What Languages Can You Speak?

[KillemallCFH]

Well, you know what they say...

If you speak 3 languages, you're trilingual. If you speak 2 languages you're bilingual. If you only speak 1 language, you're an American. Sadly, aside from a small Spanish vocabulary, that's me.

Unfortunately, that really isn't the fault of most Americans, but of the school system. I don't know about most of the other Americans on here, but they didn't start teaching foreign languages until I was in 7th grade (when I was 12, I think), by which time it is much harder to learn another language than if we had been learning it since elementary school.

I wish I could speak another language, but for some reason, it is just extremely hard for me to learn one - foreign languages have always been my weakest subjects in school, and anything I did learn from them I pretty much forgot shortly after (I took 4 years of Latin in high school and a year of German my first year of college, which was only last year, and aside from a few random words I remember, I can't speak/write/comprehend either language to any useful capacity). While I certainly am worse than most at it, I'm sure if I had been exposed to other languages earlier (like most Europeans), I wouldn't have so much trouble with them.

[RCBH928]

I have a hard time believing people can speak 4 languages just as good.
I have been studying and dealing in English on a daily basis for the past 21 years, I still make grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes, not to mention I got an accent too, and I do forget a lot of the vocabulary.

So how is it possible to speak 4 languages on the same level. I can understand you speak 3 almost as good, but no more unless you are a genius . Its also easy to understand other languages, but to me , you don't speak the language unless you can write a full essay in it(or at least a letter).

I am bilingual , I wanted to learn Spanish but damn Berlitz asked for something like $10,000 for private tutoring(full spanish course), although its in their place and there is a penalty if I am absent!! In all honesty, i remember it was more like $15,000 but I cant remember the course prices. As for group prices its like maybe $4,000 but no one wants to learn spansh in a tiny island in the middle east.

Btw, English and Latin driven languages are pretty easy. Its Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, where your might go crazy dealing with. For me , English, Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian are so similar it might take you 3-6 months to learn one more . To me they might be like linux, same OS different flavors

I am not sure why Americans are upset because they know 1 languages. Thats perfectly fine, its better trust me. Once you learn more than 1 you start mixing vocabulary. Plus if English is your first language you are damn lucky, everything is provided to you in that language. Good luck finding computer programming books in Persian for example, you have to learn English in the first place.

Why do many of you learn Latin, specially that its un-spoken, and as far as I know most of you here are not religious ?

[J T]

Why do many of you learn Latin, specially that its un-spoken, and as far as I know most of you here are not religious ?

I never learned Latin, but part of the reason for wanting to learn it is because so many English words are based on Latin, so if you have a decent understanding of Latin, you can improve your English vocabulary. Other than that though, yeah, it's kind of a worthless language to learn.

[KillemallCFH]

Why do many of you learn Latin, specially that its un-spoken, and as far as I know most of you here are not religious ?

For me, I choose Latin because: (a) I knew the class would deal with the culture/history, something which I am interested in, especially in the higher level classes where we got to read Latin writers like Virgil, Cicero, etc.; (b) since English derives a lot from Latin, it sharpened my English vocabulary and grammar; and (c) though this probably doesn't apply to anyone else, my Latin teacher was the best teacher I ever had, and the only reason I took Latin all 4 years was because of him.

[Pulsar_t]

German has much more to do with English than Latin. One is too easy to learn yet hard to master, the other a true bastard on both accounts.

[weaponepsilon]

not fluent in any language, but I tend to pic things up quickly. From most to least proficient would be:

English
Tagalog (Filipino)
Spanish
Hmong
Japanese

and a smattering of

Korean
German
Polish
Orominia (ethopian)
Tigrinia (ethiopian)
Cantonese

course, if I had nothing better to do, I'd sit and actually learn them all.

[Breetai]

I don't know.

English, of course. I can read French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and usually figure things out alright without a dictionary. Ancient Greek, too.

I can read and kind of get by in Korean, and I can read Japanese kana, about 500 kanji and am conversational in Japanese.

So, fluent in one, conversational in another, can can get by in 6 more to varying degrees. I used to be conversational in French and Spanish, but probably not anymore.

I put trilingual on the poll, but that's probably not accurate.

Daily, I speak in a strange mix of Japanese and English. When friends and family who only speak English or Japanese visit, nobody understands it when my wife and I are talking. We completely mix the two even in the same sentence (vocab and grammar). We might use some English with Japanese grammar or vice-versa. I do the same with one of my sisters in an English/French combo.

[weaponepsilon]

Heh you code switch....


Filipinos do that alot...

[lisalover1]

わたし は だいがく に にほんご お べんきょうし ます.

I can also speak a fair bit of French and a little Chinese.

[MentalMan]

Oh this is a cool thread. I was always interested in languages, and I feel like it is important everyone broadens his horizon with at least one second language.

Just yesterday I was having a discussion with a friend. Most english people cant even speak their own native properly. Really, really sad. (Same with germans in germany, its a fucking catastrophy.) It's like theres a genetic retardation going on with some people.

I suck at math, but at least I got my native language down.

My native is German. My second native is English. (I basically grew up with it and since almost a decade I've been using it more then the German language in my daily life. And to be really honest, I highly dislike my native language. Its just the way it sounds, the way you feel when you talk. It feels gay. Like french, but not as badly )

From thereon I have lots of interest in the japanese language. I cant speak it, but at least I learned hiragana and katakana so far. So at least I can make out menu screens or little things.

Other then that, I know the cryllic alphabet a bit but thats it. I dont know much Russian except the obvious shit.

Anyway Im glad theres people here interested in the fine art of language. An art that keeps getting lost more and more. It's just a pity that learning a language fluently needs dedication. And theres just not enough time. I overwork myself often as it is, so I barely find time to keep going with my japanese for example

I c u l8er! *sarcasm*

edit: oh yea, as a german it's also easy to pick up a lot of the jewish vocabulary. A lot of stuff just stuck with us since history and everything, and we started to use a lot of it too. I dont know how much it happend the other way around, but yea, we do got a lot of their stuff.