How many languages do you speak/understand?

[ajoe]

1) What languages do you know?
2) What languages would you want to learn if you had a billion years in your life?

[emily655321]

1) English, high-school level French
2) Gaelic (Irish then Scottish), Welsh, Latin, Hebrew, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Swedish, Finnish, Czech...

[verybaddmom]

ditto Em's answer. but i also have some conversational Cantonese. and i would (will) learn latin first.

[simon]

I am taking ancient Greek. I took four years of German, and I would enjoy being able to read in every tongue.

[ravana]

1)Azerbaijan turkish (native - most lovely), Russian, English, Turkish (used in Turkey), Arabic (second level), basic German.

2)to improve Arabic, then German, Italian (for opera), Scottish (my favorite country), latin (for medicine)

[emily655321]

Oh yeah, I forgot Greek! Lucky Simon. :D

[simon]

yeah it will help with that greek and roman studies major

[Lolita]

1) English. I would name French, but my knowledge in minimal, and my German is even worse.
2) Gaelic (Scottish), Spanish, Italian.

[ajoe]

^ That's all the languages you want to learn?? *shock*

[Koa]

1) Italian (native), English, French, bad forgotten German, struggling with Russian, know some basic Spanish

2) all of them. Especially Slavic ones... and maybe japanese. Oh, all of them except Dutch :D

[ajoe]

Why not Dutch? I, for one, want to learn Dutch.

[Lolita]

Originally posted by ajoe
^ That's all the languages you want to learn?? *shock*

Yeh. I'm not even fussed about learning Spanish or Italian. Oh, and let's be realistic. I'm not the most patient of people and learning a new language would take about, oh, fifty years?

[ajoe]

but you have a billion years :p

[crisaor]

1) Spanish, English, sign languaje (I'm a little rusty).
2) All of them. My priorities would be: italian, french, any of swedish/norwegian/finlandish(?) so I can live there, japanese, etc.

[Tabac]

(1) Native in English. Good in Spanish and French; used to be great in Turkish (I lived there for 2 years, where I once passed as a native in a short conversation).

(2) ASL, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch or Afrikaans.

[amuse]

i know english.

would like! :) to learn spanish, italian, latin, welsh, old english, and japanese.

[emily655321]

Ooh, Old English and sign language. Those are good ones. I think it would be cool to learn Native American sign language too. They used to use it almost half the time in some places, because they used it so much when they were hunting.

[Koa]

Originally posted by ajoe
Why not Dutch? I, for one, want to learn Dutch.

I just don't like the sound of it, to me it's sounds even harder than German, and I dont like German. Tastes :)

[Tabac]

Originally posted by Koa
I just don't like the sound of it, to me it's sounds even harder than German, and I dont like German. Tastes :)

I think Dutch has a nice sound, much more so than German. But, have you ever heard Flemmish? It's lovely! Especially when Jacques Brel sang it.

[Koa]

:confused: Isn't Flemish the same as Dutch??? (or almost?)

[xby]

I can say a little Japnese. But I hate it very much! it's my school course!
嘿! 中文很美啊! And I love French!

[rocksea]

(1) Native Malayalam (south indian lang). National language Hindi. English. can understand Tamil (south indian lang). and some Japanese am learning now. some German n Konkani (indian lang) i tried to grasp but not much.

(2) would love to learn animal language. (maybe i know some already ;) )

[xby]

(1) Native Malayalam (south indian lang). National language Hindi. English. can understand Tamil (south indian lang). and some Japanese am learning now. some German n Konkani (indian lang) i tried to grasp but not much.

(2) would love to learn animal language. (maybe i know some already ;) )

Hi, are you japanese?
I'm learning the language. It's too too hard!
At least, it's harder than English. Most of us learned Japanese for the sake of watching cartoon of your country. It's interesting I think. I like 宫奇骏

[amuse]

it was amazing to hear my brother and his girlfriend speak japanese last summer; they apparently rarely speak it to each other but there we were at best buy buying a computer and they were having a private consultation. :) i felt so lost and quite awed by their fluency. (i mean, i'm pretty sure they are. :D )

[ajoe]

Hi, are you japanese?
I'm learning the language. It's too too hard!
At least, it's harder than English. Most of us learned Japanese for the sake of watching cartoon of your country. It's interesting I think. I like 宫奇骏

wow, an anime fan, too, I suppose~~~ ^_^
I don't really know Japanese except for random words and phrases I got from watching too many anime...(e.g. "Shiee!!")
I'd learn it, but I don't got the time.

[rocksea]

Hi, are you japanese?
I'm learning the language. It's too too hard!
At least, it's harder than English. Most of us learned Japanese for the sake of watching cartoon of your country. It's interesting I think. I like 宫奇骏

hey am an indian, just came into japan few months b4. ya it is hard for me too. speaking is ok, easier to learn but when u try to learn the scripts it comes really hard. they use a lotsa kind of scripts like katakana, hirakana and kanji. now am content with some words for daily use and am not using much japanese here,,

ya these people are pretty good in cartoon n everywhere u go u see some cartoon pics. even in porn they prefer hentai (anime porn) mostly

[xby]

most of japanese words(called 假名 in japanese. 假means borrow in ancient chinese) are from chinese. like 先生, 学生, 教室. But it's grammar is so complicated while chinese has no grammar. If you know japanese it is easy for you to study chinese and vice versa.

[emily655321]

I'd like to learn Japanese in college, but would also like to learn Chinese at some point in my life. I've wondered if it would be important to learn Chinese first, at the risk of not having time to learn Japanese after? My thinking is, it's closer to the root language, so maybe it would give me a better understanding of both to learn it first. But is that true, or has Chinese developed so much that it doesn't really matter which you learn first?

I suppose it's the same as Romance languages; knowing one facilitates the learning of the others, but it doesn't really matter which one you start with. I just wondered if anyone had thoughts on this, who is familiar with both Chinese and Japanese.

[amuse]

the nice thing about learning chinese is, even if you can't speak it with everyone because of the different dialects, you can read it anywhere! the written characters are the common denominator.
and if you learn it before japanese, you will only have to learn two of the japanese written alphabets (rather than all three).

[emily655321]

Oof, good point Az. :( I'm so scared of trying to learn all the characters! :bawling: Waaahh.

[xby]

Are anybody familiar with Chinese ancient poetry here?
It reads beautiful if you can read it, even you cant know its meaning.
Ezra Pound, an American poet has translated some of it.
He translated Chinese ancient poetry with imagist principles.
Though beautiful still, there existing a lot of distorted understandings

[ajoe]

I'm not really familiar with Chinese poetry, but I read a book by Ha Jin and he mentioned Tang's poetry and I guess it was famous? :confused: Once again we're going off topic, but have you heard of Ha Jin and Amy Tan? They're my favorite Asian-American writers!! :thumbs_up

[evulik]

you guys speak so many languages :(

1, Slovak (native), Czech (pretty much native, since it is similar to Slovak), German (at high school and thanks to my german origin, POOR), Dutch (forgot most of it, but after my one-year stay in NL I was quite fluent), French (studying only a year, LIMITED), English (well, years of study, study and good nerves, still not satisfied)
2, to improve above mentioned, and then Italian, Spanish, Esperando, Chinese.

In fact I would like to be able to read in all languages.maybe one day I will have longer list :)

[faith]

1. Finnish and Swedish (both perfectly dare say cos theyre my natives) English (farely well daresay, would mange in an English speaking countrey I think if i just dared...) German (studied it for 2 years, so can read some and understand most of what the teachers are saying at school, but when German people are talking I understand just a word here and there)
2. French (Im sorry for that Im studing German and not French) If I had a billion years time I would learn some beautidul African language and Chinese it being the biggest language in the world, and having so much time many many more languages...

[Isagel]

1, swedish (So now there are two of us here - Hi and Välkommen! Faith) . English, some spanish, some german
2, I would really really like to learn how to Sign - not the sign language that is just like spoken language, but the one that is a language on it´s own. I try to learn now, and it is fascinating. I recently saw a peotry reading in sign language. I would also very much like to learn latin and ancient greek.

[simon]

I should prefer to make up my own language, what benefits can be produced from conferring with other people when I can talk to myself, then I can have myself say what I want others to.

[emily655321]

Plenty have gone before. I vote trying Marklar -- you can say horrible things without anyone knowing.

[jakobin]

Just curious as to what languages we have coursing through our veins here at LitNet.

[emily655321]

This is a good place to look:
http://online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14464

[jakobin]

that is indeed a good place to look, but rather than this addressing whether or not english is your first language, this addresses the languages that people speak, and we get to know more about the people we spend so much time talking to.

i for example, have english as my first language, but i speak dutch and french aswell. this would not have come up in the thread you have mentioned.

(sorry, im abit of a debator...:p)

[Pensive]

Hey man!

Where is "Urdu" option? *in rage*

[Nightshade]

hey no arabic *sniff*?!

[AimusSage]

I picked Dutch as native, English as fluent, German as intermediate, French and Spanish as beginner. And that is all. No other languages I can speak.

[starrwriter]

After 2 years of straight As in school classes, I thought I was fluent in "Spanish" until I took my first trip to Mexico. Then I discovered I had learned Castillian Spanish while Mexicans spoke a different kind of Spanish. It's like the difference between British and American English. In Mexico I was frustrated when people kept saying: "Que? No entiendo." (What? I don't understand.)

[Rachy]

I speak English seeing as I'm from England, but I can also speak French

[Shea]

Just English for now. I'm comprehending French more and more as I listen to it, but I can barely string three words together on my own.

[jakobin]

i meant to include Arabic in it, but it completely slipped my mind...and urdu...sorry...

im amazed already at the linguistic skills of people!!

[mono]

Obviously I can speak English, my native language; I also speak French well, but not quite fluently, and I know some bits and pieces of Spanish, yet only trés peu. :)

[Eva Marina]

I speak English fluently, but I've picked up a bit of French from my dad (he was obsessed with speaking it when I was little...hey! He still does it now!). I speak a little bit of Spanish, I'm trying to learn on my own and it's proving to be difficult. As a foreign language in school, I'm taking Latin and Classical Greek. I also took a beginning class in German this summer, but I can barely remember anything now. Hangul wasn't one of the choices, but I can say a few phrases (it's the Korean language, where my grandmother's from) and in the future I'm planning to pick up some Eastern language.

[Pensive]

Jakobin, Don't forget to add Punjabi.

[jakobin]

thaaaank you. anything else??

[Koa]

I only put the ones where I am past the basic level...
Well I put Italian (native), English as you can see, French, and Russian (well not too fluent but somehow). I can have basic conversation in German and Spanish but I didnt include those...uhm maybe I should have done it but I dont think I actually 'speak' them...
Oh before I forget (I adore to show off about languages, my true and only passion), I have a very basic knowledge of Hungarian.

(edit: how many times did I use the word 'basic' in just a few lines? :eek::D)

[Kaltrina]

Well I put English and Spanish, but I also talk Albanian which is my mother tongue and Serbian... :)

[Pensive]

Nice Avator Kaltrina!

[Taliesin]

Jakobin, we think that you need also to put "other" in that list.

We speak Estonian as our mother tongue, English as our second language, german as our third and have been studying french for some months now.

[Pensive]

Urdu, English, Punjabi and Sirayki.

I would have learnt Chinese, Japenese, German, French, Spanish, Estonian, Czech and every language of which I have heard if If I had billion years.

[Kid2kiddo]

I speak Korean (<- it wasn't in the list...y do ppl just look over Korea? It's a country too! With a long history!) and English fluently. Spanish somewhat, and elementary/kindergaten level Japanese and Chinese (tI can understand more higher level and I can speak).

[Virgil]

Oh, I forgot to check off Spanish. I guess once you voted, che sara.

Also, I'm surprised no one else checked off pig latin. Did the joke go over your heads?

[Scheherazade]

Thank you, Virgil! When I prepared the poll, I thought everyone would check that box! :D

[Virgil]

Must be an age thing.

[Miss Darcy]

What's Pig Latin? *Curious*

I ticked off English (mother tongue), Czech (fluent), Italian (used to study, forgotten most of), Latin (know a couple of proverbs) and I have a very basic vocabulary in French, though I didn't bother to tick it.

[Virgil]

From Learning Pig Latin, http://www.idioma-software.com/pig/pig_latin.html





Pig Latin is a twist of English for people who want to be silly, or for kids who don't want their parents to know what they're talking about. There are different ways in which people speak pig Latin. I only know a few ways. Here are the ways I have learned:
For words which begin with a single consonant take the consonant off the front of the word and add it to the end of the word. Then add ay after the consonant. Here are some examples:

cat = atcay
dog = ogday
simply = implysay
noise = oisnay
For words which began with double or multiple consonants take the group of consonants off the front of the word and add them to the end, adding ay at the very end of the word. Here are some examples:

scratch = atchscray
thick = ickthay
flight = ightflay
grime = imegray

For words that begin with a vowel, just add yay at the end. For example:

is = isyay
apple =appleyay
under = underyay
octopus = octopusyay

[Anarchy Device]

I speak Finnish (being my native), Swedish a little bit and of course English :)

[amalia1985]

Well, I speak Greek of course, since it is my native language. I'm fluent in English and French. I speak Italian in a satisfactory level, since my grandmother is Italian, I have managed to learn Spanish on my own, and I'm currently undertaking the task to brush up my German. A friend of mine who spent six years in Moscow has tried to teach me Russian, but gave up. He had no patience with me...I am also planning to start with Dutch as soon as I have some more spare time. Languages is one of my greatest passions.

[muhsin]

Hausa (my native West-African widely spoken language, with root from Northen Nigeria), English and a few Arabic words.

[sofia82]

English is my third language but academic one
I cannot find Persian and Azeri as my native languages :)
And Arabic which I can read and understand a little
French Once I had to learn as Academic course and now I forget all about it.

[Madhuri]

Hindi, English, Urdu (very similar to Hindi, except the script), Punjabi (can understand, but cant read or write)...and a few other Indian languages.

[Chava]

English, Danish, Norwegian, used to speak Indonesian fluently, and used to be less rusty at french, mais j'ai oblie l'est tout. (point proven)

[The Comedian]

I used to be able to read Latin fluently, but I've lost a lot of skill over the the years.

[SleepyWitch]

English, German y un poco de Español (a little Spanish).
where do people dig up these old threads?

[Niamh]

I speak some english, a mere scraping of French and a patethic amount of Irish.

[jhonerliz]

Tagalog is my native langauage, one of the dialects here in the Philippines. I also speak English.

[dodong]

i speak cebuano, filipino, a little korean and english....

[dramasnot6]

English is my mother tongue, and I am working my way up to being fluent in Mandarin Chinese. I would love to learn both Spanish and French someday...Chinese is all-consuming for now.

[Zeruiah]

English as a mother tongue and French as a second language (I do communicate day-to-day in it :ladysman:). Russian is next on my hitlist.

[librarius_qui]

English 90%
French 50%
Portuguese 100% (both European & American ... well, European 75%)
Latin 10% (of what I'd like to speak)

[Cellar Door]

fluent english, 4 years of japanese, 2 years of spanish, and am currently learning german... and who doesn't know pig latin?!

[sprinks]

English.
Learnt Indonesian for 6 or so years.
Learnt Japanese for 2 years.
And I know a little German.

[librarius_qui]

It's easier to speak a second language completely different than yours than a language close to your mother language: I'll never speak Spanish. I'll learn Italian, though, because it'll help me with Latin (and because I'm fifth generation Italian American). (And French is too little "Latinish", so, it was quite possible.)

I still intend to learn Czech, Irish & Chinese!


Lq#
& er tiny Tim ran away with Mary Greek
... and Sprinksy (: for the weekend


English is my mother tongue, and I am working my way up to being fluent in Mandarin Chinese. I would love to learn both Spanish and French someday...Chinese is all-consuming for now.

It's worth doing so.
I envy you ... I'd like to have begun earlier. But, in my days, nobody paid any attention to Chinese. And the reason I wish to learn isn't the usual reasons, I should say. Anyway, it's very good to learn such a different language, and way of thinking .. :thumbs_up

:)

[Apocrypha75]

English and a wee drappie of Nadsat! :p

[Lady Marian]

Full-time language, English; hobbie language, Arabic.

[Scheherazade]

Don't forget to visit the other language discussion thread:

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25981&highlight=languages

[seanlol]

Yo habla engles y espanol.

[Annamariah]

Finnish, English, Swedish and Russian (why aren't Finnish and Swedish on the list? :D)

Finnish is my mother tongue. I've studied English from the first grade (since I was seven years old) and at the moment I study English translation at the university. Swedish is a compulsory language in Finland, I started studying it on the seventh grade. Russian is my weakest language, I've only studied it less than two years, though quite intensively.

[Scheherazade]

Finnish, English, Swedish and Russian (why aren't Finnish and Swedish on the list? :D)
Now they are! ;)

[Annamariah]

Now they are! ;)

Great! :) Too bad it's too late for me to vote them now...

[Scheherazade]

I think sometime I will repost this poll :)

[Reccura]

Err English, Filipino, and a bit of Spanish and Portuguese. It's hard to study both at the same time, though. (:

[crystalmoonshin]

I speak Chinese (both Mandarin and Fookien), English, Filipino, Spanish, French, a bit of Japanese (Just enough to understand some songs or watch anime since I didn't learn it in a formal setting) and a bit of Latin (but I think I forgot most of which I learned in school so i'm gonna make a quick review of it next week, when summer vacation shall finally have started).

[Niamh]

If you do put Gaelic up there so those of us in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Brittany that know a little can select it. (breton is a gaelic language) :D

[Propter W.]

I'm fluent in two languages namely English and Dutch. I have passive knowledge of French and German, and I speak a little bit of both. My command of Czech is getting better and better. This allows me to understand some Slovak as well (especially in its written form). I've recently started studying Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian but I haven't even reached a basic level yet. Afrikaans is mutually intelligible with Dutch so I'm able to understand Afrikaans as well although I certainly don't speak it.

So how many languages do you speak? What language would you like to study or are you studying?

[dafydd manton]

As well as English and Welsh, I worked in Russian for 7 years, and German for 7. I haven't used the Russian for years and years, so I have forgotten most of it, but I still use the German. I did get a basic qualification in French, but I've used it once since 1972. That helped, then! A few basic phrases in Urdu and Portuguese, that's it. Nothing compared to the quality of the language used on here by non-native English speakers, which puts me to shame.

[Maximilianus]

Don't feel bad Dafydd. By now I should know French, German and Latin at least, but all I know is English and my mom tongue Spanish. I confess I've lagged behind in the linguistic field. Then, if I had a billion years to live (or something near), I would like to go with Welsh, Gaelic, and the Nordic tongues. I like the way they all sound :)

[Helga]

Icelandic isn't on the list so I just put down English as a language I can speak. but I understand written and spoken Danish,Swedish,Norwegian and of course I'm learning German,going slow...

but I would like to speak Italian, French,Japanese,Portuguese and of course to have the courage to speak up in the languages I know but prefer to listen too.!

[kiki1982]

I speak Dutch (mother tongue), English (second language), French and German. Not sure which is actually better now, after living in Germany for 2 years and not speaking a word of French... But I still read in it.

Then I am learning Russian. I guess I am a beginner now on the talking front. But I have great aspirations.

I can understand quite a lot of converational Polish. Put me three weeks there and I would start to put small sentences together.

I once started to learn Italian as a teenager, but then I ceased to go there so I have forgotten it all.

I learned some Spanish with SOS mi Vida on tv, but it is not a level I would call good. And I have probably forgotten most of it now, apart from the basics.

I still would like to learn some nordic language. I think Swedish sounds incredibly nice and they have nice folk music (hambo is one of my favorite dances :)). They have such a way of singing.
I would still like to get more Spanish in order to be able to read at least.
And then I would maybe like to embark upon a stranger journey, if that is not too far into my life, to learn something really 'foreign' and oriental. Not sure what yet.
Oh, yes, and Swahili has always tickled my fancy. Just because the name on its own sounds so nice, but I am not sure where to go for some apropriate lit.

[Patrick_Bateman]

My last 2 girlfriends quite amazingly were Polish and Spanish.

I already knew a lot of Spanish beforehand but it's improved immensely.

I know a useful amount of Polish. I'm a quarter French so I speak it fluently and I taught myself German which I speak very well.

So I'd say including English I speak 3 fluently, 1 well enough to get by and just a few useful phrases in a 5th language.

I even learned some Konkani while working with Goans :)

[aliengirl]

I can speak Hindi, Urdu, and English fluently. I can read and understand Arabic and Persian and would love to achieve proficiency in them. And yes, if I had a billion years then I'd learn all the languages in the world. How wonderful it would be to be able to read in so many languages! But being realistic I would like to learn French, Spanish, Afrikaans, Mandarin, and Japanese...at least to read and understand them.

[JuniperWoolf]

I understand(ish) one and a half. I speak one and one tenth.

[Olga4real]

I couldn't find Hungarian in your poll :-(

1) I speak Russian, Hungarian and English, use each of them every day.

2) My dream is to learn Greek, Turkish is nice too.

[Snowqueen]

Urdu, English, Punjabi and Sirayki.



Same here Pensy! And what about Pashto?

[Kyriakos]

Just Greek and English, although i am thinking of learning either Spanish, French, or ancient Greek :)

[Scarlett O'Hara]

Wow, I am impressed by the amount of languages and the (somewhat) variation in these languages. That's great.
1) English (1st language) and German (2nd language). Use both every day. I am trying to learn French at the moment and can have basic conversations.
2) (Realistically) I hope to start learning Spanish next year as well as French. (With infinite lives) Every language in the world, particularly klingon and dolphin. Sign language would also be good.

I love languages. Nice post :D

[Pensive]

As well as English and Welsh, I worked in Russian for 7 years, and German for 7. I haven't used the Russian for years and years, so I have forgotten most of it, but I still use the German. I did get a basic qualification in French, but I've used it once since 1972. That helped, then! A few basic phrases in Urdu and Portuguese, that's it. Nothing compared to the quality of the language used on here by non-native English speakers, which puts me to shame
Just out of curiosity, what motivated you to learn Urdu? Bollywood? :p I have noticed that with many of the foreigners learning Hindi/Urdu and this I find pretty amusing. :)


Same here Pensy! And what about Pashto?
Unfortunately, no. :( I don't personally know any person closely who speaks Pashto, but the general idea that I get of this language is that it's pretty interesting. Especially in terms of gender roles. Simply fascinating, and somewhat amusing too! :) What do you reckon? (I assume you can speak Pashto?)

[ClaesGefvenberg]

1) What languages do you know?I am fluent in my native Swedish (Being a Scandinavian, I also understand a bit of Norwegian and Danish, as our languages are related) and in English, can get by in French and German and understand a wee bit Italian.


2) What languages would you want to learn if you had a billion years in your life?In a billion years? All of them!

/Claes

[Snowqueen]

Unfortunately, no. :( I don't personally know any person closely who speaks Pashto, but the general idea that I get of this language is that it's pretty interesting. Especially in terms of gender roles. Simply fascinating, and somewhat amusing too! :) What do you reckon? (I assume you can speak Pashto?)

I can understand its one or two dialects and can speak few words and thats all. :( Yes you are quite right it is very interesting laguage.

[Armel P]

fluent in Western Armenian

understand some Spanish if it's being spoken by Argentinians

took Latin for four years

[David Lurie]

1) What languages do you know?
Italian, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese plus a couple of dead languages: Latin and Greek

2) What languages would you want to learn if you had a billion years in your life?
mainly German, then Russian

[sturmgewehr]

I speak 5 Languages and I can understand 3 more other languages at least.

I speak Fluent Albanian, English, Macedonian
Moderate Turkish and Serbian

I can Understand Bulgarian, Croatian, Bosnian since these are all south Slavic Languages and closely related.

[Sancho]

I speak Jive.

[lawpark]

I wish I have learnt Japanese, Hindi/Urdu and Arabic before 25.

[cacian]

I speak English, French, Arabic, Spanish and some Catalan.
By the way
what is Pig Latin?

[tonywalt]

itay isay a anguagelay hatay i ovelay.