Foreign Languages

[Barlow Boy]

During this latest lockdown, I stupidly decided to try and learn a foreign language, or at least start to get a grasp on one. I decided on Spanish, for no other reason than MB’s press conferences are in that language. I’ve found it rewarding, but incredibly frustrating to say the least.

Anyone else speak a second language ?

[yorkfan]

Wouldn't say I can still "speak" them, but I can get by on schoolboy French and German, and I can, if called upon, speak fluent Glaswegian.

[Barlow Boy]

Wouldn't say I can still "speak" them, but I can get by on schoolboy French and German, and I can, if called upon, speak fluent Glaswegian.

Yeah, I think I’m about at schoolboy (a very young one) level on Spanish now. I think I get a grasp on certain things, and then something comes along that blows that theory out the water

[NottinghamWhite]

I’ve been trying to teach my 4 year old grandson to say please in Spanish. He just can’t manage to say it. That’s poor for 4.

[johnh]

I once had a go at Geordie but it was too difficult, so I may have a go at Chinese.

[Davycc]

I’ve been trying to teach my 4 year old grandson to say please in Spanish. He just can’t manage to say it. That’s poor for 4.

I can get by in Spanish, always try to use it when on hols. Here's a good video which makes recognising hundreds of words easy. It's a bit simplified but really helped me.



Always kick myself for messing around in Spanish class at school. In my twenties I contacted my old Spanish teacher and took some basic lessons but then he moved to China. He could speak 7 languages fluently and get by in another 8, he went to China to learn the language. He always said your first new language is the hardest after that they became easy.

[Barlow Boy]

I’ve been using Duolingo for the reading, spelling and writing of it, and some DVD’s a neighbour gave me by Paul Noble to try and learn the pronunciation of the words.

As I say, incredibly frustrating, but as my Mrs says, I’m teaching myself a brand new language from scratch so it ain’t going to be easy.

[Barlow Boy]

I’ve been trying to teach my 4 year old grandson to say please in Spanish. He just can’t manage to say it. That’s poor for 4.

I can get by in Spanish, always try to use it when on hols. Here's a good video which makes recognising hundreds of words easy. It's a bit simplified but really helped me.



Always kick myself for messing around in Spanish class at school. In my twenties I contacted my old Spanish teacher and took some basic lessons but then he moved to China. He could speak 7 languages fluently and get by in another 8, he went to China to learn the language. He always said your first new language is the hardest after that they became easy.

The fella on the video talks a bit too quick for me, but the techniques he uses are similar to the ones on the CD I’m using, e.g any word ending in ‘ical’ in English, you just drop the ‘al’ letters and add an ‘o’ to get the Spanish translation, e.g Typical becomes Tipico, similar with any English word ending ‘ic’ you just add an ‘o’ translate it into Spanish, e.g Romantic becomes Romantico or Dramatic becomes Dramatico.

[Selby White]

Did French at school but other than a few words and been able to count to ten have forgotten most of it.

With travel have picked up a few words in numerous languages mainly such as please, thank you, hello and the ability to know what foods are on a menu, basically enough to get through an holiday.

I know its ignorant of us Brits but only been to a couple of countries where you hardly find anyone that speaks English so its too easy to be lazy.

On the Spanish theme the last time we went to South America Mrs SW learnt a lot of Spanish words which helped in Uruguay but then we visited Chile and their Spanish was a totally new language, lots of different words (bit like American English). Fortunately lots of English Speakers unlike Uruguay where hardly anyone did.

If I decided to learn another language would go for Spanish I think.

[Wigan White]

As you're a Yorkshire man Kev, I'd have thought you'd have tried English as your second language before Spanish.