#languages.

for aramaic, it's canon that he speaks it. how and where he learned it is never explained ( at least, not that i recall ), but for my personal portrayal, it really just makes sense that he knows it. the language dates back to the 3rd millennium bc, so it would've come around in his lifetime and he would've just picked it up naturally. he continues to speak and write it now really just to say he can, given how complex it is and how few people know it as a result.

for bulgarian, it's also canon that he speaks it. he knew it before meeting katerina, as he spoke it and impressed her upon their first meeting. i can't think of any reason in particular he'd know this one, apart from simply learning it upon his travels. he probably knows old and modern bulgarian, given that he was likely in bulgaria in both the 11th and 16th centuries. i don't see him having gone back since the failed sacrifice that took place there, so he wouldn't know any version that was born between now and then.

for latin, he's fluent in them all, helped largely by how much time he's spent in europe ( he had much fun with the roman empire and its exploits ) over the millennia. given how many other languages he speaks that are derived from latin, it only makes sense he's fluent in the original in all its forms. again, still being fluent in archic latin is mainly just for bragging rights, tbh — though he does also feel rather ... wistful or sorrowful at the thought of losing a language to history, and wishes to hold onto it as a result.

for italian, he lived in italy ( and fell in love with stef there hehe ), so he of course learned their language. he knows the main five well ( neapolitan, sicilian, friulian, catalan, sardinian ), but would definitely be rusty to ignorant to the rest. italy holds a lot of memories that are oft difficult to relive, and he's sort of avoided the country ever since.

ahaha i get you, i reblogged it without reading all the questions :P 

8. Write your favorite color in all the languages you know it in.

Bleu (french), Blau (german), azul (spanish) 

22. Have you ever played pokemon in your target language(s)?

I’ve never played pokemon at all ahaha

34. How has learning languages impacted your life?

Ahhh this sounds like an application essay question ahah. I mean, it’s a huge part of my life, it has been since I was a little kid. It’s made my world so much bigger and so much more interesting. It’s added so much more color to my life. I know that all sounds pretty metaphoric, but honestly, my life would be so much emptier without foreign languages. 

49. Do you have any language pet peeves?

I’m not sure exactly what they’re asking for here, but prepositions and subjonctif and cases all drive me up the wall. Also, people thinking I’m some party trick because I can speak French and people constantly commenting on my fb status saying ‘i can almost understand what you said!’ 

more-legit here

First things first, I’ve stated this a few times before and I’ll repeat it: don’t write accents in dialogues. It’s annoying to read and it usually only comes across as a stereotype, often with racist undertones. As a French speaker myself, having to read Fleur Delacour “zis iz” and “zat iz” aggravated me to no end. 

Instead, just use the narration to describe the accent or simply state it is there.

Agnieszka said Colm’s name in her Polish accent and he smiled at the particular music she put into it.

As to broken English, you need to study the way non-native speakers of this particular language speak. The mistakes you make will depend very much on your original language and how advanced you are in English.

Speakers of roman languages like French and Spanish or Italian are unlikely to make that many verb mistakes for example, because roman tenses are more complex than English ones. However, roman languages are gendered, so you can sometimes hear beginners call objects “he” or “she” (you’ll want to check what the gender of that object is in the native language). In French, a table is a she for example. Don’t ask me why. However, be aware that in most such cases, these mistakes come from reflexes you’re trying to unlearn rather than lack of knowledge of the language. So they won’t be consistent. The speaker knows the table is an “it” in English, it’s one of the first things they’ve learnt in school.

I found a list of common mistakes Spanish speakers make here. I remember a Spanish friend of mine making a couple of these mistakes, but only a couple as her English was fairly advanced.

The “false friends” is definitely a big one. I’ve been a fluent English speaker for about 15 years now and I still occasionally catch myself saying “library” when I mean “bookshop”. On the flipside, I also do it more and more the other way around when I speak French for example saying “J’assume” when I mean “Je suppose”, when “assume” in French means taking responsibility for something and not assuming.

What I suggest you do, on top of googling “common mistakes Spanish speakers make in English” is just interacting with Spanish speakers. Maybe you can find a chatroom with Spanish speakers who are learning English? Then when you see mistakes, copy them down and see which ones keep coming back. And you can learn some Spanish too at the same time.

You can also check out the languages tag here and on my own blog if you want to see other posts about this.