My mother tongue is English English from England, and I’m learning Swedish, Greek and Korean! If anyone wants to message me in any of those languages (esp swedish since that’s my focus language at the moment) I’d love to practice together. I use duolingo a lot, and I read books in the languages I’m learning to try and make it more natural in my head.
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Well it’s like you think in both languages and simultaneously don’t think in ether language. I will have these moments when I’m speaking in full English and then what I say will come out in Cajun French. Like this one time, one of my friends showed me this painting she did and I turn to her to ask her what it was and I said “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” Which means what is it? And I just looked at her like her expecting an answer even though she didn’t understand but I just said until I realize I set it in French two seconds later. If I not careful I sometimes switch between the two it’s just natural for me. It’s sad what is happening to the Cajun French language.
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I actually think in Chinese a fair bit. At one point, I would make a goal to think things through in Chinese as practice, and now sometimes I’ll react in Chinese first! It actually made it kind of difficult when I need to use to French because my default non-English language had been Chinese for so long that sometimes I’d go to say something in French and very nearly say it in Chinese 
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Right now I’m learning French, Greek, and Japanese. I use Duolingo, and I’m most advanced in French right now, as it’s the easiest for me to focus on. I’m not sure why, but at the beginning of this year, 2019, I was overcome with a desire to learn Greek. But as people have said, it’s hard to learn a language when you don’t have a everyday place to actually use it. Way back in the day, I wanted to learn Sanskrit. Maybe someday. As for now I’d like to focus mainly on French and Greek. Bonne nuit à tous!
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I have rare instances where I think in French. But I have to actually make an effort most of the time. But, I will say I may not think in French, but I can hear the French. For example, if I turn the volume down to a certain level, on the TV or my laptop, where I can’t quite make out the words, I’d swear they start talking in French! My brain takes the English words and sounds and somehow can make them into French annunciations and vocal fluxes. It’s eerie sometimes. One of the first times it happened I was watching the news, and somehow it seemed to switch entirely to French! I wasn’t really paying attention, just kind of watching it without thinking, so I didn’t realize until something flashed on the screen that caught my interest, and when I started paying attention, I actually had to question if they were speaking in French! A bit weird and random, but I thought you’d find it interesting. And I’m curious if anyone else has had this experience.
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Hey all! I’m a bit of a language geek so I had to pop into this discussion! Not long ago I did a linguistic anthropology course that spoke about how humans gained language(s) as we evolved and it’s absolutely fascinating stuff. I particularly love etymology and how languages have influenced each other and grown into new languages. My latest favourite is how the Greek suffix -logy (psychology, anthropology) is often translated as ‘the study of’ but can also be translated as ‘the story of’ which I think is beautiful, and maybe relevant to this community.
I’m a native English/French Canadian speaker, but have picked up some Spanish along the way. I’m about to spend seven months in China so I’ll need to pick up some Mandarin too methinks. Any advice where to start with that one @Tinker?
@Matty — I can’t say I’ve heard of this specifically but I love it! The closest I do know of is that I’ve run into several people who seem to be more fluent in French after a couple drinks than when they’ve got their whole wits about them. Perhaps some subconscious part of your brains is more attuned to certain languages and maybe it comes out more when you’re not paying full conscious attention to them? That’s a kneejerk theory, anyway… 
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I found an app called HelloChinese a while ago that I felt helped me learn pretty quickly, but I didn’t commit to it for very long so I forgot a lot of what I learned. It’s free so there’s no harm in checking it out, but different resources work well for different people.
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I’m late with my reply but hey! Learning Swedish too! I’d love to try writing back and forth a bit, though I’m nowhere near fluent yet 
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Hm…I guess it depends on what you’re looking for right away and where in China you’re going (I know a lot of people from my Uni’s study abroad get by in Shanghai with no language background)…but I’m strongly in favor of foreigners learning the language and how to read characters (that’s a whole rant and a half), but to get you started something more listening-based might be good. There used to be an audiobook series on iTunes (back in the olden times) that was “Survival Phrases (insert language)”…something like that would be a good start. If you want something more immersive, Encounters Chinese is the program I was hinting at above that has all sorts of media connected to the book (there’s a tv drama and tons of audio stuff). I can only speak on the quality of the intermediate/advanced series, but the topics were all really practical and conversational and they give a TON of vocab.
tl;dr: start with a crash-course audio program to get you started, but Encounters Chinese is a fantastic fluency-building program
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Thanks for that! We’ll be visiting twelve cities in total for my job, and we’ll have local workers in each city, so hopefully they’ll get to show me round. But it’s exactly those survival phrases that I’m interested in - thanks for those recommendations, I’ll definitely have a look! 
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Hello, native English speaker, and you’ll find it’s about the only thing I’m fluent in. For now, that is.
Despite my Hispanic upbringing, my parents used Spanish as a way to keep secrets from my siblings and I, so that never really took.
I had French for two years, but I regrettably quit. I’ve only recently realized how much I love the French language and history.
I took a few years of Spanish, as well. Unfortunately poor teachers made sure my parents secrets stayed secret.
And now, I have to learn the alphabet of Ancient Greek, as well as know how to translate basic sentences before I even set foot on the campus for college. So, wish me luck, essentially.
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I love the Greek alphabet, and Greek is pretty useful in a biology field because a lot of scientific names come from either Latin or Greek.
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Oh this is EXACTLY up my alley! I’m actually a language teacher.
American English is my native language. I’ve got some Mandarin Chinese, Quebecois French, Spanish, and a smattering of Russian and Japanese. I’m learning Korean right now, and some ASL.
I also studied Tolkein Quenya long enough to confidently translate some things, but it’s rusty.
I use a plethora of apps, and then immersion learning. Survival driven language learning has got me far in life. Can’t say my reading and writing is great, but I’m pretty confident ordering food.
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My native language is American English and I’m learning French, Spanish, and Irish on Duolingo and Japanese on Rosetta Stone.
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Yeah! I’m mostly excited to read out loud great works of text like The Iliad and The Odyssey in their original tongue. The way they were meant to be ridden. The college I’ll be attending has Greek as a mandatory language for two years, then after that two years of French. So I finally get to redeem myself.
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Thats a really good set of words to know to be able to get around in any language. You do also have to know how the language is structured of course, though sometimes just sticking the words together can get your point across in a tight situation
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Learning languages is my favourite hobby! I’m Scottish, so fluent in Scots and English (native tongues). Fluent in Spanish too. I’m working hard on Polish at the moment, I’m about A2 level I think. My French is pretty decent, I’ve been learning it on and off since I first learned to read! I also have basic Russian, Norwegian, Finnish, Scottish Gaelic and German. Still waiting for Finnish to be added to Duolingo so I can really get my teeth into it, resources are scant.
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Hey, sounds a lot like me. If you ever want to practice Polish I’m around B1-B2 level at the moment.
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Świetne! sounds good.
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