Lingusitics How many foreign languages do you speak/read?

[xiaoxiao]

My native language is Chinese and I speak English. Can understand some Japanese and Korean as well.

 

[mattmns]

Vodka, Chess, what more could you ask for?

My Russian instructor told us last semester about a tradition at his university: When he was in college all men were required to take a military class, and during the final for this class everyone would pitch in and buy a bunch of bottles of vodka and put them under the military instructor's desk, and if there was enough vodka the instructor would go easy on grading the final However, a few years after he left the tradition ended, and I think he said military class is no longer mandatory for men anymore.

 

[whitay]

I speak fluent Australian English. G'day Mate. However I'm learning German as much as I can before I leave for Germany in 16 days. I find as I keep learning reading German becomes easier, but speaking I'm unsure of and constructing a good sentence is quite daunting. I watch TV shows in German to see if i can improve my listening skills. I am usually picking words and never getting a full sentence. My ability to speak and understand German is quite worrying since I have 16days before my 11month exchange there.

Therefore I'm going to say I can only really speak one language.

 

[tehno]

okay am I the only one for three? Proofs how old I am. In the dark ages of the educational system in the Netherlands, it was mandatory to study three foreign languages (German, French, English) with the philosophy that a small country has a lot of foreign neighbours. German and French are not a problem, but English..

Congrats.
But I see Pool results votes say 6 members (~20%) have already voted for '3 or more foreign languages' option!That's quite fantastic if I may say.

 

[z-component]

English is native language, can read/write/speak competent French.

 

[Bladibla]

English English and Korean.

 

[BobG]

I speak fluent Australian English. G'day Mate. However I'm learning German as much as I can before I leave for Germany in 16 days. I find as I keep learning reading German becomes easier, but speaking I'm unsure of and constructing a good sentence is quite daunting. I watch TV shows in German to see if i can improve my listening skills. I am usually picking words and never getting a full sentence. My ability to speak and understand German is quite worrying since I have 16days before my 11month exchange there.

Therefore I'm going to say I can only really speak one language.

I sympathize completely. If you have to translate back to your native language, you're lost - you're always listening too slow to keep up. I think you probably have to be able to think in a foreign language if you hope to keep up - something I've never been able to do with short trips.

I imagine the getting around will be pretty exhausting for a little while. It's hard when you have to actually think about every 'normally' trivial step of anything you do. And then there's always that deer in the headlights look when you ask for a stamp and the clerk rattles off every option of stamp you can choose from. It's a little overwhelming for a while.

 

[turbo]

I could probably get back up to speed in both French and German in relatively short order, if necessary. My native tongue is American English, and I grew up in a French-Canadian family (though I was not encouraged to speak French because my family wanted me to be more integrated with the English-speakers in my schools). I took a couple of semesters of German in college and was invited to the the department-head's annual party (beer, sausages, cheeses, etc), as a rookie, so I must have been doing OK...

 

[marlon]

My native language is Dutch but i am fluent in English and French. I am quite good in Italian and i understand some German.

marlon

 

[J77]

I'm currently learning Dutch and I can get by in France with my high school French

 

[griefcrack]

Mandarin is my native language, I can also speak a few dialects i.e cantonese and hokien.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I'm fluent in two languages...American English and British English (brilliant!).

I learned Spanish in college, but haven't used it in so long, I'd be hard-pressed to construct a single sentence anymore. I used to be pretty good at understanding spoken Spanish (having been immersed in it by association with a Spanish-speaking friend and all her Spanish-speaking family and acquaintances), but was never very good at speaking it.

I used to be able to read Latin too, but that's not very useful for anything other than knowing the origin of medical/anatomical terms.

Really so if I said say,whay aye lass, divn you no nothing aboot how we speak arund here like? It's like we use tha proper words withuwt the proper dialects. If tha likes to speak jordie that's greet like. Propar English not like them suthern poofs speak liyk all lad de da liyk. Real propar talk like what I speak divn tha no.

Believe me if you spoke to some people in some locations you'd need a phrase book

 

[marlon]

I'm currently learning Dutch and I can get by in France with my high school French

Je leert dus Nederlands, straf. Ik hoor immers dat dit niet direct de gemakkelijkste taal is om te leren.

Groetjes

marlon

 

[J77]

Je leert dus Nederlands, straf. Ik hoor immers dat dit niet direct de gemakkelijkste taal is om te leren.

Groetjes

marlon

Definitely not, especially when you use complex sentences like that!

I'm more at the level of:

Ik leer Nederlands te spreken.

You know - concentrating on putting the second verb to the end

 

[marlon]

I'm more at the level of:

Ik leer Nederlands te spreken.

The "te" is not supposed to be there :shy:
Ik leer Nederlands spreken or Ik leer OM Nederlands TE spreken.

You know - concentrating on putting the second verb to the end

yeah, that is very important.

marlon

 

[Andre]

Right, nasi goreng, in Holland, with a Heineken beer, by the "afhaal Chinees", translated, "the pickup Chinese".
How more Dutch can you get!

So Dutch is indeed multi cultural. Heineken beer BTW is the most Dutch beer around. Freddy Heineken is the godfather who built the imperium.

Nasi Goreng is "Dutch", not Chinese but Dutch as in the colonial history. nasi goreng it is the national dish of Indonesia. The relationship between the two countries stopped shortly after WW-II but the Dutch culture is still influenced by that colonial past. Nasi goreng is just kidnapped by the Chinese

 

[Apost8]

Native language is English; however, I also speak German fairly well, though I'm a little rusty.

 

[xnick]

My native language is Spanish. I speak/read English, and read French and Portuguese.

 

[Kurdt]

Je leert dus Nederlands, straf. Ik hoor immers dat dit niet direct de gemakkelijkste taal is om te leren.

Groetjes

marlon

Ahh Dutch. When will you stop pretending its a real language and speak Hochdeutsch?

*Runs and hides*

 

[Andre]

Hochdeutsch? Das redet man nur in die Schweiz.

Grüß Gott

 

[Kurdt]

Hochdeutsch? Das redet man nur in die Schweiz.

Grüß Gott

..Oder wann man Helium Eingeatmet hat.

 

[brewnog]

Really so if I said say,whay aye lass, divn you no nothing aboot how we speak arund here like? It's like we use tha proper words withuwt the proper dialects. If tha likes to speak jordie that's greet like. Propar English not like them suthern poofs speak liyk all lad de da liyk. Real propar talk like what I speak divn tha no.

Believe me if you spoke to some people in some locations you'd need a phrase book

I was with a geordie in Cambridge a few years ago, trying to give directions to an American tourist. The geordie was genuinely trying to help, but the American thought the Brit was taking the piss. A scouser turned up after a while and joined in, that really confused the poor yank! I think another American came to her aid in the end...

Geordie is number 3 in my top ten list of global sexy accents.

 

[Kurdt]

Geordie is number 3 in my top ten list of global sexy accents.

Trust me its awful, and I was born on the banks of the Tyne.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I was with a geordie in Cambridge a few years ago, trying to give directions to an American tourist. The geordie was genuinely trying to help, but the American thought the Brit was taking the piss. A scouser turned up after a while and joined in, that really confused the poor yank! I think another American came to her aid in the end...

Geordie is number 3 in my top ten list of global sexy accents.

Ay ay like what he's sayin is that you wann go down dere past the boook shop and then ed right up to the traffic lights kay? Sound as a pound mate.Well Aye man that's what I said? Enter the Glaswegian: Perfect comedy sketch would be a procession of dialects trying to explain it while the tourist got more and more bemused, ending up walking off no more enlightened than before.

 

[J77]

The "te" is not supposed to be there :shy:

Damn - I knew that - compared to English you have quite concise sentence structures, hoor

As far as the Northern talk above - the other day my gf was translating a poem written in your Northern tongue - when I say translating, I had to do a bit of it - she comes from the Sarf coast

 

[vanesch]

My native tongue is Dutch. As I live in France and my wife is French, at home and mostly at my job I speak french. I think I'm quite fluent in english too. I speak and read german, but less fluently now because of lack of practice, but I did spend 8 years of my early life in Germany.

I took some courses in Japanese and Norwegian, but I forgot next to everything.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Damn - I knew that - compared to English you have quite concise sentence structures, hoor

As far as the Northern talk above - the other day my gf was translating a poem written in your Northern tongue - when I say translating, I had to do a bit of it - she comes from the Sarf coast

yore avin a larf aint you geezer I was raised in Kent: completely accentless, so I only have a trace of the Portsmouth accent.

 

[marlon]

Damn - I knew that - compared to English you have quite concise sentence structures, hoor

The "hoor" is very correct.

But yes, i can imagine that the sentence building in Dutch and German is very difficult for a foreigner. English and the Roman languages are much easier in that respect.

marlon

 

[Robert Mak]

I speak chinese, english and spanish.

 

[ekakio]

wow? anyone who comes from China? My native language is Chinese, but I am really fluent in English, Janpanese, Spanish. and I am studing the Russian for beginning at these period. and I do believe that French is waitting for me somewhere in my heart...
Good luck...

 

[alt]

wow? anyone who comes from China? My native language is Chinese, but I am really fluent in English, Janpanese, Spanish. and I am studing the Russian for beginning at these period. and I do believe that French is waitting for me somewhere in my heart...
Good luck...

Chinese native and fluent in another three, AND wanting more ?

WOW ! That's fantastic - good for you.

Are you doing this out of pure interest in languages ?

 

[Danger]

To speak true English English you must also know the difference between a toucan crossing, a pegasus crossing, and a puffin crossing.

I'm legally exempt from the first two. It's far too cold here for toucans, and it's almost impossible to recognize a pegasus any more. Their wings are surgically removed immediately after they're born to eliminate the need for custom-made saddles. Puffins are a nuisance, but we tolerate them.

I'm unilingual: I speak Canuk. That's a peculiar mix of English and Yank, with very strong influences from Scotland and Ireland. Despite our being officially bilingual, I never learned French.
I started home-studying Russian a few decades back, but had to quit when I got to the tape part of the lessons. I couldn't read lips on my cassette player.

 

[Insanity]

American English is my native language.
I had Spanish during high school and was fairly proficient with it at the time. Since then my skill has degraded.

I have started to learn German as I plan on traveling to Germany in a year or so to visit a friend who is stationed there with the USAF at Ramstein.

I also learned a bit of Quenya & Sindarin as well as Klingon.

I would like to learn Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi and Sanskrit as I have an interest in history.

 

[Siberion]

My native language is spanish. I've taught myself english. Still improving, though.

I also know how to insult in portuguese and swedish, if that counts. (Had some problem with those boys...)

 

[epenguin]

Native English. Fluent French and Italian. Can follow Spanish (seems easier when Latin American) and have even lectured in it. Have done courses in German and Russian but it has mostly slipped away. Recently tried quite seriously in Japanese but that too seems to have slipped away, but intend restart soon. Its difficulty seems much overstated and it lacks the perversities of several of the other languages mentioned.

 

[mugaliens]

I attempted to learn German while overseas, but none of the Germans with whom I was friends would stand for it. They all wanted to practice their English!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I attempted to learn German while overseas, but none of the Germans with whom I was friends would stand for it. They all wanted to practice their English!

It's just as well. I found it quite difficult to get them to understand their own language.

 

[FrancisZ]

To quote Eddie Izzard: "Meanwhile, most English speaking people, are like: 'Two languages in one head; who could live at that speed?!"


I regret, I do not speak any language other than English. I studied Italian in high school (and I can count and tell time, as such); and I took Latin in college (which, although "dead" I still respect immensely).

I'm very tempted to splurge on Rosetta Stone. If only they had Klingon.

 

[gk007]

My native language is English English, but I can also speak German and Telugu (an Indian language) as well as some French and Spanish.

O, and you also need to know the difference between a pelican crossing and a puffin crossing.

 

[FrancisZ]

Any thoughts on Esperanto?

 

[Danger]

Coincidentally, I just received this as an e-mail from a friend.



The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c".. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f".. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.[/color]



It's not quite Esperanto...

 

[FrancisZ]

Coincidentally, I just received this as an e-mail from a friend...

...It's not quite Esperanto...

That's awesome.