How many languages...

[thewanderer]

Hmmm... Smigden of Spanish and French (my grandmother is French and pretty much insists on it), and i'm taking Latin right now. I really like it. I'm considering a career as a linguist. I'd like to learn Greek, Finnish, and Arabic.

 

[literal visionary]

English, spanish, german, little amazonian (tribe),

Im going to be taking hebrew, and some more natives. american, depending on where I live and probably portugese

I also wrote my own secret one, its pretty complex though....

 

[d.]

Finnish,

finnish might be my all-time favourite language. it's really beautiful.

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

I know a little spanish, but I speak RedneckAmerican. I say "hey ya'll", and yeehaw.

 

[BFD_Zayl]

well, i speak english and some german, i want to learn italian since i might move back to sicily one day. but unfortunately there is no italian classes in my school!!

 

[Zephyr]

I speak American, English, Grunts, Dave-ish (Trillykwitesiml), and enough impolite spanish to chat with someone if I can make out their accent.

 

[Lindsey-Loo]

I have been studying Spanish in school for about three years, but I can't claim to speak it as my first teacher was less than satisfactory, and the next one had to leave for a time to have knee surgery or something like that. I learned Spanish because I had to...

My most fluent language (aside from English, of course) is French. I studied it for a week last summer during a class (I chose to take classes instead of summer camp, it was a good decision), and surprisingly, I learned more French during that week than I have learned of Spanish for years. I was surprised to see that Spanish and French are very similar. Anyway, I signed up for the French class because the brochure said we would be sampling French food .

I've been studying Cherokee off and on for nearly five years now. I'm studying it because I have a bit of Cherokee blood, and the culture is so interesting.

I'm quite fluent in English/American, bet you couldn't guess it, could you?

 

[Quiddity]

English, Spanish, and Splangish.

 

[Lindsey-Loo]

I know a little spanish, but I speak RedneckAmerican. I say "hey ya'll", and yeehaw.

Me too, I say "Hey Ya'll" as a second nature, but some people find it a little...differant, I guess. My language arts teacher tried to stomp it out of me (not literally, it's illegal for teacher to hit/spank kids now) last year, but it didn't work.

 

[Quiddity]

I know a little spanish, but I speak RedneckAmerican. I say "hey ya'll", and yeehaw.

He he, I like that kind of talk.

 

[Ðanisty]

I speak English, obviously, and I know enough Spanish that I could probably survive on it if I had to. I could probably get the rest out of context clues, etc. Once when I worked at a pharmacy I was able to help a Spanish-speaking man find what he was looking for. It's a good thing too because nobody else there had a clue about Spanish. I sometimes like to pick up the Spanish newspapers outside of our local Mexican restaurants to see how much of it I can understand.

Japanese - Because I was fascinated by Asian culture (and anime)...

Ah, that's the main reason I want to learn Japanese. I know a few words and phrases, but not nearly enough.

I also want to learn Russian and Greek. I have notice a trend here. I seem to be unable to find a great deal of interest in a foreign language that actually uses the English alphabet. I do honestly intend to learn all three of these languages though and I'm just trying to figure out where to start. Should I start with the easiest and if so which one would that be? Or should I start with the most difficult and therefore the rest of them will be easier? I don't just want to speak them though. I want to be able to write and read them also. Japanese, having three alphabets, is probably the hardest...

 

[evearael]

...but once you tackle that, you can do anything! Well, language-wise...

 

[GloriaPatri]

I can speak Latin. I recommend everyone learn how to atleast read it, it really helps with your English.

 

[Tigress]

I am fluent in both English and French.

 

[Sunstone]

I have little or no talent for languages and can only admire people who do. Despite five years of French in middle and high school, I forgot all of it and only know English.

My ex significant other, however, could work in five languages, including Japanese, English, Latin, Classical Chinese, and German.

Also, my ex wife worked as a written translator and could get by in 20 languages (mostly European). She was native or near native in three (English, German, and Czech).

Both women were complete mysteries to me!

 

[Mystic-als]

I can only speak two. English... SURPRISE!!!! and Afrikaans. Afrikaans similar to dutch.
I am trying to learn portuaguese. (can't even spell it right yet) and french.

The languages that can be spoken in RF is mind boggleing.

 

[Ðanisty]

Ah, I forgot about this thread! I've since decided to start with Russian. I've almost completely memorized the alphabet already. Russian is a lot easier than it looks!

 

[evearael]

Sweet! I'm learning the alphabet and simple phrases in Arabic. My daughter is taking up so much of my time, there isn't a lot left to practice the language. I need to pick up the pace because I want to raise her bilingual, at least. The calligraphy is really beautiful, and I hope to get as good at it as I was with Japanese and Chinese.

 

[anders]

A problem is that knowing a language involves many different skills. To address the OP's speaking, my Swedish is native, English not much worse and German for a close third. My spoken Dutch is all right, I make do in Spanish, the French are not impressed by my trying their language (but I survive in Brussels on it).

English, German and French were school subjects. I learned Dutch when I worked for a summer in Amsterdam. I taught myself Spanish and have practiced it during several visits to the Canary Islands.

I have taken three uni semesters of Chinese and two of Arabic, but don't speak those languages. Reasons for trying: I tried Arabic, because I was going to take oil chemistry, and thought that it would enable me to get nice jobs in interesting places. (We're talking the sixties...) Chinese because it's so different from the others, and I wanted to see if I could understand how my brain worked when learning a language. Didn't work. I used all energy on learning and didn't bother with what happened inside me.

Soon I hope to speak Hindi on an acceptabel level. (Uni + self study.) I was fascinated by R. Kipling's Kim when very young, and I still on re-reading discover new things about details mentioned etc. On my first visit to India out of hopefully many, I discovered that the knowledge of the national language English wasn't at all as widespread even among for example shop owners/assistants or autorickshaw drivers as often claimed.

 

[michel]

Sweet! I'm learning the alphabet and simple phrases in Arabic. My daughter is taking up so much of my time, there isn't a lot left to practice the language. I need to pick up the pace because I want to raise her bilingual, at least. The calligraphy is really beautiful, and I hope to get as good at it as I was with Japanese and Chinese.

Agh! I'm jealous; I have a yen for learning Arabic (or Hebrew)

My first language (believe it or not) was kiswahili, then French, Then a little Flemish (which I have forgotten); I did latin for three years, so I can read it. I can'do' coverstional Spanish, and read it, and am picking up bits of Italian.