I'm also just a bit jealous of her, as she speaks (or at least writes) excellent English and Russian and is a native speaker of Swedish. Swedish is on my list of "Languages to Learn".
Speaking of "the list", here's the current version (ranked in order of urgency):
- Russian
- Tatar
- Spanish
- French/Swedish (tie)
Tatar, I would like to learn, because that's the native language of two of my siblings (although they haven't ever spoken it fluently--they came home when they were 3 and 4 years-old.) Also, a few of my freinds back "home" speak Tatar, so it'd be nice to be able to speak that with them too (even though they speak Russian also).
I technically already speak Spanish, almost to the point that I would claim it, but I'm nowhere near fluent and have actually gotten quite rusty lately. Amusing tidbit, during my final Russian oral exam, I answered one of the questions partially in Russian and partially in Spanish and didn't even realize. My instructor, Zarema, had to tell me (in English) that I'd responded in Spanish.
French and Swedish are tied, because neither one is a "must-do", but both would be nice to learn. French would be useful at my job (nobody in my office speaks French, and many of our customers are Quebecois French speakers). Plus, I figure that if I can pronounce all of those nasal and swallowed sounds that occur in French, I've got pretty much any non-tonal (I'm tone deaf--so much for Mandarin) accent nailed. And that's pretty much where my interest in French ends. I'd like to learn Swedish because my globe-trotting friend, Karin, speaks Swedish as her mother tongue (she's also fluent in English--it's almost a second mother tongue) and learning about the culture from her has been a lot of fun (fika anyone?!)
