What Languages Do You Speak?

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What Languages Do You Speak?

  • Spanish

    Votes: 33 14.0%

  • French

    Votes: 20 8.5%

  • Other Romance Language (Italian, Portuguese)

    Votes: 5 2.1%

  • Other European Language

    Votes: 16 6.8%

  • Arabic

    Votes: 13 5.5%

  • Hindi

    Votes: 5 2.1%

  • Mandarin or Other Chinese Variant

    Votes: 22 9.4%

  • Other Asian Language

    Votes: 18 7.7%

  • African Language

    Votes: 3 1.3%

  • Other (Post Below)

    Votes: 10 4.3%

  • Multiple Languages Besides English (Post Below)

    Votes: 53 22.6%

  • English Only

    Votes: 37 15.7%
  • Total voters
    235
thecgrblue said:
fluently: English, Italian, Spanish (learned in that order)
abilities comparable to a 4 year old: Portuguese, French, and Female
phrases native speakers taught me: Albanian, Romanian, Twi, Arabic.
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I love this...

Fluently: English (Southern, Yankee, and British/Aussie/S.African. High Scots still gives me trouble though.)
Conversational: Czech (which is close enough to Polish that I haven't had trouble communicating with speakers of either)
Abilities comparable to a 4 year old: French and Spanish
Phrases native speakers have taught me: Korean, Italian, German, Cockney

FrkyBgStok said:
have been learning Czech. I think it is weird that the first phrase they teach you is "I can speak and understand czech." seems counter productive.
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Indeed, and high five. What you need is the adjective "trochu" -a little. Mluvím trochu C'eský.
 
FrkyBgStok said:
have been learning Czech. I think it is weird that the first phrase they teach you is "I can speak and understand czech." seems counter productive.

and I can understand jive. I don't speak it though.
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Are you using Pimsleur? This sounds like Pimsleur...
 
Spanish: intermediate. I can get my point across in most situations, however sometimes in a roundabout way.

Amharic (native to Ethiopia) Betam tinish! (very little!) I'm working on it though... this is a summer project of mine 🙂 I'm just conversational enough to get people to start going on at 90 mph, at which point I hold up my hands in surrender and say "betam tinish!" LOL. Can't seem to master the written script though.
 
Hallo. Ich spreche Deutsch , aber nicht sehr gut. Ich spreche nicht gut genug, um es auf meine Bewerbung stellen (Hello.I speak German, but not very well. I do not speak it good enough to put it on my application)

I live in Germany so I have picked up some basic aspects of the language, but since majority of people in Europe also speak fluent English they tend to speak in English to me the second they realize German is not my first language. If that didn't happen I would probably be more fluent in German, but since they usually speak in English to me I only have the basics of German which I try to use out of respect since I am living in Germany.

I would like to know Russian because it just sounds hot😀 I would like to know Spanish because it is useful. I would like to know Japanese because I am an anime nerd and although I can read subtitles just fine it would be nice if I just understood what they were saying lol.

Some German 101 for you. To say thanks, "danke", to say thank you, "dankeschön". Goodbye is "auf wiedersehen" or more commonly used "tschüss".
 
English, some German, and basic courtesy and food words in Korean - just enough to feed my substance-level habit for Korean food aaaaaahhh it's so good banchan juseo banchan juseo BANCHAN JUSEO!!!

I can also sling a variety of Southern dialects, which doesn't sound like much until you get a flat tar by the far tar ov'r thar.
 
SrootsWwings said:
English, some German, and basic courtesy and food words in Korean - just enough to feed my substance-level habit for Korean food aaaaaahhh it's so good banchan juseo banchan juseo BANCHAN JUSEO!!!

I can also sling a variety of Southern dialects, which doesn't sound like much until you get a flat tar by the far tar ov'r thar.
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ohh korean food! yummy and usually healthy. do you like kimchi? i seem to enjoy radish kimchi a bit more than the cabbage kimchi even though the cabbage one is more popular. I tried making my own kimchi once, but I didn't have the right red pepper flakes plus kimchi needs to ferment for a looooong time if you really want a kick to it
 
I selected 'multiple languages besides English'. Looks like it's what most of us selected. Wow, we're a bunch of linguists in here, eh? 🙂

English is my first language. I am also literate in French and Mandarin. I know a bit of a few other languages incl. elementary-level Spanish and Creole (the French-based one) but let's just keep it to the 3 other languages mentioned. 🙂

I would love to learn Japanese and/or Korean but realistically, I'm not exposed to these 2 languages at all so it's not really in my plans at the moment.
 
Fluent in English, Spanish, French (mother), German (father), patois (learned from my grandmother)
 
English, French, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian - not that the last 3 are particularly useful.... 😛
 
English (native), French (since I was 8), and a smattering of conversation starters in Wolof and Ewe (African languages). Oh, I understand enough Spanish to get the jist of the conversation...
 
I think everyone should learn sign language as a second language. I could be wrong, but isn't it the same for everyone regardless of where it's taught? Imagine how much quieter libraries would be... And no one can get mad about where the language originated! I'll be accepting my nobel peace prize now, thank you.
 
Courtjester8 said:
I think everyone should learn sign language as a second language. I could be wrong, but isn't it the same for everyone regardless of where it's taught? Imagine how much quieter libraries would be... And no one can get mad about where the language originated! I'll be accepting my nobel peace prize now, thank you.
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:laugh: Seriously though, that would be useful!

English and Spanish for me, although I'm losing the Spanish every day. No one to practice with! 🙁
 
Depending on the level of fluency:
English
Latin
French
Swedish
Danish
Norwegian
Icelandic
Lithuanian
ASL
and some very mean franglais, svenglish etc
 
Courtjester8 said:
I think everyone should learn sign language as a second language. I could be wrong, but isn't it the same for everyone regardless of where it's taught? Imagine how much quieter libraries would be... And no one can get mad about where the language originated! I'll be accepting my nobel peace prize now, thank you.
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There are different versions. For instance, I know ASL=American sign language
 
Native in English, reasonably conversational in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, can't actively converse in Dutch and Turkish but can understand what is being said due to partner/family speaking both languages. Currently learning Mandarin Chinese for uni. Hope to learn Italian, Spanish and Greek as well as improve my fluency in the others mentioned before.
 
Urdu, English, Punjabi, Siraiki, and learning French and Japanese.
 
TwistinD said:
English, French, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian - not that the last 3 are particularly useful.... 😛
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Have you actually learned/studied all three, or do you just know one and that allows you to understand and be understood by speakers of all three? I am guessing that one of them is your native language?

English is my native language, but I speak Spanish fluently as well. I speak German at a high-intermediate level; I used to speak it much better but lack of opportunity to use it has atrophied my abilities a bit.
 
NurWollen said:
Have you actually learned/studied all three, or do you just know one and that allows you to understand and be understood by speakers of all three? I am guessing that one of them is your native language?

English is my native language, but I speak Spanish fluently as well. I speak German at a high-intermediate level; I used to speak it much better but lack of opportunity to use it has atrophied my abilities a bit.
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Bingo! They are VERY similar. Not the same, but if you know one the others are a cake walk. Hence so many here know all three and none know just one.
 
English is my mother tongue (I 'think' in English). I speak Urdu and Hindi as a second language, with my vocabulary leaning more towards Urdu (for conversational purposes, the two are like British and American English). Took a year of Arabic in college, and two years of Spanish in high school. Hope to revisit the last two when I have time.

One difficulty I faced when learning other languages (Urdu/Hindi are my examples here) is that most languages have gender specific conjugations (he ran ≠ she ran), and some have different formality tones (He [respectful level] ran ≠ he [informal] ran).

English has spoiled us, lol. Anyone else have similar experiences with conjugations and formality levels?
 
I can read Paris Match, Le Monde, and struggle through novels/poetry, but that's about the extent of my French - my instruction was heavily geared toward reading and translating texts, rather than conversational French, and it shows. Forever envious of my multilingual friends.

My grandfather, who is a psychiatrist in Australia, learned Japanese at 60 and was good enough at the language at 65 to go on a lecture tour in Japan. You never lose the ability to learn!! He's studying ancient Greek now well into his retirement. :laugh:
 
shezadeh said:
English is my mother tongue (I 'think' in English). I speak Urdu and Hindi as a second language, with my vocabulary leaning more towards Urdu (for conversational purposes, the two are like British and American English). Took a year of Arabic in college, and two years of Spanish in high school. Hope to revisit the last two when I have time.

One difficulty I faced when learning other languages (Urdu/Hindi are my examples here) is that most languages have gender specific conjugations (he ran ≠ she ran), and some have different formality tones (He [respectful level] ran ≠ he [informal] ran).

English has spoiled us, lol. Anyone else have similar experiences with conjugations and formality levels?
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I'm not familiar with European languages, romance or otherwise, that have differing conjugations for gender. I thought gender-based declensions were bad enough!!!
 
Now tonal lanagues are crazy....of which I hear Mandarin is one of the easier ones (vs Thai or Cantonese). I tried the free Pimsleur lesson for Cantonese, and those tones drove me nuts.
 
Mjolner said:
Bingo! They are VERY similar. Not the same, but if you know one the others are a cake walk. Hence so many here know all three and none know just one.
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this. I learned Danish first and have way too many swedish and norwegian friends to count. The similarity helps a lot.
 
English (ESL, but fluent)
German (native)
Russian (ESL, fluent)
Arabic (Egyptian, used to fluent, but have not used in a few years beyond read the web; plus some Maroccan conversational)
Polish (conversational, my step dad is Polish)
French (conversational)
Yiddish (a language without a country) and some basic Hebrew.

So in terms of languages useful in the Pacific Northwest -- English.
 
Anyone can speak English, good or bad. However, can you also speak Chinese??
 
shushumiga said:
Bulgarian and English (I am ESL) and I took 4 years of Spanish (so I know some basic spanish phrases/words 🙄)
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Aha, така си и мислех. 🙂

Bulgarian and English as well, plush 9 years of Russian in high school although I can barely remember a word nowdays - they all come back in English. There are some leftovers from German and French as well but these probably won't get me further than a drink, meal and a swift kick in the ass.

chinese said:
Anyone can speak English, good or bad. However, can you also speak Chinese??
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That was fast! :meanie:
 
English and I can survive in brazil with some Portuguese. Still learning it. High school Spanish was garbage
 
english and spanish. Ebonix should prolly be up there too lol. just keepin it hood.

translation: keeping it real my friends
 
English, Semi-fluent in Spanish (darn that slang!), can understand so-so tagalog, wanna learn japanese...
 
I am multi-lingual. Aside from English, I am fluent in Tagalog, Spanish, French. I am currently learning Portuguese. Used it on a Brazilian patient today! (Probably should be studying for CK/CS lol)

I did try to learn Korean (for my ex) and speak broken German & Italian too. Possibly survive w/ minimal Farsi. Arabic. French Creole. <--These I have used on patients too, much to their surprising delight.

Let's just say my very very original reason for wanting to be a doctor (and I mean, when I was in high school...20 years ago!) was to do Doctor's Without Borders. And maybe I harbor some deep-seated loyalty to that reason. I believe our world is so diverse and beautiful that learning a new language is really exciting. Maybe I'm a bit overboard lol

I make friends/classmates from different backgrounds teach me as much as I can about their languages tho, BTW.
 
Has it been said? I speak math fluently! 😛
Also, English (main operating language), Japanese, Mandarin and a smattering of Spanish and Russian.
 
FrkyBgStok said:
have been learning Czech. I think it is weird that the first phrase they teach you is "I can speak and understand czech." seems counter productive.

and I can understand jive. I don't speak it though.
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Agreed.
"I can speak and understand" is hopeful, though.
I want to learn an Eastern European language, but I'll probably be lazy and learn Romanian.
 
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