A Poll of Much Randomness (a Poll Title I've Apparently Used Before)

[gnomi]

[Poll #1632972]

(I forgot to put a text-entry box for one's second language; please feel free to leave it in comments.)

Comments

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Autumn weather is passing, alas!

[dpolicar]

My second language is English.

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

I grew up in France (expat parents) and spoke French exclusively when I wasn't at home... so for awhile, I didn't have a first or second language, I had two primary languages. If that makes sense. Now I have three (German), but the French has atrophied. :-(

[p-m-cryan.livejournal.com]

Actually, my brain started to sing, "My Gnomi has a first name, it's G-N-O-M-I", but I couldn't make the second name "M-A-B-F-A-N" without throwing off the rhythm.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Oh. The version that goes through my head is,

My high school has a first name, it's R-A-M-A-Z
My high school has a second name, it's "the Morris and Ida Newman Educational Center of the Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School Of Ramaz"
Oh I like to go there every day
And if you ask me why, I'll say,
Cause $8 million dollars is very cool
to build a bright and shiny school.
Howzat?

(the HS building opened in 1980, cost $8E6, and is covered with burnished aluminum sheets. So literally, bright and shiny)\

There was an official school song, but nobody knew it. I found it in a student handbook from the 1950s.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

you also forgot 'ish' as an answer for 2nd language - French, where I am the worst speaker in my family, but capable of basic conversation / puzzling out the paper.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

I used to speak very good Spanish; now I speak mediocre Spanish.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

Huh. Like my college friend Joe, who came here from Korea age 9, and by his early 20s had forgotten a lot of it.

As for me, 2nd language (promoted to first as the zeroth faded away) English, 3rd Hebrew, 4th French. Smatterings of Yiddish, Spanish, Italian, Latin as eny eddicated person (or New Yorker) picks up by cognizing cognates.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

Exactly - language is very much a "use it or lose it" proposition. I find I've retained a lot of the basic concepts, but lost a lot of the specifics, especially non-basic vocabulary.

[saraphina-marie.livejournal.com]

My first language was actually Portuguese but I haven't retained it well, although there are still some words (mostly food, cooking, and household terms) that come to my brain first in Portuguese rather than English. I am also capable in Spanish and since I live in a very Latino neighborhood I get to practice it a lot!

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Bring on the hot drinks!

And also the apple cider cinnamon doughnuts.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

What quarkwiz said. I learned English and Switzerdeutsch around the same time, and as a result, I had, for a couple of years, two primary languages. Interestingly, much of my Switzerdeutsch is gone, while most of my Dutch (the secondary language, which I learned next) remains. Probably because I spoke Dutch much longer (a decade, at least).

[crewgrrl.livejournal.com]

Second language: Hebrew

2 years of high school Spanish rattle in my brain and disrupt learning Japanese.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

I did take Italian in high school and can read quite a bit, but I'm not conversant enough for me to consider it a second language.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

If I were someplace where autumn weather included crisp, cool days and bright fall leaves, I'd consider it very much a "yay" thing. I'm in Seattle. Fall weather includes droopy wet evergreen branches and endless, endless rain.

[gingicat]

Alas, I have no "fun" hats currently. Must fix that.