or but crazy Spanish eurofans were the reason to pick Italian instead xDI am learning B2 German from Deutsche Welle site and just started Italian on duolingo to simply and fast learn basics and get used to new language, then I can buy some books xD I hope it's gonna be interesting. I was uncertain whether to start
I even learned some Czech before visiting even if Czech is so similar to Polish. this is so me 
- My native language. - My first foreign language, started learning it at school when I was ten years old. I think my English skills are ok, I can understand most things unless it´s a strong dialect or when a text contains too many technical terms. When it comes to speaking I often have to think a lot when I start a conversation since I don´t speak the language all that often, but after a few minutes the person I´m talking to has to slow me down a bit. - My second foreign language, had it for two years. I really like the language and had good grades, but due to a lack of practise I´ve sadly forgotten most of it. At least I can still introduce myself and order something to drink, which I used a lot when I went on holidays on Gran Canaria this May. - The language of my parents. They tried to teach me Polish when I was a little child, but sadly I was pretty stubborn and refused to learn the language, so my skills are limited to a few basic words like "hello", "thank you" or "goodbye". This is really something I regret, since I still have many relatives in Poland and most of them neither speak English nor German. - I can only say some very basic stuff, but since the language is pretty closely related to German I can understand a bit of spoken Dutch. In 2017 I watched the coverage of the election via live stream and was very surprised how much I understood.
I think I have already forgotten a lot of stuff, tho I am still able to speak it properly. Love it from the bottom of my heart and miss my spanish classes. 
Same as before. I believe I have B2 which is my top level, I dont even want to develop my skills in this language. Enough is enough.
I don't remember it, can just read something and understand a little bit.
O B S E S S E D with it. Currently study at the university.This summer I was in Turkey for the first time and used a lot of words there. Great practice which boosted my level of turkish from A0+ to A0++ I think I have A1 - A2 now.
(with a southwestern accent) My hometown is less than 1,5 hour away from the border, so I studied it for 10 years in school, and while I may have been on B2 level when I was 13, I already downgraded to B1 by the end of highschool. Now I think I'm back to A2, I somehow always mess it up with Italian. After my first year of uni, I wanted to train my Spanish again. I lasted one hour before I closed everything and decided to start Italian. I actually found a nice channel on Youtube and spent the next month working on it everyday. It took me 6 weeks to watch Disney movies without subtitles (btw I love the Italian dubs). It's closer to French than Spanish is, and I actually understand it better when it's spoken than written. However nowadays I don't take time to exercise so I lost it a little. or is absolutely beautiful.
Native language. Nothing else to say. If you'd like to hear my accent, just think of something similar to this. Started an English course at the age of 10. When I was 15, I had completed up to the intermediary level. I had a slight hiatus of six years (nnn) but I've finally completed the whole course! In theory, I'm a C1. I don't consider myself fluent because 1. my pronunciation and vocabulary are a MESS 2. I still struggle with some accents 3. I still make some dumb mistakes 4. Idk I'm not confident in myself. Did 4 semesters of it. According to my books, I'm a B1. Surprisingly enough, I find it harder than English, despite being surrounded by Spanish-speaking countries and consuming a lot of Hispanic media since I was a kid (hello, RBD). I suppose that the similarity to Portuguese makes me mix details - eg a few words don't have the same genre. El viaje (masculine) is A viagem (feminine) in Portuguese. Anyway, I have stopped attending classes because there weren't enough people to do group classes and private classes were too expensive. Since then, I've been looking into my former University where Spanish is taught basically for free. However, until now, my semester wasn't offered. I was planning to come back this year no matter what, but since there is a possibility for me to move out of here because of the masters, it's put on hold.
Talking about masters, I started it because I wanted to do masters in The Netherlands. Unfortunately, I had to give up because it was too expensive (reminder that I'm not European so I should have to spend thousands of euros a year and, converting to my currency, it's A LOT of money. Impossible). It was a cool language and I still want to learn.
I did two semesters back in 2008 because I was that otaku who wanted to understand anime and manga without subtitles - I still own an edition of Naruto completely in Japanese. I was the only survivor of my class so my course had to be put on hold. If I still remember Hiragana and Katakana, it's already a lot, to be honest. I still have my books, I should get back to them anytime soon.
(This is the main one. I've never had a class because it is TOO expensive. It's around R$80 an hour. When I did private English classes, I had around 20 classes of two hours a week. Considering the same timespan, in Arabic, I would have to pay R$1600, which is about 350 euros. That means 700 euros a year + entrance fees. I had the opportunity to go to an Arabic masterclass that was taught by a teacher who is from Bahrain and was here in Brazil almost like an exchange student.)
Mother tongue, but with a Limburgish accent so the rest of the Netherlands sometimes assume I don't speak Dutch at all and start speaking English to me.I don't really know whether German or English is my second language, since English is omnipresent, but I grew up in the Netherlands exactly 30 seconds away from the border with Germany. Needless to say, I grew up hearing German almost every day. I understand it perfectly well (level C2), but speaking German is still proving to be difficult sometimes (probably still level C1 though), even afters years of studying the language (I am following a Master's degree in multilingual communication). Growing up at the border, I had to learn how to understand German, but I never had to learn how to speak it, since they would understand me if I just spoke Dutch. The same applies to the dialect that people speak there. I can understand everything, but I don't dare to say anything in the dialect unless I am trying to entertain people. It is probably just a confidence and a perfectionist thing and the only way to overcome that is by practise, but I am too introvert for that. English has saved me from very awkward situations when people assumed I didn't speak Dutch and considering the fact that many Dutch people speak English to me, it was imperative to learn the language haha. I was also very ashamed of my own accent in Dutch and sometimes I would just pretend I didn't speak the language and just spoke English, because apparantly that was less embarrassing and I felt people would take me more seriously somehow. Level C2.I seem to have a problematic relationship with French. I got 6 years of French education in secondary school and my French was pretty good (level B2). I could easily start and keep conversations going and the lack of confidence that I had with German, I never had with French. Then I forgot everything again. Then I got a French boyfriend. I started speaking the language on a regular basis again. I got good again (level B2). Then we broke up, I started hating everything French and now I pretty much forgot everything again (level A1). In the future I may want to start learning French again (and preferably not forget it this time), because otherwise learning French all those years has been such a gigantic waste of effort and time.My new boyfriend is from Brazil. He speaks a bunch of languages, including Dutch. So no problem there. Sadly, his family only speaks Portuguese. My Portuguese was better than their English even before I actively started learning it (and that says a lot hehe). Last summer I went to Brazil with him to visit his family and a few weeks before I went I started my Portuguese learning journey. I can say pretty basic things like "hi how are you" and "the food is nice" and "that baby is cute" and "how did you sleep?", but that is about it. I want to be able to speak it well enough in the future. Then I will surprise all of his family and friends with my Portuguese language skills. I have put learning the language on hold for now since I have to write my Master's thesis and that consumes all my energy, but once I am finished with that, I will go in full ninja learning mode. For now I am still stuck at A1.I started learning it for some time and it was fun, but I eventually gave up on it, since learning Chinese requires a lot of effort and time and I just don't have the same motivation as I have for Portuguese and it seems useless to learn a language and not aim for fluency.. It is such a beautiful language.
I haven't! I'll look into it (and it would even be easier to be there as my cousin lives there).I don't think I have posted here yet.
A language I would want to learn when my midlife crisis hits:
@anaraqueen My boyfriend wanted to study in the Netherlands too, but it is indeed crazy expensive for non-European citizens. He went to Belgium instead. It is a lot cheaper there. Maybe something to look into?
definitely!
I used to speak fluently, since I have studied and lived in Germany, but unfortunately not anymore, despite having a beautiful C2 certificate at home. One of the best languages I can speak, I have passed DALF C2, still I think I am not at the highest level all the time. I used it at work and have passed C1, but I think in reality I am somewhere B1-B2. I am currently learning it as a beginner, A1. My mom is Ukrainian and I speak Ukrainian travelling in Ukraine, but it is difficult for me to assess my level. I have learnt it on beginner''s level. I am a beginner, but I hope I will get better, since I travel every year to Bulgaria. I had a course at university, I will not continue learning it, but it is a nice language. I have a book and have learnt some stuff for beginner's. The language is however very difficult, it has barely anuything in common with .
Haha, I don’t mind that much, but there are a lot of people who get really offended if you do that haha.Omg. O.O *embarassed* that moment I realize I basically do this with everyone not from the 'Holland' provinces
Haha, I don’t mind that much, but there are a lot of people who get really offended if you do that haha.
But I think my accent is particularly strong, even for someone from Limburg. Even people in Belgium ask me if I am from Germany and they are used to accents more than we are. I used to be really ashamed of how I speak to the point I didn’t dare to say anything. People from ‘boven de rivieren’ said to me: “look, don’t you want to get accent classes? People assume you are really stupid now and it won’t get you anywhere.” They are not wrong though. I literally had teachers at uni admitting to me that they thought I was incredibly stupid and gave me low marks for participating in discussions until I proved in an essay that I was actually quite able to understand stuff and form coherent opinions.
Therefore I don’t mind speaking English at all. English is neutral. People won’t think I am stupid and will in general just take me a lot more seriously.
Native speaker. Spoke all three before I learned to read. Studied from elementary school to university. Only studied German for a couple of years, but it’s such an easy language that it’s at the same level as my French. Freebies if you speak Swedish and give some kind of effort to learn the small differences.
