How many languages can you speak?

[lisab]

Lisa -

Apache is in the Athapascan group of Languages: Tlingit, Navajo. I can stumble through some Navajo and understand some Jicarilla Apache. Never heard spoken Chiricahua, but I was told they call the language and themselves: "Ndeh". Navajos use "Dine", Tlingit use "Tinne" - at least that's how us Bilagaanas spell it.

Which Apache group was your grandmother? The answer is: where was she born - White River, Dulce, where?
Dayton, Ohio won't work for an answer...

This cross-liguistic feat is because these languages all apparently "broke off" from a common ancestor language recently. So there are lots of similarities between Apache dialects and Navajo. Not because I have any linguistic skills. Whatsoever. When I was failing to learn Navajo, Irvy Goosen used to help me.
https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&fi...h=n:283155,p_27:Irvy Goosen&tag=pfamazon01-20

My wife ran a sort of Trading Post/Store. Every time I went there the Navajo speakers who knew me tried to get me to speak Navajo. They usually ended up convulsed with laughter. Seems I have a career waiting: A Navlish-speaker-comedian.

Anyway, Goosen explained that South Western Athapascan speakers shared a really high number of cognates and nearly identical language structures. Told me, he went North, and could converse with Tlingit speakers fairly well, too.

A large percentage Navajo/Apache "nouns" amount to sentences. Kind of like phrases in English - an absolute literal translation of "duck" would be "it floats on the water". Snake == "it slithers"; mice == "they scrabble at night".

So when you say something in English and it takes xxxx long, if you translate to Apache it becomes xxxxxxxxx long.

I'm not sure but I think my great-grandma was born in or near Fort Sill. Is your wife Apache or Navajo?

I was told Apaches call themselves N'De (or something like that) which translates to something like, "Us Folk" . Sounds very similar to Ndeh!

 

[aquitaine]

English is my native language, but I can speak Mandarin Chinese as a second language as well as read hanzi, though I'm a bit rusty.EDIT: Oh yeah, I also learned a little bit of German in high school a long time ago, but I forgot almost all of it. Not sure if that counts.

 

[YurtaevEngr]

English and also Russian but not as well as English.

 

[L4xord]

I can only fluently speak in one language (English) but I am essentially fluent in reading French (though sometimes I require a dictionary for in depth material)and my own conlang. I also know a little bit of spanish and can also read (and communicate with some trouble) to a pretty good degree in Latin.

 

[Gliese123]

That'd be two and a half. Haha. No but
1. Swedish - Fluent
2. English - Conversational to almost advanced
3. French - Just a few sentences. I read it for a rather long time in school but eventually gave up. Most likely due to the lacking of the language's availability in my everyday life.

 

[Ashera]

I can speak 3: Chinese Mandarin, French and English.

 

[gfd43tg]

English is my native language, but I can converse fairly competently in Spanish as well

 

[E7.5]

I am a native English speaker but I don't even speak English well. So maybe like half a language?

 

[lisab]

I am a native English speaker but I don't even speak English well. So maybe like half a language?

Sometimes I say, "Sorry, English is not my first language. But unfortunately it's the only language I know."

 

[drizzle]

Haha! I like that lisab.

 

[Tosh5457]

Portuguese (native), Spanish and English.

 

[jbunniii]

Native English, y un poco de español, und ein bißchen Deutsch.

 

[jaredvert]

je parle un Peu le Francais et je apprendrai Latin aussi

 

[adjacent]

Native English, y un poco de español, und ein bißchen Deutsch.

I have never seen that kind of English
Mine is Math 11234 124 355 46 324 ∏535 ψ24 ∞

Do you know what I mean?

Anyway, I know 2 languages,my native language and English.

 

[Dr.Mobius]

I speak English of course, but that's about it. I'd love to learn Greek and Old Norse, though, just for the hell of it. I'd like to live in Norway, so I should probably learn Norwegian at some point, but then again, I'm trying to become a Particle Physicist so maybe I should plan to learn French and head to Geneva instead... Oh, and I started learning Russian in middle school, but never got around to getting into it, and I feel obligated to finish that at some point.

So, to wrap up, out of the five or so languages I want to/probably should speak, I can actually only speak one. Success? Nope. :(

 

[StatGuy2000]

I can speak 2 languages: English and Japanese (fluent in spoken language only -- I'm not completely fluent in the written language). I studied French in school and can still understand the written language to a certain degree, but am not especially fluent in the spoken language.

 

[jtbell]

English is what I started with.

German is my best foreign language. I studied it in high school and college, spent a semester in Germany on a study-abroad program, and have visited Germany several times since, partly because my wife teaches German and has friends there.

Finnish is my second-best. I studied it on my own, sat in on an intermediate Finnish class in grad school, and have visited Finland a few times. I have relatives there.

Bringing up the rear are Spanish (a couple of years in high school) and Russian (some self-study).

 

[lendav_rott]

Estonian (native), English, Russian and then Italian, French, Japanese - not that good at them, but I know enough to talk to people. All of them are self taught simply because taking classes is too slow.

 

[Mordred]

English and American sign lanquage

 

[Czcibor]

Warning: I strongly advice you to forget that you know Russian. It can be re-used as pretext for invasion by Putin.

;)

 

[konghouyun]

English Chinese Cantonese and a little Japanese and Vietnamese. ..

 

[WWGD]

English, Spanish, French, and a bit of German. I know a little Greek-- the one who works at the corner deli.

 

[Chronos]

Does pig latin in ancient latin count?

 

[Beelzebub]

And what about Klingon?

 

[Matterwave]

Just English and Mandarin

 

[ShayanJ]

Just English and Mandarin

Wow...I wouldn't use "just" if I knew how to speak mandarin!

Anyway, I only know Persian(my mother language) and English and am fluent in both!(Which is of course not very surprising about the first!)

I like to know more languages though. My first choice is German actually because of the huge influence of Germans in the early history of modern physics.

Though I sometimes think about French too.

 

[Blackberg]

Why is this a sticky?

 

[Raghav Gupta]

Really like your responses @SW VandeCarr . You were having a long debate with BrainStorm and that debate was really brainstorming me with that lengthy replies.
Yeah, it's better to learn other languages when you are actually migrating to a country or to a new place because there is much to learn in a language. Besides there is a key role of accent also, which may separate you from native people.

I know Hindi my native language, also know gujarati( in terms of understanding, writing but not speaking as I make lot of grammatical mistakes sometimes{ learned by residing in Gujarat}) and obviously English.
English is taught in our school on regular basis as it is an universal language and everybody must know that.

 

[Medicol]

I can speak 8 languages: English, Hindi, Arabian, Persian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Vietnamese.

I am learning Spainish and French at the moment and thinking about German as my next choice.

 

[Jupiter5]

Croatian
German
English