Lingusitics How many languages can you speak?

[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

 

[Soniteflash]

German
English
French
Vietnamese

 

[FRK]

I can speak 4 languages.

 

[manogyana25]

Hindi
Telugu
English
A little danish..

 

[WWGD]

Hindi
Telugu
English
A little danish..

I like a little Danish. I have one with coffee every morning ;).

 

[manogyana25]

I like a little Danish. I have one with coffee every morning ;).

Oh that's great..!

 

[mark_later]

speak what ever language but that of your wife :)

 

[Siv]

4 languages ... English, Tamil, Hindi and Bengali.

 

[Rippetherocker]

4. Trying to learn spanish.

 

[tom aaron]

4. Trying to learn spanish.

I grew up in Alsace so French is my first language. In my town on the border we all spoke and read German. English since immigrating to western Canada.

I took a year of Russian in university but forget most of it.

 

[UchihaClan13]

English
Japanese
Bengali
Hindi

 

[Sophia]

Slovak, Czech
Serbian,
Russian
English
I've studied French, German and Spanish for one year but don't remember much
Is would be cool to learn Arabic or Chinese

And I speak the language of honesty which is foreign to many people (lame, but couldn't resist )

 

[Psinter]

And I speak the language of honesty which is foreign to many people

I speak it too! Everybody bow to that language now.

 

[Silicon Waffle]

Years ago when I was working for Global Link, I had a chance to work on Arabic websites. It was a challenge to coordinate displayed information and bug-fix browsers' compatibility issues in each page. . Very fascinating anyway!
BTW, I can speak a few foreign languages and except English, none of the rest I guess are concerned much in my current and future jobs. So English I think is enough and I will try to learn it more.

 

[Sophia]

Years ago when I was working for Global Link, I had a chance to work on Arabic websites. It was a challenge to coordinate displayed information and bug-fix browsers' compatibility issues in each page. . Very fascinating anyway!
BTW, I can speak a few foreign languages and except English, none of the rest I guess are concerned much in my current and future jobs. So English I think is enough and I will try to learn it more.

Wow it must have been quite challenging to fix bugs in Arabic! Though to be honest, all programming languages look like alien hieroglyphs to me
Is it an advantage to speak any other languages than English in your area? Maybe Japanese or Chinese?
Here, it's a plus to speak German and I regret that I haven't studied it properly when I had a chance. So I start to study it from time to time on my own but always give up after a few weeks. I need a big angry teacher with a whip to motivate me :-D

 

[Silicon Waffle]

...
Is it an advantage to speak any other languages than English in your area? Maybe Japanese or Chinese?

Yes, many more may be required depending on the jobs. It's better to be able to speak some Japanese or Chinese if I work for a Japanese or Chinese company.

Here, it's a plus to speak German and I regret that I haven't studied it properly when I had a chance. So I start to study it from time to time on my own but always give up after a few weeks. I need a big angry teacher with a whip to motivate me :-D

What a pity! But sure I never expect to have such a teacher.

I won't change my mind, I will not learn any other languages except English.

 

[UchihaClan13]

It's good to learn japanese
You are introduced to the intricacies of a new,complex and rich language which is enriched with proverbs,idioms,sayings etc...UchihaClan13

 

[Silicon Waffle]

It's good to learn japanese
You are introduced to the intricacies of a new,complex and rich language which is enriched with proverbs,idioms,sayings etc...
UchihaClan13

How rich and many are they ?

 

[UchihaClan13]

Well i am not a native japanese/speaker
I only lived in japan for 8 years before coming to India(I do miss japan)
As far as i can remember,there are more than 50 proverbs which were taught to me in 3rd grade itself
And don't even get me started with the richness of these proverbs??
All of them underline something deeper and touch an aspect which motivates humanity to work towards development:)UchihaClan13

 

[Sophia]

This sitcom series could be useful for those trying to revise German Level A1-A2

 

[HossamCFD]

I'm only fluent in English and (Egyptian) Arabic.
I understand Standard Arabic (written and spoken) almost perfectly, but can't really speak it without making more grammatical mistakes than actual words in a given sentence. I also can't help but giggle whenever I have to speak it, it sounds as if I'm giving a speech in the parliament.

I tried learning German for 2 years but we didn't get along too well. I was alright with the pronunciation but the cases and the three genders proved too challenging for my simple mind. I learned French for most of my childhood to the extent that I studied science and maths in French but sadly I can't remember much of it. I can still read it with an acceptable accent though whenever I want to sound a bit of a snob

 

[Sophia]

I'm only fluent in English and (Egyptian) Arabic.
I understand Standard Arabic (written and spoken) almost perfectly, but can't really speak it without making more grammatical mistakes than actual words in a given sentence. I also can't help but giggle whenever I have to speak it, it sounds as if I'm giving a speech in the parliament.

I tried learning German for 2 years but we didn't get along too well. I was alright with the pronunciation but the cases and the three genders proved too challenging for my simple mind. I learned French for most of my childhood to the extent that I studied science and maths in French but sadly I can't remember much of it. I can still read it with an acceptable accent though whenever I want to sound a bit of a snob

So is Arabic easier for you to understand than German (if we forget about speaking)? That's interesting considering the fact that Arabic is from a different language family and uses different alphabet than English. German genders and cases are truly difficult! We have genders too, but the problem is that German genders are different than ours (eg their das Buch is neuter, but ours is female) so it gets sooo confusing :)
I just read an interesting post on another site today and one guy who speaks many languages said that for him, German and Arabic are the most beautiful and deep languages in the world.

 

[HossamCFD]

So is Arabic easier for you to understand than German (if we forget about speaking)? That's interesting considering the fact that Arabic is from a different language family and uses different alphabet than English.

I imagine Arabic would be a lot more difficult than German if you try to learn it as a foreign language. I wouldn't know for sure, Arabic is my native language. I would say that the Alphabet isn't the hardest part. It's almost as long as the English Alphabet and you could probably get used to it in a couple of days. You can also train your hand to write from right to left rather than the other way around relatively easily. Everything else is quite different from any European language though. The grammar is quite challenging, sentences tend to be very long, and you can have whole sentences without any verb.

The situation is actually a bit more complicated and requires some explaining. Standard Arabic* is the official and written language in almost all 22 Arabic countries (not sure about Somalia and Comoros). However, you can hardly find anyone who speaks it natively. People speak local dialects (there's about 5 families of them) in their everyday use and you can hear standard Arabic only in prepared speech such as presidential appearances and what not. For political and religious reasons none of the dialects has been standardised in written format or adopted as an official language. So you end up with the bizarre situation that you speak a language that you can't write and you write in a language that you're not native in.

I just read an interesting post on another site today and one guy who speaks many languages said that for him, German and Arabic are the most beautiful and deep languages in the world.

That's very interesting. I tried before to form an opinion on what's the most beautiful language I know but couldn't really work out how to do so. I'm not great with languages in general and I can barely express my thoughts in an intelligible way. I would say though that standard Arabic can be vague and playful which makes it an ideal language for poetry, but a nightmare if you want to use it to be precise, for instance in scientific discourse.

*By standard Arabic I mean both Modern Standard Arabic and Classical (Quranic) Arabic. Arabs in general don't recognise a difference between the two and they're both referred to as Al-Fusha (the eloquent). The distinction is almost exclusive to western linguists.

 

[Sophia]

The situation is actually a bit more complicated and requires some explaining. Standard Arabic* is the official and written language in almost all 22 Arabic countries (not sure about Somalia and Comoros). However, you can hardly find anyone who speaks it natively. People speak local dialects (there's about 5 families of them) in their everyday use and you can hear standard Arabic only in prepared speech such as presidential appearances and what not. For political and religious reasons none of the dialects has been standardised in written format or adopted as an official language. So you end up with the bizarre situation that you speak a language that you can't write and you write in a language that you're not native in.

I didn't know about this, it's very interesting. When people speak in dialects, how much can they understand each other, if they don't use standard Arabic?

The grammar is quite challenging, sentences tend to be very long, and you can have whole sentences without any verb.

I can't imagine a long sentence without a verb. is it possible to somehow give an example of such sentence?

I would say though that standard Arabic can be vague and playful which makes it an ideal language for poetry, but a nightmare if you want to use it to be precise, for instance in scientific discourse.
.

Maybe because German is such a systematic language it has produced so many scientific minds. But on the other hand, you say that Arabic is more poetical, but there have been many Arab scholars as well. So even if they say that language forms thought processes, it is not the only variable. Or, Arabic stimulates brain as well, but in another form than German.

 

[HossamCFD]

I didn't know about this, it's very interesting. When people speak in dialects, how much can they understand each other, if they don't use standard Arabic?

Yeah people mostly understand each others dialects to varying degrees but there's almost never any need to use standard Arabic. This is mostly due to cultural interactions like music and TV etc... To my ears, Levantine Arabic (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories) is the easiest and the one I struggle with the most is the north African (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) dialect.

I can't imagine a long sentence without a verb. is it possible to somehow give an example of such sentence?

Well the main thing is just that verb 'to be' in the present tense is normally implied. So if I'm writing Arabic, the very last sentence would be an example for a sentence without a verb. Long sentences tend to have verbs though, unless the author is being deliberately opaque.