"How many languages do you speak?" Topic

This topic: TMP link
made me wonder about how many of us understand language.

The following two paragraphs are an explanation of my observations & thoughts. Those who wish to simply get to the poll question may skip ahead and read the last sentence of the post.

While I have not been able to approach fluency in most languages (my native Gibberish excepted), I have learned that some concepts are very hard (or even impossible) to express in some languages (e.g. expressing the future tense is easily done in English, but doing so in Mandarin Chinese can be challenging and doing so in Ancient Hebrew is virtually impossible to do with 100% clarity). Beyond that some concepts that are easy to express in some languages are easy to understand in others but still very hard to translate (e.g. Hebrew has a word that means "the word that follows this word is a direct object in this sentence." While the concept is simple, there is no easy way to put that into an English translation of Hebrew, and while the direct object in an English sentence is usually obvious that is not true in 100% of cases in English. Hebrew posses a method to clarify things in a way English does not). Finally, some translations must, due to the nature of one of the languages used, either add or deduct specific meaning from an original statement (e.g. to use the example of Hebrew above, a statement in Ancient Hebrew can easily be purposely made ambiguous so that it is not clear if it is future or past tense. Without a lengthy explanation, translating that statement into English would add a level of certainty that is absent in the original.).

I have also observed that some individuals have difficulty understanding these concepts, even to the point of disbelieving that such ideas are real (e.g. Some individuals are inclined to believe a language must have a clear system of past/present/future tense to function. Others will erroneously maintain, because they have read English translations of certain languages, that the meaning which is clear in English must be equally clear in the original language.) However, I have also seen that those who have such difficulties are usually monoglots.

All of which leads me to ask:
1) How many languages can you speak (and/or read & write) and to what degree?
2) How many languages do you speak (and/or read & write) in a typical day?

Or, for those who skipped ahead:
Vous êtes trilingue, bilingue ou Français?

1 I speak two languages (English and Portuguese)
2 I only use English regularly, my parents immigrated from Portugal to Canada.

I am English but live and work in Switzerland so I speak English and German and the Swiss German dialect every day. I can get by in French.

I can say thank-you in several languages.

I have learnt, and currently speak quite badly, German, Japanese, Esperanto and now Italian.

Ti capisco tutto.

Ciao!
JohnG

Modern languages … French, Italian and a bit of German … I also retain some grasp of the Latin and Greek I did as a youngster.

I suspect that means 4 including my own.

I only speak English regularly though having European relatives means that I was limping through a conversation in French at a celebration only a week or so ago. I'm good but it takes a while to warm up.

Phil

I speak 'New Jersey' but use Korean everyday at work, home, and around town. I can hold a conversation in Japanese but can't read worth a damn.
I can speak Chinese well enough for travel but couldn't hold an extended conversation. I used to know some Spanish and Latin but I've forgotten nearly everything.

I can "Speak" English and American Sign Language and often find myself doing so simultaneously. The odd thing about ASL is there are regional accents.

Finnish
English
Swedish

Some little German (2 years in high school)

" I have forgotten more than I have learnt"!

Australianised English,
I was taught Pidgen Engish both written and spoken, later Thai. Vocab maybe 200 words now on both languages lost after thirty years.

Regards Allan

1) English (like a native). I have a little French and even less Spanish left over from school and occasional trips abroad.
2) One.

I speak English.
I understand Italian, especially when my parents or grand-parents were yelling at me!
I speak very little Italian , and it is not formal Italian like they teach in school. I can read Italian in its formal form as well as French….There may be hope for me after all.

English and Scots, I slip between one and the other without even being aware.

American English & medical jargon fluently

English but have frequently spoken jibberish and drun speech.

English
Spanish
German

Speak English & French, work in both almost daily. Having said that, am completely fluent in idiot…

'Stryne, Oxford English, can get by in 'Merican but the potential for misunderstanding can be hilarious (for instance 'fanny' can cause much ribald humor).

Studied Latin at school, can't get past a few memorised phrases. A few written words of Italian & Polish from studying armour books and restaurant menus.

English, Spanish, some Japanese, some German, a bit of Inupiaq.

French, Russian …

English and Profanity.

American-english
Spanish
Arabic

English and German but slowly losing the German through lack of practice.

Slang English (poorly). I believe I could blurt out enough French to get myself arrested.

English
plus decent reading knowledge and somewhat able to speak:
French
Ancient Greek
Spanish
Latin

And some amusing phrases in:
Swedish
ASL
Yiddish

English.

A modicum of French, Spanish and German.

A smattering of Latin.

Hello, goodbye, thank you, two beers please, in quite a few languages.

Of all of them, French is the best, sufficient to read academic papers etc. I studied it the longest, so hardly surprising.

In my day to day life I speak English.

American English, with vague familiarity of Spanish, French, German, abd Italian. Also, I minored in Linguistics in college.

Danish and English fluently. (Native in Danish and speak English at a native level)

A little bit of German but I can't really hold a conversation any more. Apparently I have great pronunciation though according to German friends.

Can read Swedish and Norwegian and if someone talks slowly, I can understand them as well.

Since I live in the US currently, I only really get to speak English.

English and wargamerese.
I recently bought German For Dummies as my lady is German.

English, Spanglish and a smidgen of Klingon.

Native speaker of Amurrican English.

Studied Hebrew, Latin and German at a high school level, a very long time ago. Through real-world exposure I have a smattering of French, Spanish and Yiddish. I can fake my way maybe 1/2 – 2/3 of the way through a text written in any of those languages, better if the subject is military history. I could have a brief conversation with limited content in any of them. I would improve quickly with immersion.

English and Scots, I slip between one and the other without even being aware.

I find it very fascinating that Scots is now considered a separate language now. Having not been to Scotland since that became officially acknowledged (or at least if it was official then I was utterly unaware), I must also ask, where does one draw the line between the Scottish dialect of English and Scots as a distinct language (or does one even draw a line at all)?

English, Southern English and Russian(courtesy Armed Forces Language school)

English.

They attempted to teach me French and German at school and failed miserably. I just could not remember anything from one lesson to the next.

If confronted with someone who speaks no English (although the situation rarely arises), I use the traditional British method of speaking slower and louder in the hope they might understand…

@optional field

Much of the difference between Scots and English is the pronunciation of a common word so each are dialects of the same language.

There are also several different regional dialects within Scotland and England and some of those are quite baffling to me.

Then there is BBC English which can be a hoot if some Scots words or placenames are involved.

Flemish, Dutch (yes they are not the same, it is like English and American), French, Portuguese. All of them reading and writing and speaking(so I think).
Speaking and reading : Spanish.
Undertstanding most of it : Italian (thanks to my wife) and German.

Bilingue. Mais, pire en français. Aussi j'ai au peut pres 500 mots d'Allemagne. Ca suffit pour seduir des Dames dans l'est de notre Continent!

English, but I can get a table, a drink and ask where the bathroom is is French, Spanish, German and if I get a bit of practice Russian.

I seem to pick up the language of the country I am in quickly, yet forget it within weeks of leaving.

I am fluent in American English (my native language) and was, at one time, capable of carrying on coherent conversations in French and German. I have studied Spanish, Russian, and Japanese and in high school could read, write, and speak Latin well to enough to compose extemporaneous poetry.

Of course, lack of opportunity to use these languages has caused them to leak out of my brain and encroaching age has eaten large holes in my English vocabulary, leaving me with one language I can speak reasonably well and a bunch in which I can order beer and get slapped.

LT

English, and I had French in high school and twice in college, plus a reading course in grad school. Then the Army taught me Arabic and I forgot most of my French. I also know enough German to get me into trouble.

1) I can speak, read, and write English, German, French, and some Dutch (because of German-Dutch cognates).

2) I speak/read/write English and read German in a typical day.

Geordie but understand some English. Have been known to carry out a conversion in French but won't pretend it was anything other than a very poor attempt.

Fluently ? NONE.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

I am fluent in over 6 million forms of communication.

Amurican English and the remnants of high school/college French. What German I know is from reading Sgt.Fury and his Howling Commandos-:^))

Dutch, English, the local dialect from the area I was born, German, French, some Spanish.

I use Dutch and English every day.

I'm fluent in Dutch, French, English and German but that is not exceptional for someone from Flanders. Because of my French, I understand Spanish and Italian partly, but speak very little. I'm trying to master Hungarian, but that's another kettle…

1.German, English and latin

2.German and English

American English and a great deal of United Kingdom English.At least in print.

"I am fluent in over 6 million forms of communication"

but can you understand the binary language of vaporators ? :)

Do Pyrat and Dachshund count?