• Question: What other languages can you speak?

    Asked by RoRo to Susan, Rob, Rebecca, Josh, Chris on 19 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by pippa.
    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      French, which I learned at school, and German, which I learned while working in Hamburg. I read them better than I speak them – I have no ear for accent. I can also just about read Latin, in which I have an A at O-grade (GCSE, roughly), but I’m about 40 years out of practice. I’m trying to learn Japanese but haven’t got beyond hello/goodbye/thank you.

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      I don’t speak any other languages very well but when I go to a new country I make sure that I can say a few things like “hello” and “one of those please” and “thank you very much”. I think it’s really important.

      I did French and German at school but I think I’ve used German more than French so I remember more of that, but other languages I’ve picked up little bits of are: Italian, Japanese, Greek, Russian and Hebrew. I like alphabets a lot so I’ve tried to learn to read those – even just to be able to understand road signs!

      I also use British Sign Language quite a lot with my research participants, but I’m still not very fluent.

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