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How many languages...

MaddLlama

Obstructor of justice
Other than English I speak Italian and Japanese. My Italian is pretty rusty though. My grandparents came from Italy, and they and my father's family would speak Italian a lot, so it was kind of a requirement around the family.
And, like Evereal, I have this fascination with Asian culture, so the study of Japanese is my minor in school.
 

kai

ragamuffin
we of the mundane are all fluent but sadly in different languages,as we only know our own mine is english
 

uu_sage

Active Member
English naturally is my native language. My Spanish is good but could be better, as for Latin I can speak some but mostly through song, my German is not too good but not too bad either, Italian I can sing and speak but only with certain songs and certain writings. Maori counts for my exotic language (its the language of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand) I some of it but I can sing Hine e Hine (a Maori lullaby) that brings tears to my eyes every time its performed. Gradually learning Hebrew. My motivation for learning all these languages stems from my multicultural interests and in particular life experience.
 

egroen

Member
Native to english... pretty fluent in farsi. Lived in Spain for a while but my spanish is now rusty.

-Erin
 
evearael said:
How many languages do you speak? Which ones? Why did you choose to study that particular language, or is it traditional in your culture?

I speak 3 languages. I was brought up speaking English and Bemba(a Zambian language) and I learned French while staying in Switzerland and Senegal. My Bemba's shabby now coz I've stayed so long outside Zambia. I'd love to learn Arabic. It sounds very expressive and I am a fan of Arabic Sufi music.
 

kateyes

Active Member
English, Spanish, bits and pieces of Portuguese and Italian. A smattering of Nepalese. English I was born to --Spanish-because I lived in Texas, California, and Puerto Rico. Nepalese because I spent 6 months there.
 

Booko

Deviled Hen
evearael said:
How many languages do you speak? Which ones? Why did you choose to study that particular language, or is it traditional in your culture?

English, a smattering of Groeniger Dutch and Canuck French, and Elvish.

Oh yeah, and the naughty Spanish words I learned years ago playing soccer with some Bolivian friends....
 
English.
French. I took 2 years in high school and some in college.
Feline. At least I like to think I can :D

I actually wanted to learn Spanish in high school, but something happened with my schedule and I was placed in French.

I wish I could learn Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Russian and a few others. I have such a hard time with non-Roman letter alphabets though.
 

Smoke

Done here.
I'm not fluent in anything other than English. I know just enough German and Spanish to be dangerous, and I read French, Latin, Greek and Russian, but only slowly and with dictionary in hand.

Except for reading, I mostly rely on the rest of the world to learn English, as foreigners have universally agreed that it's easier for them to speak English with me than to listen to me mangle their languages.
 

sandandfoam

Veteran Member
I used to be fluent in French because I spent all my summers there whenI was growing up, it's slipped a lot but I find a week in France brings it back.
I can muddle through in Swiss German, I've bad Irish. I did one year of classical Greek and was awful at it.
I'd like to improve my German and to learn some Polish.
 

Somkid

Well-Known Member
I speak English because it is my native language and I speak Spanish because..... I'm from the USA doesn't everyone? Actually I lived in Colombia for 2 years which means I speak Spanish better than most of the native Spanish speakers in the USA. I read, write and speak Wu Chinese because I lived in China for 10 years, I can read and write Latin and Greek because I had to study it in university, I can also read and write Pali and Sanskrit because I had to study it when I was a monk, I can speak a little German because I'm from Pennsylvania and I can get by in Quebec Qui (French from Canada) because my family had a summer home in Canada and rightfully so I can read, write and speak Thai as well as I do English since I live in Thailand.
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
I speak English as my native language. I speak conversational French (don't consider myself quite fluent). I speak a little Russian, and even less Spanish, a bit of Italian. I studied Gaelic, but only know a couple of phrases now. I'm just about done with my first semester of Arabic now.
 

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
I'm fluent in Hebrew and English, can read Arabic but I don't have an impressive vocabulary, studied Egyptian hieroglyphs in the archaeology department.
 
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Apart from English, I speak Irish and French, I am trying to learn German now from a download lessons, it's quite pleasant. I can understand a little German,italian and spanish within a work context and can say hello, thank you and swear in a variety of languages from working in the hospitality industry with a quite international staff. Kitchens are an education.

A couple of people have said they speak Gaelic, can I assume they mean Scots Gaelic as opposed to Irish or Manx :(
 

Magic Man

Reaper of Conversation
A couple of people have said they speak Gaelic, can I assume they mean Scots Gaelic as opposed to Irish or Manx :(

Well, I took a class in Irish Gaelic, but I also have two books on Scots Gaelic, and the class helped me study the books, too. So, I studied both. Of course, I don't know/remember much of either.
 

Andal

resident hypnotist
I can speak English because it's my native tongue. I can speak Spanish because I took 3 years of it, spent time in Mexico and lived for 4 years in Florida. I can read and write in Sanskrit, had to learn it to get my M.A. Now I'm learning Hindi which is a requirement for my PhD. I studied Mandarin Chinese for year in college too but I was never really any good at it.
 
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