What languages do you all know?

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Shrami said:
This is a tasteless comment
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I know! I was searching for a middle finger smiley, but I couldn't find one.
 
mercaptovizadeh said:
I don't want to accuse you of being a fraud, but Swiss is not a language. In Switzerland; French, German/Swiss-German, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romansch are spoken, but no "Swiss".
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Ok, wise guy, I know German/Swiss-German. Satisfied? I am. LOL
 
antagonistic antagonism...relax people...anyway, what bearing does language fluency have on applications?
I was born outside America but english is the only thing I can speak and the 2 years of language in college....i can only read and understand that..a little...so do i need to go learn?
 
etudiante04 said:
I know French and Yoruba. I am currently learning Spanish from a co-worker.
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Another Yoruba speaker in the House. I have given myself 4 years to become fluent in spanish and I am getting there.
 
Jag pratar lite svenska... inte så bra. Men jag finns arbetande på den här!
 
I can hardly speak English. Good for y'all.
 
Guys, are you sure you've chosen the right career? You should go to the UN to be professional interpreters 🙂

I only know Russian... (and a little bit of English)
 
Mikhail said:
Guys, are you sure you've chosen the right career? You should go to the UN to be professional interpreters 🙂

I only know Russian... (and a little bit of English)
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I know Russian and enough french to piss off every french teacher I have ever had (seriously, they get really pissed if you use french words to make english sentences.) Mon mal! (my bad!) By the way, we have the same first name.
 
About the Swiss thing - my grandparents emigrated from Switzerland (and owned land there when they died). While technically it is German, they do have a particular dialect. Just as the Bavarian region has a dialect. And the Pennsylvania Dutch speak such a dialect of German that it's basically become it's own language (my other grandparents spoke PA Dutch - and yes, that's what we called it since it was so different). While we, in America, think of German language as the "high German" they teach us in class, there are many dialects (versions) of that language in Europe. Rather like England English vs. American English. Sometimes the same words mean different things in the dialects. My aunt emigrated from Berlin, and speaks yet another dialect of German.

At least that's just been my personal experience with Swiss citizens, the PA Dutch culture, German citizens, and my own 5 years of high school German (sprinkled with a smattering of the three influences that got me into a little trouble on exams and such).
 
English, Chinese (Mandarin)
 
English, Spanish, Portuguese
 
Arabic
English
and some Spanish

A fun mix, no? I have found in my travels every language I have been exposed to has definately helped me understand (even if only a little bit) some other language! I love just chiming in on a conversation, especially when people see a blonde chic busting out some Arabic (and realizing I have understood their "private" conversation all along)...thats my personal fav 😛
 
English, Mandarin Chinese (native), German (college minor), and learning a little Spanish right now on my own for fun.
 
Vietnamese from Peace Corps and some Spanish 👍
 
French,Spanish,French Creole, Italian.....working on learning Hindi and sign language, used to be able to read braille, havent done it in a while!
 
American English

2 dialects of farsi
tehrooni (if I wanna make my parents mad)
bakhtiari (a dialect of farsi)

Spanish (SW US/ Northern Mexico version)

Arabic can read & write, but am useless b/c I kept trying to stick farsi words in my sentences or mispronouncing thing

used to know kurdish, but haven't been around any speakers in ages, so that's gone

My goals for my gap year are to solidify my arabic & get into french....

plus it's always good to pretend you don't speak english or talk smack about somebody, but you just gotta watch out who you do it to...looks can be decieving oh yeah & translate for patients, that too effective communication, b/c a lot gets lost in translation
 
infiniti said:
Another Yoruba speaker in the House. I have given myself 4 years to become fluent in spanish and I am getting there.
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yay for yoruba! I can't speak it but I studied the phonetic aspects of the language in college. As a native speaker of a tonal language, I can say that Yoruba is MUCH harder!

my languages, in decreasing order of fluency

English
Mandarin
French
Japanese
Arabic
starting self study in Spanish...my level of competency? Let's just call it "tarzan spanish" !
 
anyone out there know a click language from being in the peace corps (or just being a native speaker?) I almost joined the peace corps, and I would have liked to have been assigned to a click language region.
 
Fluent in writing and speech in Spanish (and, of course, English 😉 ). Trying to pick up some Creole during residency.
 
I know the international language. No, not esperanto. Love. 😍

That, and enough Cantonese to order all the good stuff at dim sum!
 
hm, i speak cantonese, mandarin (sort of), and german (very very barely)...

like ahumdinger i'm thinking of teaching myself spanish...will it work, do you think? has anyone succeeded?
 
sprsonic75 said:
ENGLISH! punjabi, urdu, hindi, spanish and spatterings of French and Portuguese

wanna learn arabic . . anyone know of any good books or should i just take a class? maybe i should just practice with my egyptian friends . . .
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download a sharing program called "bitcomet" from there, seach "Pimsleur"... it'll give u lessons on learning many languages like english, ARABIC, chinese, french, spainish, italian, german and almost every other major language!... How do u know urdu, punjabi and hindi if u r from egypt... i thought u were from south asia (Pakistan or India)????????
 
well, i'm no longer a premed (and hence, should i even be replying to this? however, the Q is generic enough, so I don't think it's a prob 😀 ):

I speak speak both Spanish and Latin fluently (although, since Latin is a dead language, no one speaks it. But, I can read Latin text fluently w/no problem).

I'd like to learn another language, perhaps Italian or French..
 
alright alright now my turn
- English (fluent)

- Urdu (fluent)

- Hindi (fluent)

- French (took 3 yrs of it in high school... almost turned gay :laugh: )

- latin (2 yrs of it in high school)

- Sindhi ( a pakistani language... not fluent in it though)

- punjabi ( certainly not fluent in it but i have **** load of punjabi music)

- learning arabic

- learning italian

- learning chinese (mandarin)

- learned little spanish from my mexican frns while working in McDonald's (never work there...it'll drain ur soul)


So am i the WINNER OF THIS CONTEST OR WHAT???... anyone dare to challenge moi?

:laugh:
 
English
Punjabi
Spanish


bhangra all the way 😀
 
isocrazy said:
English
Punjabi
Spanish


bhangra all the way 😀
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u said it dude...the language sounds frigging awesome AND that dance and the upbeat music... oh baby.. that makes me hot! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
p.s. im listening to punjabi bhagra music right now...
 
tikiman said:
p.s. im listening to punjabi bhagra music right now...
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i was listening to tigerstyle on the way home today. They are on some video game soundtrack now. A racer game i think? anyways im not all into the cling clang bhangra lol but i just browse all the fob's myspaces for new tunes. im pathetic i know. The technoish bhangra songs own.
 
isocrazy said:
i was listening to tigerstyle on the way home today. They are on some video game soundtrack now. A racer game i think? anyways im not all into the cling clang bhangra lol but i just browse all the fob's myspaces for new tunes. im pathetic i know. The technoish bhangra songs own.
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i have heard that word "fob" before.. someone told me that it refers to a 100% pakistani by heart... is that true?

"The technoish bhangra songs own"... they all own dude, especially the ones that have a little bit english in it... just the way i like it... south asian with a little bit of american on top. .. yummy. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:


p.s. the bhangra song playing on my comp is awesome (techno style w/ some english)... and i can't stop dancing... :laugh: :laugh: 😍 HAHA
 
English, pretty fluent in Spanish.

I can speak quite a bit of German but not a ton.

Can read Russian/Cyrillic and have a fairly decent knowledge of the language/vocab.

That's it.
 
Farsi (Dialect called "Dari")
Pushto

I'm picking up Hindi from all these damn Bollywood movies I keep watching!
 
pattayapus said:
like ahumdinger i'm thinking of teaching myself spanish...will it work, do you think? has anyone succeeded?
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I had an ex who did this. She just upped and went to Spain one summer. By immersing herself in the language she had choice but to learn. (I imagine it's easier if you know French or Italian, but you if you don't I think it will be doable, just not easy.)
 
English and Hebrew. I guess I know a little aramaic (babalonian) too.
 
I speak Spanish. I know a little bit of Setswana and Ki-Swahili, but I want to speak Ki-Swahili fluently. I couldn't possibly learn Setswana on my own, though, so I'll wait until I go back to Botswana. Oh, I also want to learn Russian.
 
English, French, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu
 
wow, there are so many talented people in this thread. how do you learn a language past childhood?
 
English
Spanish Conversational (semester abroad)
Mandarin 差不多 Almost conversational (2 months so far, will be 1 year when finished)


For trying to impress girls/people and what not:
French (4 years in HS)
German (hanging out with foreign exchange kids in HS and college)
russian
a tad of esperanto, urdu, arabic, swahili

I too am one of those who doesn't tolerate well those who falsely claim to "know" languages.

It's like saying you've experienced combat from playing a video game. I doubt enough here know what it is like to be laughed at for 3 months straight when all you want is to be understood. Unless you've done time or grew up immersed (you lucky bas*ards) ... ::more angry ranting:: ...
 
Punisher said:
Only English and American Sign Language... I tried to learn Spanish but that didn't work out too well. Anyone else know ASL?
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I do.

I also took Spanish and many people in my family speak it, but I know enough to barely find a bathroom.

Latin was another one I took...while it helps me tremendously with everything else, I can't string together 2 words!
 
Native English and French speaker
My Spanish is pretty good, from 5 semesters of classes then about 4 years speaking it a few hours a day at work. Can carry on a conversation etc. although I have an accent.

They will definitely come in handy in QC, a bilingual province with a lot of immigration! (negative birth rate so that'll just keep increasing) I figure those are the three to know if you're going to practice in North America, right? (though French is highly regionalized of course).

I can understand the "bones" of a statement in Italian, Creole, Catalan and Portuguese (in that order, better to worse). I can then answer (poorly), not in that language but in an improvised mishmash of my three (though I know some words of Italian), but can usually make myself halfway understood. I also have a facility with accents, i.e. can understand "broken" english and french pretty well.

I pick up languages pretty easily; I think it's from being raised bilingual. I'd imagine that a lot of other SDNers have this history as well, and that explains the large number with lots of languages. Also, of course, people tend to have language "family" proficiencies. When you know French, Spanish and Italian become easier etc.. Although it is a bit hard to believe that so many people could be fluent in 5 or 6 languages, considering that that takes a lot of practice.
 
Used to be semi-fluent in Spanish but i'm loosing it. Also i can understand Yoruba.. i'm trying to write and speak it now..
 
I speak English and Japanese. My Spanish is just basic enough that I can do stuff like ask for directions, basic questions, etc. As for my French...well I can read a newspaper, but I can't really talk.

Most likely I'm going to take some more Spanish classes to get fluent though, as it comes in handy where I live. Japanese is sort of useless (but I like it).
 
I speak English as my only first language, had 6 years of French and was ok, but it has almost all been completely lost, although if I HAD to I could speak it again, then had 5 years of Spanish along with the French, and my Spanish was kicking some serious ass, I really was pretty good, but then I got to college and had placed out of French and Spanish so I started German for funsies.


And now I live in Austria and have been here for 1.5 years, so I speak High German which I learned in college, as well as a dialect of German that Germans themselves don't understand called Tirolean which is the province in Austria where I live. I love learning the dialect bc it makes it easier to understand all dialects of German, as the one where I live is very difficult to understand (Swiss german is another one that is almost impossible to understand, unless you already speak Austrian...for example) yet I can still speak high German and write it very well.

So I wouldn't say German is useless, as someone earlier said, I plan to do an exchange here if possible, and my sis is in Med school in Germany for the full program (never applied in the US) so there you go...you never know...Germany Austria and Switzerland...and neither of us grew up speaking it, she also speaks Spanish....

And you learn a language past childhood by moving there. Writing can only be learned in school, though, in my opinion. I know a lot of people here who learned to speak German (the dialect) when they moved here, but cannot write worth a poo...largely bc dialects aren't usually written, the grammar is often incorrect, and they don't know High German grammar!
 
English and Shona/ChiShona only. I can understand some French and can read a French newspaper, but couldn't possibly have a long conversation.

Really hope to pick up some Spanish though.
 
That's wrong. "Hochdeutsch" is the standardized version of German that speakers of all dialects can understand. Because "hoch" means high, this is a common confusion. The term in English "High German" refers to German spoken in the Alpine regions i.e. Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Southern Germany. In contrast, Low German is the dialect spoken in Northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German
 
1)English
2)Hindi
3)Gujrati
4)Learning Farsi/Arabic
5)Spanish
 
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