BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / POLL: Other Languages

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 15, 2014 6:18 am

My mother tongue is German. I think I am still quite fluent in English, but since I stopped working 3 years ago I didn't use it in my daily life and became quite insecure about how to express myself (especially informal language..)

I speak enough Japanese for normal/not too specialized conversations and used it on daily basis in my job (same problem here with informal language..)

In school I learned Spanish for 2 years but don't remember much and also started to teach myself some Russian without much success.

Last edited by Zatoichi (February 15, 2014 6:20 am)

**Posted by saturnR** February 15, 2014 11:46 am

Zatoichi wrote:
also started to teach myself some Russian without much success.

That is really cool! Russian is one of the most difficult languages on the planet. I also tried very very beginner Russian and was thrown off by gender. I speak English and Chinese. Neither of them have grammatical gender and I get really confused when I have to figure out if a chair is male or female. I mean, there's not even a set standard/rule as to what objects get what gender. I also tried very very beginner Spanish and found the gendered nouns easier to remember because Spanish pronunciation is easier than Russian but the internal logic of why bother having gender in the first place is still lost on me. I think grammatical gender is the hardest thing to learn in European languages.

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 15, 2014 3:37 pm

saturnR wrote:
I think grammatical gender is the hardest thing to learn in European languages.

Yes, I hear that very often from non-European people. Especially as there are no rules, you just have to memorize each and every word.. and then it has different genders in different languages.. really messy .

I think Chinese is the most difficult language, I couldn´t get into it a bit. Hubby speaks a little though..

**Posted by nickyta18** February 17, 2014 5:25 am

I speak both English and German as second languages

**Posted by ArwendeLuhtiene** August 12, 2014 4:43 pm

Fluent in Spanish (native tongue) and English. Reasonably fluent in Irish and French (pretty rusty). Rudiments of Swedish (mostly written), Some easy sentences in German. I can understand a lot of written Italian and Portuguese, but no verbal skills.

Do elementary written Sanskrit and Latin, and Tolkien's Quenya, also count ?

**Posted by maryagrawatson** August 12, 2014 5:02 pm

Technically, English is my second language and French my first, but I did my schooling in both and don't really separate them in my head. I get by in Spanish and understand Italian and Portuguese reasonably well.

I've picked up on the fact that a lot of board members are not native English speakers and I think that a lot of disagreements have to do with the language barrier.

Mary

**Posted by Mattlocked** August 12, 2014 5:08 pm

maryagrawatson wrote:
I've picked up on the fact that a lot of board members are not native English speakers and I think that a lot of disagreements have to do with the language barrier.

Mary

Could be right - sometimes - but IMO this explanation is too easy.

**Posted by Schmiezi** August 12, 2014 5:30 pm

maryagrawatson wrote:
I've picked up on the fact that a lot of board members are not native English speakers and I think that a lot of disagreements have to do with the language barrier.

Mary

IMO a lot of disagreement comes from people having different opinions about the show.

**Posted by Draconia** August 12, 2014 6:06 pm

Well...with german as my mother language , I've learned english in school ....but most of he stuff I use now is from movies, reading and talking american english

**Posted by ArwendeLuhtiene** August 12, 2014 6:40 pm

maryagrawatson wrote:
I've picked up on the fact that a lot of board members are not native English speakers and I think that a lot of disagreements have to do with the language barrier.

Well, not necessarily, you can be fluent in a language without it being your native tongue . In my case, English is not my mothertongue, but I write and read in English way more than I do in my native tongue :D.

So I'd say that in some cases this might be a factor, but I think different opinions on the show might be a more important one .

Last edited by ArwendeLuhtiene (August 12, 2014 6:43 pm)