The International/Bilingual Appreciation Thread

[Mary]

I’m white, and half of my family is from rural Virginia. There’s not really much to say about that, and I’d rather forget that part of me exists tbh. The other half is from New Orleans though, so there are lots of cool traditions and recipes passed down to me from that side.
My boyfriend’s background is super cool - his parents are Thai and African/Indian and he was raised Buddhist and Muslim. They came to the US, met here, and had him and his sisters. Unfortunately, his dad’s not much of a talker, and his mom doesn’t speak a ton of English (and he can’t speak any other languages) so he hasn’t had the opportunity to learn that much about his own culture(s), and I think that makes him a little sad.

 

[acnh.eclipse]

I’m white, and half of my family is from rural Virginia. There’s not really much to say about that, and I’d rather forget that part of me exists tbh. The other half is from New Orleans though, so there are lots of cool traditions and recipes passed down to me from that side.
My boyfriend’s background is super cool - his parents are Thai and African/Indian and he was raised Buddhist and Muslim. They came to the US, met here, and had him and his sisters. Unfortunately, his dad’s not much of a talker, and his mom doesn’t speak a ton of English (and he can’t speak any other languages) so he hasn’t had the opportunity to learn that much about his own culture(s), and I think that makes him a little sad.

I was also raised as a devout Buddhist, and I still am! Religion is so important and make a person who they are!

 

[acnh.eclipse]

bump

 

[cannedcommunism]

so my background isn't necessarily "diverse" (Irish on both sides) but I've always appreciated other cultures, particularly Eastern European and Middle Eastern. generally my exposure to other backgrounds is through music, and I really enjoy listening to music from other countries and seeing the variety of influences and genres. other than English, I speak proficient French (not fluent but just enough to get by) and I'm currently studying Arabic in college. I also want to eventually learn a bunch of other less common languages (particularly Greek, Serbian, Georgian, etc.) and I know I 100% sound super pretentious but it's always been an interest of mine

 

[Ace Marvel]

I'm 1/2 Spanish, 1/4 Mexican and 1/4 Swiss from my grandparents, both my mom and dad born in Mexico and so did I, but I'm white as white can be, which is kinda funny, because every time I go to a touristic place, they try to scam me. I know how to speak English and Spanish fluently. I am really into Kpop so I'm trying to learn Korean, but that is a personal choice.

 

[acnh.eclipse]

I'm 1/2 Spanish, 1/4 Mexican and 1/4 Swiss from my grandparents, both my mom and dad born in Mexico and so did I, but I'm white as white can be, which is kinda funny, because every time I go to a touristic place, they try to scam me. I know how to speak English and Spanish fluently. I am really into Kpop so I'm trying to learn Korean, but that is a personal choice.

I think K-pop is a good driving factor to learn Korean, you'll be able to practise it or try and know what words their singing which will make it easier to learn Korean!

so my background isn't necessarily "diverse" (Irish on both sides) but I've always appreciated other cultures, particularly Eastern European and Middle Eastern. generally my exposure to other backgrounds is through music, and I really enjoy listening to music from other countries and seeing the variety of influences and genres. other than English, I speak proficient French (not fluent but just enough to get by) and I'm currently studying Arabic in college. I also want to eventually learn a bunch of other less common languages (particularly Greek, Serbian, Georgian, etc.) and I know I 100% sound super pretentious but it's always been an interest of mine

I did try and write in Arabic once (I had a friend from Egypt) but I failed really bad! The characters are so hard to write in my opinion. But I hope you've the hang of it! And yeah Arabian music is so calming to me!

 

[Xeleron]

I'm 1/2 Spanish, 1/4 Mexican and 1/4 Swiss from my grandparents, both my mom and dad born in Mexico and so did I, but I'm white as white can be, which is kinda funny, because every time I go to a touristic place, they try to scam me. I know how to speak English and Spanish fluently. I am really into Kpop so I'm trying to learn Korean, but that is a personal choice.

Lol can relate, even when you tell them you aren't a tourist or that you're from a city in MX in Spanish, they'll still try to sell you something with very broken English because.. well.. you're white. It only happened to me once because I don't travel to many touristic places. (It was in Puerto Vallarta, so I don't blame the guy)

 

[Luxsama]

I'm 100% Filipino and trillingual, (Tagalog, English and one other native filipino language). Yesterday I had a moment in the car where I was deep in thought about how I know what 'red' is in tagalog but I don't know what blue is??? I was honestly rummaging through my brain and I still couldn't figure it out the only thing that kept coming was azul because of freaking Dora (in her voice too) and I'm not sure if it's the same in Tagalog (or my native language I don't know anymore they're all mixed in my brain) because most words are just misspelled Spanish

My boyfriend has never looked so concerned for me before LOL

A similar thing happened to me! I moved to the US from the Philippines when I was younger (6 years old I think), my brother and I were both pretty fluent in Tagalog and English since we used both in PH and also lived in Singapore for a while. I asked my mom recently why they didn't continue speaking to us in Tagalog, at least at home, and she said it was because the school recommended that they speak only English to help us adjust to America (like kids can't be bilingual?). So we've forgotten over the years, even she's annoyed at that advice and says she shouldn't have listened because we really would've been fine.

My school told my mom this too when we first moved to Canada, but since I was in a private school (we get 'punished' for speaking Tagalog outside of Tagalog class) back home I already knew English but that wasn't good enough I guess?

My little sister is half filipino and half german, since she lived in Canada till she was 8, she learned how to speak English. She's in Germany now and learned the language in a year, she speaks it fluently since my stepfather talks to her in German but my Mom talks to her in English and me and my brother talk to her in Tagalog so she knows quite a bit too. It's crazy how children easily learn languages but it's the constant exposure that helps them keep it.

 

[ab_i07]

I’m half English (Dads side) and half Filipino (mums side). I speak both languages fluently and can sort of understand Spanish. I also learnt French for over a decade- I would say I’m semi fluent. I’d love to go further back in my ancestry and see what other nationalities I could be a small percentage of.

 

[InstantNoodles]

I'm from Hong Kong and I would say my first languages are English and Cantonese, while I learned Mandarin a bit later on and know some amount of Japanese. I've done the ancestry test but perhaps unsurprisingly I'm 90+% Chinese with a bit of Vietnamese!

 

[acnh.eclipse]

What language do you all play acnh in? I'm struggling to pick one, opinions?

 

[Xeleron]

What language do you all play acnh in? I'm struggling to pick one, opinions?

English, I was debating for the longest time whether to set it to Spanish but I'm kinda glad I didn't... or I would've had to have learned two sets of names (although I think some do remain the same).

 

[acnh.eclipse]

English, I was debating for the longest time whether to set it to Spanish but I'm kinda glad I didn't... or I would've had to learned two sets of names (although I think some do remain the same).

Yeah, I guess. I've been debating between Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Dutch as there is no Portuguese or Tamil option

 

[Xeleron]

Yeah, I guess. I've been debating between Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Dutch as there is no Portuguese or Tamil option

It would be cool to have it in Japanese since it's the og language of the game. I think you said you were fluent in all of those languages, if so, I would pick the one I felt was my weakest one to practice or touchup on.

 

[SublimeDonut]

I don't know if that's what this thread is supposed to be about, oops. I'm just Brazilian, no mixed families or anything fun like that. But I learned English so naturally and early in my life it feels like a native tongue to me. What got me into it was Animal Crossing Wild World, which I started playing at six. There's no Portuguese translation so I was forced to learn a few words to navegate the game, and then some words lead to others, I got New Leaf, and AC pretty much singlehandedly taught me another language

 

[acnh.eclipse]

English was the last language I learnt, and i too learnt English language from Ac

 

[NyattaSama]

I was born and raised in China but came to the US for college and grad school. I have been in the US for more than six years now and a lot of people thought I was a native English speaker, so I would proudly say that I am fluent in both English and Mandarin. Interestingly enough, I started to lose the ability to have a coherent Mandarin conversation without popping in a few English words. I also dream in English most of the time as well lol.

I play ACNH in Simplified Chinese. It's interesting to see the difference between English and Chinese puns/jokes when you catch a fish or bug. Also, most Chinese translations are closer to the original Japanese words, especially villager names. There's a lot of difference between the Chinese and English versions of the game that whenever I trade with or talk to people who play the game in English, I have to constantly look up the in-game translations for almost everything.

 

[acnh.eclipse]

Found out I have some Vietnamese blood in me

 

[Xeleron]

Found out I have some Vietnamese blood in me

You have an extremely diverse background! I was meaning to ask, about the Portuguese you speak, I assume it is portugués europeo? Would you know the differences between portugués europeo and portugués brasileño?

Also, going back on the whole "what language to play the game in?". I recently changed my phone settings from English to Spanish because I haven't had them in Spanish in a while... and my Nintendo Switch Online app also changed the language... for a sec. I was very confused about who these names belonged to lol (I'm so glad we have their pictures on there as well)

Spoiler

What language did you end up going with?

 

[acnh.eclipse]

You have an extremely diverse background! I was meaning to ask, about the Portuguese you speak, I assume it is portugués europeo? Would you know the differences between portugués europeo and portugués brasileño?

Also, going back on the whole "what language to play the game in?". I recently changed my phone settings from English to Spanish because I haven't had them in Spanish in a while... and my Nintendo Switch Online app also changed the language... for a sec. I was very confused about who these names belonged to lol (I'm so glad we have their pictures on there as well)

Spoiler

View attachment 274959

What language did you end up going with?

Falo português europeu e decidi jogar o jogo em língua coreana. Estava a falar com alguém que conhecia o português brasileiro mas só conhecia o português europeu, que nos conhecíamos, mas algumas palavras estavam um pouco fora de si