Does anybody know how to speak luxembourgish?

Question

I want to learn the language.

Answer 1

Luxembourgish is either a language closely related to German or a dialect of (High) German depending on who you ask. If you want to learn it you should start by learning German, and from there Luxembourgish will be easier to pick up.

Answer 2

If you learn German in Zurich and pronounce it with a Marseilles accent you are not far off.

If you type your question in German and post it in international Yahoo!Answers you will probably get more useful answers.

Answer 3

It's one of the Germanic languages, you might start with German and let your teacher know for what you are looking.

Answer 4

Well, many people in Luxembourg probably do.

Only 300,000 people in the entire world speak it.

So good luck!

(Q - What do you mean no such thing? They speak it in Luxembourg!)

Answer 5

Luxembourgish is very close to German, much closer than Dutch, you can even consider it as some kind of dialect of German.

If you speak German you can understand most of written Luxembourgish.

Look at this website for example:

http://www.rtl.lu/home.rtl

There's a poll on the right side. With knowledge of German you can understand most of it.

"Ëmfro

German: Umfrage

SCHUEBERFOUER 2008: Um Glacis a$s dëser Deeg nees eng méi lass. Wat halt Dir vun der gréisster Kiermes am Land?

German: In Glacis ist dieser Tage (irgendwas) los. Was haltet ihr von der größten Kirmes im Land?

Ech fanne si mega cool a ginn direkt e puer Mol dohin.

German: Ich finde sie mega-cool und gehe direkt ein paar mal dahin.

D'Fouer a$s ok an ech wëll sécher 1 Mol kucke goen.

German: Die Feier ist OK und ich will sicher 1 Mal gucken gehen.

Ech si kee Fouer-Fan a ginn op kee Fall dohin.

German: Ich bin kein Feier-Fan und gehe auf keinen Fall dahin."

This example shows very well how close these 2 languages are.

So I would consider learning German first. You will find *much* more opportunities to learn German (I doubt that there are any Luxembourgish courses at all in most countries) and it's a good base for understanding and learning Luxembourgish later.

EDIT: I had to change a certain word to 'a$s' because otherwise the stupid Yahoo software seems to censor it!

Answer 6

I take back what I said...I didn't know that language existed!

Answer 7

There are less than half a million people in the whole country (duchy, rather), so good luck finding someone.  Meanwhile, you might want to try this (it's free):

http://www.byki.com/fls/free-luxembourgi...

Answer 8

no such thing? pffft its spoken in west central germany and yeah they have a population of about 300000. some people in france and belguim speak it to