Who wants cheese?

[apple_pathways]

The POLL to accompany my post about languages. As usual, I cut myself off because I ran out of time, and not necessarily because I finished asking everything I wanted. So take note: there may be follow-up questions! XD

For the purposes of this poll, we will use the following definitions from Wikipedia, that bastion of academic rigor and accuracy: (Also see this article on multilingualism.)

Language fluency is used informally to denote broadly a high level of language proficiency, most typically foreign language or another learned language, and more narrowly to denote fluid language use, as opposed to slow, halting use.

Conversational means able to carry on a casual conversation, but not necessarily without halts in speech, or gaps in vocabulary.

Skip any questions that don't apply. Pretend that it's not weird I spend so much of my free time coming up with meaningless LJ Polls written in unneccessarily-academic language.


[Poll #1706752]

Please leave any details you're willing to share about your language abilities and experiences learning foreign languages in the comments below!

Comments

[alt_universe_me.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty exhausted right now, so I'm not going to be able to comment a lot. My B.A. is in Spanish, and I've also taken French, German, and Russian at the university level, although I never finished the Russian course for personal reasons at the time. The only language other than English and Spanish that I would say I might be able to get by with is French--in fact, my reading comprehension in French is fairly decent. I forget--did you comment on my poll about Doctor Who and languages a while back? If not, it's definitely worth a look for the interesting answers people gave. If you want, I'll dig up the link for you later.

Good night :)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

No worries! I was exhausted when I got in last night, which is why I waited until this morning to respond to everyone.

I saw that for one of the questions, you responded that you were exposed to other languages at home from parents or other relatives. What language was that, and were you conversational/fluent as a child, or did that not come until later when you studied in school/university?

I don't remember your poll on Doctor Who and languages! I can't believe I missed it--that's right up my alley! I'll have to do some digging for it.

[alt_universe_me.livejournal.com]

Well, I was homeschooled up until the seventh grade, so my mom tried to teach me some Spanish at home. She's not fluent in it though, so I didn't really start moving towards fluency until high school. After high school in my first year of college I tested into 300 level classes (with native speakers) so I figure I was pretty fluent by then.

Here's the link to the DW language poll. http://alt-universe-me.livejournal.com/30760.html
I always love to hear people's thoughts on languages :)

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

You know what, going back, I see I did answer that poll! But it was awhile ago, and probably shortly after friending you, so I didn't quite remember. Going back through the comments, people have a lot of interesting theories! (I still consider "The Doctor speaking Judoon to the Shadow Proclamation" to be a brain-breaking moment, however!)

I am very impressed, as you're one of the few bilingual Americans I know who didn't pick up her second language from a fluent parent.