What languages do you understand?

So the vast majority of all users of our website do not speak English as their native language. Therefore, it will be interesting to see what languages our community understands or speaks. Let’s start exchanging sentences in your native language or a language you understand. I’ll start:

Kiedy uczysz się nowego języka, odkrywasz na nowo swój język ojczysty. It’s Polish and meas “When you learn a new language, you rediscover your native language.”

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Читать художественную литературу лучше на языке оригинала.
It’s Russian and it means: it is better to read fiction in the original language.

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  • Zijn voordracht was zo interessant dat ik er sprakeloos van werd.
  • This is Dutch and it means: His lecture was so interesting that it rendered me speechless.
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Все хорошее в жизни либо аморально, либо ведёт к ожирению. Russian. Means everything good in life either is immoral or leads to fatness.

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I understand English .

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J’ai toujours souhaité aprendre une nouvelle langue.
i’ts French it means’ I always wished to learn a new language.

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한국어는 읽기 쉽다.
It’s Korean and it means “The Korean language is easy to read.”

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All that glitters is not gold
@Torsten, this sentence in Malayalam (my mother tongue) means ‘All that glitters is not gold’.

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The same in Russian: Знание иностранного языка обогащает родной язык. It means: Knowledge of a foreign language enriches the native language.

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لغتى هى اللغة العربية
My language is Arabic.

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Hi Anglophile, how very true.

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Interestingly, after working more intensively with Ukrainians over the past few weeks, I’ve started to understand a lot more Ukrainian. In addition to hearing them speak, I also listen to podcasts in Ukrainian from time to time and my understanding has improved quite a bit. My goal is to understand at least 80% Ukrainian by the end of this year, which is quite realistic because as things stand I’ll probably be teaching Ukrainian kids for a few more months.

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All the best, @Torsten!

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@Torsten
Keep us updated. Let them know that the world is behind them.

Humans have an amazing strength. Humans have been tested many times throughout history. Yet we are still here. For every bomb that drops, there is someone helping an elderly lady. For every bomb that drops there is a parent hearing their child say their first word. For every bomb that drops, there is a tear in the eye of someone listening to the most beautiful music.

Humans have been through a lot in our history. We are still here because the good outweighs the bad. Decent people outnumber the bad ones by a lot. As bad as it might seem at the time, the Ukrainians WILL get through this.

Maybe invite some of them to post at this forum. I’d love to hear the perspective of the Russian members also. ( I don’t recall any of the Russian members posting since this started. )

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I know only Spanish and English

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I just wanted to share this picture which was painted by one the Ukrainian kids living in Leipzig now because it tells more than 100 words.

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How very nice!

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If that was drawn by a young child they are talented. Children are so precious. :smile:

By the way, my best online friend is from Varna Bulgaria. Several days ago I talked to her about Ukraine for a few hours. She said Varna has an estimated 100-200K refugees from Ukraine. She also said that the government aid has run out and it’s unknown if there will be more.

She’s talked to quite a few of them. She’s not very hopeful. She thinks the people from southeastern Ukraine won’t have anything to go home to. She’s also talked to a number of Russians. Apparently quite a few stand behind Putin and the war. This includes Russians who have lived in Bulgaria for years.

She says a lot of Bulgarians are afraid. Bulgaria has virtually no military and she thinks NATO won’t step in and will sacrifice Bulgaria rather than get in a war with Russia. I didn’t agree. I think if NATO abandons a member state the entire alliance will fall apart.

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You have quite a good point there. As they say ‘United we stand, divided we fall’.

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Yes. That was the entire purpose of NATO in the first place. The united members were too strong to make them a tempting target. It’s pure deterrence through strength.

The thing is that a lot of people were starting to think that NATO is no longer relevant after the cold war ended. Russia has gone backwards and NATO is again very relevant.

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