Languages

[Poisonium]

The kind used to communicate with other human beings.

I was just wondering how many languages you folks speak.

As for me, I speak Danish and English fluently, and I'm learning German and Esperanto.
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[Zag]

As a typical, pathetic American, I am fluent only in English. I took several years of French, way back in the dark ages, and I could mumble my way along in it if I had to.

[Quailman]

[Trojan Horse]

Ugly American here. English only. Four years of high school Spanish, and I don't remember much beyond "taco", "burrito", and the like.

Right now, the only languages I'm interested in learning are of the computer programming variety.

[Scurra]

I cannot speak German. However, I can understand it passably (although my vocabulary is suprisingly board game specific!)

I deliberately tried to forgot as much French as I possibly could once I left school (where it was compulsory) but I still seem to have a surprisingly large vocabulary, although no grammar to go with it.

I can count to ten in about twenty different languages, but them I'm a puzzler...
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[Thok]

English, plus enough French/German to pass a language exam requirement.

In other words, English.

[Dragon Phoenix]

Fluent in Dutch, English and German. Can cope reasonably well in French. Enough Italian for hotels and restaurants. About 100 words of mandarin only.
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[referee]

Mother language is Spanish and Catalan, and I have pretty good knowledge of English. Now learning Japanese.
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[Chaz]

I speak English and Pig-Latin.

I also speak enough Cantonese and Spanish for native speakers to really dislike trying to talk to to me in them.
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[dethwing]

English only. Took French but je ne parle pas francais.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

Right now, English only. I used to be able to carry on a decent conversation in Spanish and knew enough German to communicate, although it wouldn't have been pretty. Now, I can still read them, but haven't spoken either in a decade or so.

[Chuck]

They tried to teach me French when I was in the 7th grade. I taught them that it wasn't going to happen.

[Antrax]

Mainly Hebrew and English. Learning Russian by bits and pieces, and I still remember some Arabic from school, but nothing more useful than reading street signs slowly and the such.
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[Chaz]

Crap. I'd forgotten/repressed that 'traxy knows Hebrew. I was always a bit jealous about that.
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[Antrax]

Hebrew's main usage is gossiping about people while in foreign countries. Any foreign language is likely to be useful for that.
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[Lepton*]

When most Americans come to the country in which I live, as mono-linguists they figure that learning the local language would be too difficult -- even if they are planning on staying for the long term -- and end up isolated. The French, Japanese, and others (most of whom have previously learned English as an international token) aren't scared and make serious progress with the language.

On the other hand, I don't think I met a single immigrant in Canada who didn't speak English (or French, of course). At the risk of confusing cause and effect, we're lucky that English is becoming the lingua franca.

[JohnyFake*]

I speak Russian, English, and I used to know some Serbo-Croat but it's now mostly gone. I want to learn Portuguese and German (my new niece is Swiss-German) and my best friend now lives in Brazil). Other priorities are first though (like my wife's recipe program!).

[Quailman]

[Chaz]

Heh.

There are two languages I'd like to know fluently.

Spanish (just because so many people in the US speak it now that it's getting "silly" not to learn it) and ASL (American Sign Language.)

I think everyone should learn ASL. It's super useful for trying to communicate across a noisy room (like a rock concert), underwater, to someone in another vehicle, and during a video feed where multiple people want to say something at the same time.

The last reason is a lot of stretch, sure, but I can think of a few taffy moments when it might be useful.
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[Jack_Ian]

[Jack_Ian]

[Chaz]

Another great reason. Everyone could still communicate even when they're all listening to music in their headphones.

The truly anti-social could just close their eyes to let everyone know that they don't want to be bothered.
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[Poisonium]

[Antrax]

Isn't Irish just English with a funny accent?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Jack_Ian]

[jesternl]

Hmm well.. English, Dutch and German fluently, enough French to make myself more or less understood..
I can recite some prayers in Hebrew, but I guess that does not count.

I know some very basic ASL, we taught it to our kids to help them communicate. My youngest (11 months) just started signing in the last few weeks, she can do milk, up and dog.

I can order beer in a great deal of languages

[MatthewV]

I really can only speak English (barely at that!) and could mangle out a conversation in Russian. I can understand Russian fairly well but it would take a few days of exposure to be competent again.
One of my proudest moments with Russian was after about 10 months of living there a stranger didn't realize I was foreign for about 5 minutes.


The aspect that makes English an excellent international language is that you can completely butcher it and still be understood. Because it is spoken with many different accents and styles, people have gotten used to poorly spoken English. If you pronounce "four" as "fur" or "thor" the other person will probably understand you.
My experience with Russian was quite the opposite. A slight mispronunciation of a word was met with blank stares. Unless the word was spoken almost perfectly or the person was used to Russian spoken as a second language, it is not understood.

I wall no go bak to butcher English.

[groza528]

...Isn't Dutch also just English with a funny accent? Kidding!
Fluent in English. Passable in French. Can form some basic sentences in German. Remember a couple of Russian words.

[Jack_Ian]

While living in Germany, I used to watch the Dutch TV channels.
Between my English and German, I was ably to understand most of it.

[Chaz]

I've seen a great deal of movies; most foreign languages are just English with funny accents.

Including British.
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[Jack_Ian]

Well English isn't really a language anyway. It's just a bastardised conglomeration of Indo-European languages.

[Death Mage]

I speak English. I'm not really capable of learning a second language. Oh, I've tried, I lived in Southern California for many years and couldn't pick up Spanish, even with classes. In college, I took several semesters of Japanese. Learned enough to pass tests, but couldn't retain the information.
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[Chaz]

Immersion lessons are the way to go.

Rosetta Stone es muy buena.
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[jesternl]

[Samadhi]

[ctrlaltdel]

i think its mostly about where you come from...

europe is crowded with nations speaking different languages living next to each other and mixing with each other for ages. i can hardly think of anyone i know in europe who doesnt know at least one other language well enough.

when the u.s. is a chunk of land bigger than europe, why would you learn a european language? its like me living in europe trying to learn some african language - i mean what for? am i likely to go there once or twice in a lifetime? perhaps you could learn spanish, tho with the latinos becoming almost a majority in the states .

my mother language is slovak, i speak czech (throw in there the whole slavic group, because i technically *could* understand with enough back and forth efforts also polish, serb, croat and ukrainian - but thats not knowing the languages, thats just using the fact that they are so similar to slovak ), i speak english, i can easily follow a german movie but when i try to speak it half the words that come out are english - bah, i know some hungarian and some russian.

[Zag]

[Poisonium]

Add to the fact that English is the de facto international auxiliary language. Learning a foreign language for the culture alone is hard, and only sometimes useful.
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[Sentran]

Fluent in English, and I've taken some French, German, Spanish, and ASL as well. I know enough German nad French to make my way through those countries, but my Spanish and ASL are pretty poor.
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Sentran
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[jesternl]

My youngest, (12 months) is doing more and more signing now.
She can sign milk, more, help (sort of ), up, all done, dog, cat (sometimes) and bath..