Elaine
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Breaking the Ice: Please introduce yourselfHello and welcome!
I've noticed several new members here, and some who aren't so new but whom I know very little about. So if you would be so kind, please introduce yourselves. Don't be shy, we won't bite (well, not on the first date!).  Please tell us who you are, where you're from, your age, what you're studying or what you do for a living, which languages you speak, which languages you're learning to speak, how you came across Langcafé, your interests, etc.
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Josh Lalonde
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Hi, thanks for the welcome. I'm from Ottawa, Canada. I'm 18 and I'm taking International Studies & Modern Languages at the University of Ottawa. I'm working as a window cleaner right now, but I don't plan to make a career out of it. I speak English (obviously) and French; I'm currently studying Arabic and have studied Latin and Modern Greek, though only for a couple years each. I found Langcafe off Antimoon (I'm a moderator there). Interests? Just about everything: languages/linguistics obviously, music, writing, history, religions, philosophy, etc. Recently also criminal profiling and true crime.
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Liz
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| Josh Lalonde wrote: | | I'm 18 |
Young man...
| Josh Lalonde wrote: | | Recently also criminal profiling and true crime. |
You mean being a moderator on Antimoon??? 
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Elaine
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| Josh Lalonde wrote: | | Hi, thanks for the welcome. I'm from Ottawa, Canada. I'm 18 and I'm taking International Studies & Modern Languages at the University of Ottawa. I'm working as a window cleaner right now, but I don't plan to make a career out of it. I speak English (obviously) and French; I'm currently studying Arabic and have studied Latin and Modern Greek, though only for a couple years each. I found Langcafe off Antimoon (I'm a moderator there). Interests? Just about everything: languages/linguistics obviously, music, writing, history, religions, philosophy, etc. Recently also criminal profiling and true crime. |
Thank you, Josh L.  So, do you climb up on scaffolds and scale tall buildings to clean windows?? I'd be so terrified. How did you get into that line of work? Are you studying Arabic just because you want to or is there some other reason?
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Josh Lalonde
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No, I only do residential window cleaning. We're only supposed to go up three storeys, but we do some work on roofs as well. I was running my own company for a while, but that didn't work out, so now I'm working for someone else. I'm learning Arabic both for interest and employment. I'm in International Studies, and I'm hoping to get into foreign affairs/diplomacy, and it seems that Arabic is going to be a useful language for the next few years in that field.
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Uriel
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Running your own company at 18? (Or younger?) Somebody's a go-getter!
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Pete from Peru
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Hello everybody. Well my introduction is a little late but anyway. My name is Pedro and I'm 21 years old. I come from Peru. I used to work as a tour guide here in my home town Ica (3 hours south the capital city, Lima) but now I'm working as an English teacher. I like teaching very much. I know 3 languages , in order of proficiency those are: Spanish, English, Italian. I can write and understand a lot of Portuguese. And at the moment, I'm learning French. (Finally, cause I've always wanted to learn French) My goal is to learn at least 5 romance languages well, and 2 other languages not related to mine, which is Spanish.
Apart from that, I like reading a lot and I have a great interest in history. I love music as well. I can play the quena, the piano, and last year I taught myself to play the guitar. However, my greatest interest at the moment is languages. I love everything that has to do with that. I've also been posting some stuff on Antimoon, that's why some people here know me. :)
I'm glad to share experiences here with you, guys.
Kind regards
Pedro de Perú
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Uriel
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What is a quena?
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Pete from Peru
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Oh well. A quena is a flute-like musical instrument. It's one of the most ancient instruments found in the Andes, the oldest quenas belonged to peoples living in the andes and Peruvian coast around 3000 - 4000 years before Christ. Quenas were made originally of dolphin bones and later made of clay, etc... Now they're made of a lighter material. I don't really know the exact word for it in English, but the material is similar to bamboo.
It's not very difficult to play :)
This is what it looks like:
[img]www.rumillajta.com/images/quenachoenbambu3.jpg[/img]
That's it, my friend
Kind regards
Pedro de Peru
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Pete from Peru
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God, what was that?? guys, how do you post images, huh?
Pete
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André in Zuid-Afrika
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| Pete from Peru wrote: | God, what was that?? guys, how do you post images, huh?
Pete |
You did it right, there must be something wrong with the link. That happens sometimes.
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Uriel
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Bad link -- I tried it, too!
Let's try this one. Now that I see it, I know what it is -- we call it an Andean flute. Never knew the local name. Very popular at fairs and folk music outlets here.
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Sue
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Hi guys,
I´m Sue from Crouch End in London -currently in Germany & struggling to type on this damn keyboard. I thought I´d better learn some of the local lingo seeing as Jacky (the wife - we´re gay) is now fluent. Langcafe, you´ve got your work cut out for you now haha. I used to be a glamour model but I´m too old for that sort of thing now. We´re in Aachen for a year because Jacky (psych nurse) is doing a sort of exchange thingy at the hospital. I´m lounging around not doing that much really.
I´ll check out your foreign language threads next time and see what I understand - did French at school in the 80s but was too crap to pass the O-level in it. So are you all multilingual?
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Benjamin [inactive]
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Welcome, Sue! Incidentally, I played in an open-air concert in Aachen with my wind orchestra a few months ago — very nice city.
By the way — this site is full of gay men, but I think you're the first lesbian member we've ever had!
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KSa
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| Sue wrote: | Hi guys,
So are you all multilingual? |
I don't know really where "multilingual" starts. Some say it's more than one. I think it's more than two - "two" should be preceded by the prefix "bi" rather than "multi". Even if it's more than one, I mean two or more, I don't know if a mother tongue counts. Moreover, one should always describe the level they speak a foreign language.
So I would say I speak Polish as a native language and I'm quite advanced in English but it doesn't really counts since everyone speaks English better or worse I also have a poor command of French that wouldn't get me far beyond the basic usage. I think I could refresh Russian if you gave me, say, 2 or 3 months. So I still don't know whether I'm multilingual or not.
Let's say I'm a "disabled multilingual" or rather a "developing multilingual".
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Sue
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Yep, Aachen is very nice - I wasn't expecting it to be though for some reason, probably because I've always lived in big cities. Whoever says Germans haven't got a sense of humour got it wrong, the ones I've met are a right laugh. Did you visit Monschau when you were over? It's an oldy woldy sort of place with all-year Christmas shops. We like the Eifel (that's where Monschau is) but the weather could be better, it hardly ever stops raining. God knows where England's image as rainy came from coz it's much worse here.
KSa, your English is bloody fantastic. As you probably know there are loads of Poles in Britain at the moment, mostly working in cafes and restaurants. I've met lots of people from your country and it's inspired me to go there in the future. As for multilingual, anyone who can hold a conversation in more than 2 languages is multilingual in my books.
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Benjamin [inactive]
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| Sue wrote: | | Yep, Aachen is very nice - I wasn't expecting it to be though for some reason, probably because I've always lived in big cities. Whoever says Germans haven't got a sense of humour got it wrong, the ones I've met are a right laugh. Did you visit Monschau when you were over? It's an oldy woldy sort of place with all-year Christmas shops. We like the Eifel (that's where Monschau is) but the weather could be better, it hardly ever stops raining. |
No, I didn't go to Monschau. We actually stayed in Maastricht in the Netherlands, and played concerts in a number of nearby towns — Aachen, Valkenburg, Hasselt, and also Brugge on the way back.
I spent three weeks in Germany last year though when I did an intensive Germany language course in Heidelberg — visited many of the 'olde worlde' towns in the surrounding area.
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Uriel
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I can converse in any number of languages ... as long as that conversation consists of pointing and looking hopeful. meaning, yeah , I pretty much just speak English.
My dad lived in the Eifel for a couple of years, and I visited a couple of times -- no rain that I remember. (Not like England -- rained every day I was there!) Nice scenery, though. Got dragged to a million castles, seemed like -- and I have the pictures to prove it.
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Liz
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Hello Sue,
it's nice to have you here. We've never had an English lesbian ex-glamour model who is living in Aachen at the moment with her wife, who is a nurse.
I have ample experience with learning languages. Beides, I'm beginning to teach them as the imminent teaching practice is right above my head like the sword of Damocles...ouch...  Having said that, I wouldn't call myself multilingual, because I don't speak too many languages.
In a nutshell, my native language is Hungarian and I live in Hungary, too (I've just arrived from Germany - I spent my last semester at a uni there). Probably English is the foreign language I'm the most proficient in, but I speak German as well since I'm studying English and German literature and linguistics + EFL/ESL at uni. However, my German is abysmal. Okay, I might be exaggerating, but my German isn't as good as it should be. (Not that my English is good enough.) Apart from these two languages, I've learnt Russian, French, Latin, Italian and Dutch. To be more precise, I've been taught to these languages - I didn't necessarily learn them in fact. Currently, I'm "struggling" with Spanish only (without considering my rather shambolic attempts to brush up my long lost knowledge of Dutch) - now I promised myself not to be lazy once in a lifetime. 
PS: Sorry for being ever so verbose (as per usual). You know...it's some sort of an occupational hazard...
Uriel, non-verbal communication is often a lot more effective than words.
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Uriel
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I know. I once hooked up with a non-English-speaking Mexican. 
And your English is damn near impeccable, Liz. At least on the keyboard -- I don't know what you sound like in real life.
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