign languages as they use similar alphabet system.

Interesting point about sign accent I am not aware of that.

Oh, it really is a larger language than most people give it credit for. >.<

Nope nope, we love to be confusing. Or at least Sign likes to be confusing. ASL is the closest to FSL as that is what it was based off of, but then taking our own swing on things, if it makes sense?

Well, wherever you go - there are always regional accents. So it's the same with sign. :)

... Does Sign Languages... have grammar? x.x

Now I kinda think of another question.

If I am correct, Europe language's alphabet, originated from the same source of Latin with their own minor variants... Looking at modern German, English, Italian..., the basic Latin alphabets are written in the same way.
I am wondering, is the pronounciation of each alphabet similar? (not the words, but the alphabet)
Like the alphabet song...?

OH YES! It does... every language has grammar.

And I don't have an answer to your question. Maybe someone else will have an answer for you. I'm actually rubbish when it comes to spoken languages, other than English.

... GRAMMAR!
Is your American Sign Language's grammar similar to English? Like... past tense, future tense and all those tenses... x.x

Yeah, it loves to trip me up most of the time.

Well... it's something that I can not explain in writing... yes and no... it depends on context. You can have one sign mean multiple things, depending on what is being said. I just shake my head and bust up laughing when people say that Sign Language is an easy language to learn, sure if you practice a lot and pay attention in classes, but it is downright complicated when it wants to be, which is most of the time.
Sign language is NOT something that one can explain in writing... it's something you need to see for yourself.
It doesn't have the same grammar as English... it's unique, more like Spanish from what I've been told.
And complicated, it trips me up and I've been signing for almost 3 years now.

oh lol, that does sound a LOT of my writing and speaking grammar bloopers! XD lol.
Depending on context... which sounds pretty complex.

From the beginning, I didn't think of Sign Language is easy to learn. I feel everything have its difficulty to overcome. For me, in learning languages, GRAMMAR always stump me. D: sentence structure is fine, but when come to those time based grammar, I am dead. x.x

Anyway, it is morning 5.30 something... all nighter have to sleep now. zzz

What do you mean by bloopers? Sign Language isn't ever spoken out loud, it can be translated into English and spoken, but ASL as a whole is never spoken.

Oh, I wasn't saying you said that. I just get that from others that I have talked to in the past. XD People who've never taken classes and want to take a class because they think it's easy. xDD

Originally Posted by Mimmu

@whitexsuicide it's pretty funny accually. I'd love to learn some French from school, because the French teacher is absolutely awesome! And helpful, she teaches me Swedish already. But yeah, the joke is, I'll have a course of more English (it's hardly to describe the course, because my online translator/vocabulary doesn't give me anything OHMYGOD A CAT IN OUR GARDEN IT'S SO CUTE substitute for the Finnish word, eh) or course of the basic of French. ^_^
okay, it's not that unlucky thing, but I really do wish to get the course of English...

Hahaha That is why I would sit in on the French classes! The teacher was SO cool! Though my Sensei was amazing as well! The Spanish teachers were meh....

And I'm sure any one would help you out in English~

Originally Posted by nemo.love_22

I do see Sign Language as another language because it is, despite it is American Sign Language, and I'm from the States. I can communicate fairly efficiently in Sign. =] People may not see it as a 'foreign' language, but given that most schools that I've gone to see it as a language requirement, I'm calling it one.

I LOVE ASL. I really do~ It's has the most amazing way about it. The hardest part is the way you would have to word things...

Originally Posted by whitexsuicide

I LOVE ASL. I really do~ It's has the most amazing way about it. The hardest part is the way you would have to word things...

Honestly the wording of it makes sense to me, it does. With it being a visual language and all. But what's hard for me is that I've been living with my parents who don't sign, so I'm out of habit with correct structure and all that with true ASL because I'm having to practice while I sign with my parents while voicing. Sure I'm still understood when I sign with people, but I need to get back into the habit of proper sentence structure. Do you know ASL?

I took two college courses of it and the college I'm going to has the third class.... So I'm hoping I can get back into so much so I can go into that third class... (I just need to work it all out)

I have that same problem of having no one at home to sign with.... I had a signing buddy, but she has moved to a better college (can't blame her) So I'm all alone here with my sign langue... It's been a good year with out me signing much

Oh, cool!! Awesome!! Yeah, I go to socials which do help - but it's not all that often! D: Do you have any socials that you can go to? And I'm getting ready to move onto a better college than the one I was at - now for them to get back to me!

I don't know of any and I don't have any transportation to get to one if I found one... But I'm hoping there will be some sort of club at my new school I could go to~

What do you do at one?