How many languages...

[MatthiasGould]

Ok, here goes:

French (more or less fluently)
Latin (very well)
Ancient Greek (decently well)
Italian (rusty and basic)
Japanese (conversational)
Arabic (still learning)
Serbian (decently well, fairly basic level)
Portuguese (decent, but massively rusty)
Basic Swedish
Some phrases of Icelandic
Esperanto (although anyone can learn this!)
About 200 signs of British Sign Language
100 signs of American Sign Language

I have a gift of being able to learn languages REALLY quickly.

 

[Penumbra]

I'm bad at language.

I'm passable at English, though.

I got a lot of A's in German classes and actually got the highest grade in my high school in German but I can't speak German at all. It's like I never studied it. =/

 

[LuisDantas]

How many languages do you speak? Which ones?

Brazilian Portuguese (native)

English (out of sheer stubborness and desire to have access to knowledge). My pronounciation is poor, but I have a near-native command of grammar, vocabulary and even orthography. Of course, I better have; I read and write a lot of English, considerably more than I do in Portuguese.

Spanish (just barely; Chileans couldn't make head or tails of what I meant back in the day when I lived in Santiago, but I can read it just fine)

I suppose that if I really needed I could read some Italian (fairly close to Portuguese) and Wikipedia taught me that I can easily read Galego as well (a language that is very close indeed to Portuguese, considerably more so than Spanish despite popular conceptions).

 

[Penumbra]

English (out of sheer stubborness and desire to have access to knowledge). My pronounciation is poor, but I have a near-native command of grammar, vocabulary and even orthography. Of course, I better have; I read and write a lot of English, considerably more than I do in Portuguese.

You're probably better at English than I am.

 

[Penumbra]

Wikipedia taught me that I can easily read Galego as well (a language that is very close indeed to Portuguese, considerably more so than Spanish despite popular conceptions).

Hmm, I just tried this for German. I looked up a German wikipedia article.

Might as well have been in Chinese for me.

 

[LuisDantas]

Hmm, I just tried this for German. I looked up a German wikipedia article.

Might as well have been in Chinese for me.

German has an undeniable relation to English, but not nearly a strong enough one to make the learning procedure painless, I fear. I estimate that the two languages are slightly closer to each other than French is to Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, and a bit more distant than Italian from Portuguese or Spanish.

One of these days I must practice my Spanish again. I even have one of the Spanish editions of one of the Accursed Kings books at hand. The beauty of having proficiency in several languages is that the opportunities and choices just keep adding up.

 

[Penumbra]

German has an undeniable relation to English, but not nearly a strong enough one to make the learning procedure painless, I fear.

Yeah, but I took four year-long classes of it in school! Ninth grade through twelfth grade, and got an A every time.

And yet, it's like I took two weeks of German. Looking back, it was an almost humorously unproductive use of hundreds of hours.

Deutschland ist ein Bundesstaat in Mitteleuropa. Gemäß seiner Verfassung ist Deutschland eine föderal ausgerichtete Republik, die aus den 16 deutschen Ländern gebildet wird. Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist ein freiheitlich-demokratischer und sozialer Rechtsstaat und stellt die jüngste Ausprägung des deutschen Nationalstaates dar.[9] Bundeshauptstadt ist Berlin.

^This is the first statement from the German Wikipedia article on Germany.

It says something along the lines of Germany being a country in middle Europe, then something about a republic, with 16 regions I think. I'm not really sure about the whole sentence after that, though freiheitlich-demokratischer sounds like it's talking about the government structure of the country, like a free democracy. The last line is that the capital is Berlin.

If this were spoken rather than written, I'm not even sure I'd be aware that the person is talking about Germany. They might be talking about lollipops for all I know, except that I'd recognize "Deutchsland" as Germany. German lollipops, perhaps.

Four years, lol!

I'd like to learn French and Spanish, and re-learn German. That way if I ever travel to Europe or some place else, I won't be the crazy lady that expects everyone to talk to her in her native language.

 

[Debater Slayer]

My native language is Arabic. I can understand and speak three dialects in addition to Modern Standard Arabic.

English is the language in which I've been taught most subjects at school. (Mathematical and scientific terms just sound weird to me in any other language now.) I've been studying English for about ten years and counting, though most of my vocabulary is the result of continual use of dictionaries over the years; at one point I had almost been looking up new words on a daily basis.

I've also been studying French for two years now, but I'm not nearly as fluent in it as I am in either of the other two languages I know. My knowledge of it is pretty much just basic grammar and some very limited vocabulary (Je ne peux pas parler Francais bien ).

 

[Klerkie]

English is my native language. I can speak and understand conversational French, understand some Japanese phrases, understand some German phrases, understand some Portuguese phrases, understand some Latin phrases, understand some Greek phrases, understand some Hawaiian phrases, understand some Hindi phrases, and speak some Spanish.

 

[PassionFruit53]

First my hometown dialect of Shandong Chinese is my native tongue. Then I can speak Standard Mandarin.

After that I know English since we all study it in school.

And I can speak a little bit of French.

 

[Kerr]

Other then Swedish, which is my native language, I speak English rather well. Knows some very basic Japanese words, but its just simple things like saying "yes" or count to 10, which I learned at my martial arts class (cannot actually speak it). Can also a few words Spanish and French. And I can say "you are stupid" in creole, but not anything more then that . Thats just because I was in Africa and picked up that phrase. Dont know why I didnt pick up another, lol.

A fun fact about Spanish and Swedish. The word for "walrus" in Spanish is a slang for "mom" in Swedish xD.

 

[Kerr]

Ok, here goes:

French (more or less fluently)
Latin (very well)
Ancient Greek (decently well)
Italian (rusty and basic)
Japanese (conversational)
Arabic (still learning)
Serbian (decently well, fairly basic level)
Portuguese (decent, but massively rusty)
Basic Swedish
Some phrases of Icelandic
Esperanto (although anyone can learn this!)
About 200 signs of British Sign Language
100 signs of American Sign Language

I have a gift of being able to learn languages REALLY quickly.

I feel a little jealous. Wish I know that many languages! If you want to practice your Swedish you can sent me a pm if you like .

EDIT:

I cannot help but notice you didnt include English in that list .

 

[PassionFruit53]

I've also been studying French for two years now, but I'm not nearly as fluent in it as I am in either of the other two languages I know. My knowledge of it is pretty much just basic grammar and some very limited vocabulary (Je ne peux pas parler Francais bien ).

I too want to improve my French speaking, reading and writing. I joined a French Language club at the University but everyone there is so much better than me because their specialty is French.

But I only took one semester of French class. My knowledge level is quite low compared to others.

Le français est une langue belle. Je veux la parler mieux.

 

[Heim]

Dutch is my native language. I think it's safe to say I speak English proficiently.

I also know basic French. I'd like to improve my French skills, especially since I'll probably be moving to Brussels.

Thanks to my time spent in Helsinki, I have notions of Swedish and Finnish.

 

[underthesun]

Language is something I have recently discovered a love for.

My native language is English, and, because my parents were so against my learning another language when I was younger, it is unfortunately the only language I am truly fluent in.

That said, I'm in the process of learning German, and it is coming along very nicely. I'll be spending several months next year in Germany, so hopefully that will greatly help.

I've already decided I will continue to learn new languages as soon as I feel comfortable enough with German to begin diving into another language. I'm leaning toward Russian next. c:​

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Only English, I'm too lazy to learn another language, probably a bad thing but wwhatever

 

[CaptainNobody]

The only language I can speak at a native level is English. I can speak Spanish pretty well but not at a professional level.

 

[Breathe]

English, I'm comfortable conversing in BSL, moderate-high Welsh, I can understand Esperanto even though my grammar sucks, some Swedish, some Japanese, some Interlingua. I had a brief flirt with Lingua Franca Nova. I know a few bits of Hindi and Punjabi, and some Sanskrit and Gurmukhi through religious influences.

I know a small amount of Malaysian, Mandarin Chinese, and Cantonese from the local Chinese takeaway's front-of-house-man (my friend works there, so he's very informal with me). Enough to say hello, thank you, and to be rude, an *******, racist or a pervert... for me to find out what I've said only after I've said it, some delightful examples of phrases I learnt but forgot:


'Why do black men have bigger dicks than we Chinese?!' (1) WHY DID HE TEACH ME THIS?! 2) When did I become Chinese? 3) When will I EVER need this?!)
'Hey pretty lady, do you want to come back to my place for 'jiggy jig'?' (His translation!)

Yeah... not exactly everyday phrases.


ETA: Languages I want to learn are:

Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch/Afrikaans, Swahili, Swedish to fluency, Malay to fluency, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.

I'm just too lazy to learn. :cover:

 

[Galen.Iksnudnard]

Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch/Afrikaans, Swahili, Swedish to fluency, Malay to fluency, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.

Don't bother with Afrikaans; it's an ugly language with a legacy of racism and hatred. Just go with Dutch. In comparison to proper Dutch, Afrikaans is basically the dialect spoken in Alabama by toothless rednecks is to the Queen's English. In fact it used to be called "onbeskaafd Hollands" (uncivilized Dutch).

Swahili is a cool language though.

 

[Breathe]

In comparison to proper Dutch, Afrikaans is basically the dialect spoken in Alabama by toothless rednecks is to the Queen's English. In fact it used to be called "onbeskaafd Hollands" (uncivilized Dutch).

but ... that's why I like it...

And I have Dutch family. They've known I wanted to learn Dutch for years, but never helped me learn any. Sods. My Dutch extends to pretty much "Ik heb mezelf buitengesloten".

I've never locked myself out of anywhere!