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Old 31-03-21, 09:42   #1
ThirteenCroft
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Hi everyone

I didn't find any similar thread so here it is.
I hope this thread won't sink in and that it's in the right subforum


When I was young, I started learning English by myself by watching TR related videos (a lot of people here helped me without knowing it, with their videos, thread etc, thank you <3). I used to be my class' best student when it was about English. Since then, I developped an odd obsession about languages. I love reading some sentences, comparing roots and similarities, learning alphabets (For example I can now read Russian without understanding it ).

I speak French (which is my main language), English, Spanish. I understand Portuguese and Italian too (thank you Latin for being the common root for every Romance languages). I understand a quite short bit of Flemish/Dutch because it sometimes looks a lot like English IMO.

My English accent is kind of a weird mix between British and American standard (I'm not related to Camilla haha :innoncent. I'm not 100% fluent though.
By the way, we can also talk about Lara's international VAs if you want. Compare their voices, translation differences throughout the games etc. There are many posibilities, the main subject remains Languages.

I'd like to know (for those who aren't native speakers) how they learned, if they had or have any difficulties in writting or talking.

What language(s) do you guys speak?

Last edited by ThirteenCroft; 31-03-21 at 09:47. Reason: typo, adding new information
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Old 31-03-21, 10:29   #2
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Good thread.

I'm from South Africa and we're quite known for being very diverse, so we have 11 official languages here.

I speak 3 of them with ease. Afrikaans, English and Sesotho.

I also speak some of the others but on a very basic level. (Greeting, Asking for directions, compliments, counting etc.)
Those are Zulu, Xhosa and Tswana

Because of Afrikaans I can communicate with a Dutch person in Afrikaans and understand Dutch responses. Afrikaans is a mixture of Dutch, German and French. But mainly Dutch. It has some African and English influences too.

I've started learning Coptic and Tamazigh as I have some North African heritage but those are proving to be difficult as hell.
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Old 31-03-21, 10:35   #3
RoomTraider
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I speak English (mother tongue) and can understand Spanish. I'm better at reading, writing and listening to Spanish than I am speaking it out loud, there becomes a kind of mental block aha.

The Spanish I know is the Canary Island variant which is like an amalgamation of mainland Spanish and Latin American Spanish.

I can understand basic French, Italian and Portuguese.
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Old 31-03-21, 14:32   #4
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My mother tongue is English. I can speak a bit of Mandarin Chinese, and it's a skill I'm still working on. I can go and order some bubble tea or some food in a restaurant but I can't have a full or meaningful conversation with someone just yet.
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Old 31-03-21, 14:44   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RoomTraider View Post
I speak English (mother tongue) and can understand Spanish. I'm better at reading, writing and listening to Spanish than I am speaking it out loud, there becomes a kind of mental block aha.

The Spanish I know is the Canary Island variant which is like an amalgamation of mainland Spanish and Latin American Spanish.

I can understand basic French, Italian and Portuguese.
I'm exactly the same, except I'm most proficient in Latin American Spanish.

Once you get a somewhat decent grasp of one of the Romance languages, the others come pretty easily I find.

I also have very basic-level Maltese, as my Dad's family came to The UK from Malta, but not really enough to hold a conversation at all. Maltese is in a different language family, it has a lot of Italian in it, but it's root is actually Arabic. It's basically a reverse-Spanish, if Spanish is like an Arabic-ised Romance language, Maltese is heavily Latinised Arabic. As such I can also pick up some very basic words in certain Arabic dialects, but that's extremely limited, and I don't know the Arabic alphabet as Maltese doesn't use that.

Last edited by Yeauxleaux; 31-03-21 at 14:49.
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Old 31-03-21, 15:02   #6
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I speak English, I know a few words from different languages that I’ve learnt over the years, I do kind of regret not learning another language. I remember in school whenever we had French or Spanish class, as kids, we used that as a “cba” lesson so we were all naughty and didn’t listen. It was also because we knew the teacher couldn’t control us.
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Old 31-03-21, 15:06   #7
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I am fluent in both Portuguese and English. And I am actually quite proud of my English accent. It was a bit more american-like before, now it's morphing to something more British since I started living in the UK, but at least it doesn't sound like a Portuguese person trying to pronounce English words. I had some professors during my undergrad and masters that it was painful to hear

I can perfectly understand and read Spanish, but I have a bit trouble speaking. Both Galician (a bit better because Galicia is fairly close to my hometown) and Castilian. True story: when I was a kid, and considering that PT Portuguese translations are still rare in games, I would actually play games in Spanish if I had the option.

I sort of can understand Catalan, Italian and Romanian, since they are still fairly latin-based languages, but it is very rudimentary. Same thing for Cape Verde creole, since portuguese was integrated to the language.

Then there's French and German, which I actually learned (3 years of French, half a semester of German), but because I stopped using those languages, I don't really know them anymore. French would probably be a bit easier to relearn, but right now, it's like I never even knew them, which is a shame.
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Old 31-03-21, 15:52   #8
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French is my native language. It is very dear to my heart and needs to be protected here in Québec (a small island of French in an ocean of English in North America).

I learned English at school through mandatory classes.

TR2 is the first TR game I played and luckily I had both a French and an English version of the game. But when I first played TR3 I was just starting language classes and unfortunately I only had an English disc, so I couldn't understand the dialogues at all.

I always appreciated the fact that Françoise Cadol dubbed Lara up to Underworld, so Lara's voice in French is always the same before Reboot (while in English there were 4 different voice actresses in the meantime).

For me writing / reading / listening is always easier than speaking.

Nice thread by the way ThirteenCroft, I like languages and it's nice to know other people's journeys.
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Old 31-03-21, 17:01   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amlux View Post
French is my native language. It is very dear to my heart and needs to be protected here in Québec (a small island of French in an ocean of English in North America).

I learned English at school through mandatory classes.

TR2 is the first TR game I played and luckily I had both a French and an English version of the game. But when I first played TR3 I was just starting language classes and unfortunately I only had an English disc, so I couldn't understand the dialogues at all.

I always appreciated the fact that Françoise Cadol dubbed Lara up to Underworld, so Lara's voice in French is always the same before Reboot (while in English there were 4 different voice actresses in the meantime).

For me writing / reading / listening is always easier than speaking.

Nice thread by the way ThirteenCroft, I like languages and it's nice to know other people's journeys.
Oooh Canadian French
I've always been intrigued with how the French managed to cross an ocean and maintained the language. Here in SA we had the French Huguenot integration roughly 200 years ago and no one really speaks it anymore but up north in the Congo and in North Western places like Senegal it's the common language. Congolese friend of mine managed to fit in when she moved to France in less than a week with all their heavy slang.
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Old 31-03-21, 17:20   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Heckler View Post
Oooh Canadian French
I've always been intrigued with how the French managed to cross an ocean and maintained the language.
By having a strong connection to our roots perhaps: being at the time the biggest French colony, most of our ancestors come from France.
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