DEV Community

Alexandra Grazhevskaja
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Posted on • Updated on

Which foreign languages did you study?👨‍🎓

I am a developer, who has a humanitarian background as well. I am curious to know which foreign languages other developers studied!

My knowledge list:

  1. English - Advanced
  2. Russian - Native
  3. Ukrainian - Native
  4. Spanish - Intermediate
  5. Italian - Basic

And how does your list look like?😊

Top comments (19)

Collapse
 
anduser96 profile image
Andrei Gatej
  • Romanian - native
  • English - advanced(maybe)
  • Italian - intermediate

I didn’t actually study Italian, I was lucky enough to live in Italy for one year and so I was supposed to learn it.. but it was a great experience!

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

That’s great! I lived in Italy around 4 months too, thanks to my remote job. You are right, living in the country - is the best way to learn the language.

Collapse
 
jankapunkt profile image
Jan Küster
  • German - Native
  • English - Advanced / C1
  • Russian - немношко в школе (a little bit at school)

While my English got boosted a lot at my semester abroad in Melbourne (ages ago), I also had my masters program in English. I think my grammar is still way too bad (use spell correction a thousand times) but I learned a lot of idioms and technical terms. As long as I keep coding my English may remain at this level.

My Russian is only covered by the basics - alphabet, reading, writing and fundamental conversations. Would love to have some more time in the future to get it to an intermediate level. At the moment I can't even follow the plot / conversation of a Чебурашка episode (which a Russian friend suggested as a starting point) :-D

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

You friend has a great sense of humor.😅

Collapse
 
samuraiseoul profile image
Sophie The Lionhart

English - Native
Japanese - Conversational
Korean - Conversational

On that note, I'm looking for any kind of job where I can work in foreign culture or language education or use that kind of knowledge, so if you or anyone knows of any, please let me know! :D

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Please, take a look at Developer Advocate role in my team: dev.to/aspose/we-are-hiring-develo...

Collapse
 
bizzy237 profile image
Yury

Russian - Native
English - Good enough according to most people I talked to (native speakers included) except a couple of recruiters
Spanish - Beginner (keep coming back to it every once in a while but not progressing much)
There's also a long list of languages I only know a couple of words from

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Sometimes the level of native speakers is lower than foreigners, you are right. I met the same situation few times in my life.

Collapse
 
ahferroin7 profile image
Austin S. Hemmelgarn • Edited
  1. English - Native
  2. Swedish - Basic, but actively improving.
  3. Latin - Intermediate, but very rusty.
  4. Spanish - Below basic spoken, but basic literacy.
  5. Japanese - Basic listening comprehension in the correct context, plus knowing a handful of specific phrases in spoken form, and a few kanji.

Learning Swedish originated as a whim, but it's been rather fun so far (it's a rather interesting language for multiple reasons).

Latin was from 3 years of foreign language courses in high-school. I wish I had continued working on it more actively, but it's still been remarkably useful.

Spanish was from one year of study in high-school. I didn't do very well at the time, but would love to get back to learning it (it's one of the four most spoken languages in the world, and I'm way to lazy to take the time to learn Mandarin or Hindi).

Japanese has just been something I've kind of absorbed through exposure (I'm a pretty serious anime fan, and I usually watch subtitled instead of dubbed). I've toyed with taking the time to learn it properly, but just haven't ever gone through with it.

I also know a smattering of words and phrases (some more useful than others) in over a dozen other languages, and can recite (but not understand or speak) Greek due to my interest in comparative linguistics.

Collapse
 
virien84 profile image
David Anton Alvarez

Spanish - Native
English - Fluent

My goal is to learn Japanese one day.

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Japanese - it is a challenge! Why this language?😊

Collapse
 
virien84 profile image
David Anton Alvarez

Because I am in love with many aspects of Japanese culture: manga and anime (visual arts in general), music, car culture and personalization, their history and the way they think and act. I think that learning Japanese will allow me to better understand their culture and access more information and documentation, in addition to being able to interact with people from that country.

I would love to meet some Japanese programmers, and contrast their experiences with mine, their tastes in terms of languages ​​and applications ...

Thread Thread
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Sometimes I watch korean doramas.
Who knows, maybe one day I will start learning korean.😀

Thread Thread
 
virien84 profile image
David Anton Alvarez

Why not? Learning things it's always interesting, whatever you want to learn.

Like we say in Spain, "Knowledge does not take up space".

Collapse
 
_gignosko_ profile image
Immutable Hair

Ancient Greek - I was a philosophy major so it made sense. It's all left me now.
French - HS and a year in college. It's mostly gone; I can ask for cheese and wine.
English - Advanced for an American.

Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja

Ancient Greek - that’s rare. I suppose, it should be even hard to find a good teacher for Ancient Greek.

Collapse
 
t3nj1 profile image
T3nj1

German - native
English - upper intermediate to advanced
Japanese - upper beginner
French - upper beginner
Spanish - some words

Collapse
 
sergey_telpuk profile image
Sergey Telpuk
  1. English - Fluent
  2. Belarusian - Native
  3. Russian - Native
Collapse
 
grazhevskaja profile image
Alexandra Grazhevskaja • Edited

I felt strange writing about two languages as Native, but I am not the only one.😊