"How lingual are you?" Topic

So there is this woman from Serbia we bought a dog from.
She naturally speaks her native tung. But also Hungarian(which is very different from other European languages) she also speaks Czech, german and mabye Polish and of course English (very well)

And this made me think. She speaks all these languages because she lives relatively close by all of those counties. And none of them has a common language.

While as a norwegian I'm theoretically tri lingual. As besides leading English from 2nd grade (now first grade) and having it for 12 years of school.
You are also suppose to learn a B/C language. For most norwegians. This is German, French or Spanish. As a dyslexic I didn't have to. And so I'm stuck in bilingual hell.

But this woman didn't learn all these languages in school. She leaned them by nesesity. But as someone living in South eastern Norway. I have only Sweden and Denmark to content with. I don't speak either. But I generally understand with some concentration, and they generally understands me (with some swedes you need to speak nor-swedish) so I was never forces to learn any other languages.

Anyway

How many do speak.

English and American

Italian (native), English (fluent), French (I can read it it, small conversations), I can read some German and speak some basic sentences. And no Spanish at all, despite the fact that everybody believes that Italian and Spanish are similar. No, they aren't.

I like to believe that after 17 years in the Czech Republic that I can speak Czech pretty well, but nearly every day a native speaker shows me I am delusional.

The great thing with Slavic languages is that once you learn one you can understand quite a bit of the others. So I can go to Poland and read a menu, and if I knew the alphabet a bit better, I could do the same in Russia.

Aside from that, I have my fading high school German and equally fading Texas Spanish.

Most people I know here speak Czech, English, German, and then one more for fun, and they speak them all pretty well. I hate them.

English with some Spanish and a very very little French.

But I can order dinner in 7 different languages.

English, Lallans, Italian, and an amount of Gaelic (Scottish version.

Native English speaker and speak French

English and enough Japanese to know the context of conversations, to get in to trouble and to know that some sub tiles are actually wrong.

I can also read hiragana, a handful of kanji and have started learning katakana.

Native speaker of English here. I have studied French for decades and can carry on a conversation in French if the other person is very (very) patient.

I've studied a bit of German and Spanish – studies went well as I found each of those easier than French (as Spanish and German both have grammatical rules and spelling rules that they follow more often than they don't), but I have no real ear for languages other than my native tongue.

My wife however speaks multiple languages and is perplexed by my lack of proficiency in anything but English. On the positive side, my kids are growing up multilingual!

Junior and senior high school Spanish and college German.

Can sight read for pronunciation, not conversational due to not keeping up with vocabulary.

With a dictionary I can puzzle my way through written documents.

Was working on Latin, but that is on hold.

Again with a dictionary could do some French.

Failed to pick up Slovene from my parents – but then they used it to hold conversations in our presence that they didn't want us to understand (and their's was a second generation mix picked up from their parents).

Are you trying to embarrass we Americans? I can read a bit of French, German, and Spanish. Perhaps utter a few pharases of Spanish and German. And most importantly, order a beer in perhaps 10 languages.

Flemish (native), French for having done primary school in French. Besides that I am reasonably fluid in English (hope I don't write down some huge mistake here), fluid in Portuguese (lived 5 years in Moçambique), quite good in Spanish, I can read and understand German and keep up a decent conversation. I can read and understand Italian (wife being Italian), but speaking it is a no no.
Now in the winter of my life I regret not having studied Latin (wich I used to think was only of interest to those who wanted to study medicine).

German -English -Kitchen Spanish.

Variable French, German,Russian. Smattering of Welsh. Can as almost grasp formal written Italian. Native English speaker, grammar Fascist and spelling Nazi.

English, I've the remnants of some French and Spanish from school (a very long time ago), but have always been rubbish at languages.

I once worked with a Malaysian Chinese who seemed to have a lot of languages – I asked her how many she spoke, after a moment's thought she said seven, and she could hold a conversation in Japanese but she wouldn't say she could speak it…

English, no need to learn anything else when growing up.

English only, but I can ask for beer and fags (smokes) anywhere in the world. The problem with the English, is that everyone else speaks our language so we don't bother to learn anyone else's.

Native English speaker, can survive in French and German if spoken to slowly and in simple terms. I can read Dutch reasonably well. As part of my History degree in the 70s we had to take a foreign language test, for most of us this was French or German (the main languages taught in school at the time). We had a Dutch girl on the course who said she would take the test in English. She was told that she couldn't as it wasn't a foreign language, despite her pointing out that it was to her. She offered to take it in Dutch, but was told that wasn't a foreign language to her. In the end she took it in German. We were all impressed.

English. But after a dozen beers I'm pretty good with gibberish.

OK, so maybe I will try to learn Spanish after all. English is all I know. Live in Missouri, USA and I have to go pretty far to worry about a second language. At least that was how it was growing up. Now if I knew Bosnian or Vietnamese or Japanese I could speak with some of my neighbors in their native language, though most of my neighbors are Missouri natives.

Geordie. Please do not mistake this for English.

Enough to get myself into trouble.

English (natural), Esperanto, I'm learning Italian and I can order beer in German.

John

was fluent in German, family and living there, but not using it for 25 plus years has made it disappear so my Deutsch is very weak now.

Native English and Danish, can read Norwegian and Swedish (and understand if they speak slowly) and know a few bits of German.

Speak and write? English and (in my glory days) bad German and worse Spanish. Reading comprehension good enough (once) to pass a French PhD qualifier. Give me a nice simple military text, and I can still make some progress on Germanic or Romance languages. Further afield, I'm lost. Two years in Korea never got me past simple phrases.

These are the ways in which I am lingual-

English- native speaker
Russian- I was a Russian linguist in the navy
Latin- distant memories of high school class
Spanish- what I picked up when I lived in New Mexico
Pig Latin- from childhood
Cunning- one for the ladies

American English (native)
Thai, French (advanced)
Finnish, German, Spanish (basic -- enough to get by when I'm in-country)
Russian, British English (rudimentary)

I know a few critical phrases like "thank you," "where is the bathroom?", "I don't speak _____", and "do you speak English, French, or Thai?" in Cantonese, Mandarin, Norwegian, and Swedish.

I have been told by native speakers that my pronunciation is quite good in all of the non-tonal languages mentioned above. My Thai tones are more or less there after many years of work.

And while I'm boasting about my abilities, I'll note that I have been mistaken for a native French speaker a handful of times, and have been mistaken for a native Thai speaker in several telephone calls (I will never be mistaken for a Thai in person).

And, long ago, I did read the Beowulf in Old English and read many works in Latin.

Polish (native). English (fluent). Russian and German (so-so). Latin (passive). Learning Spanish.

English, Australian dialect. Tried Latin and French at school, failed pretty completely. One or two phrases in several languages which does not really count.

Then there are the people who inspire envy or amazement – Richard who only claims to be fluent in 20 or so languages but can get by in up to 200, he spent an evening at dinner chatting to his girlfriend in Medieval Catalan because she was doing some translation of old Catalonian poetry.

Studied Latin, French and German in school.
Never used any of them.

English, a working knowledge of Thai (I live there), decent Russian (I work there) remnants of Tianjin Chinese (20 years back, work again) and Gulf Arabic (30 years ago and work again). I can order beer in 17 languages, women of negotiable affections in 9 (I was a lot younger and spent my R&R's travelling) and basic "how to", "where is" and "what the" in French, German and Italian. I also can swear with amazing skill and linguistic agility in Italian (working with them again)… that's it.

Fluent English and Spanish.
But I can read Portuguese, Italian and some French.
Even less Latin and NT (Koine) Greek.

Dan

English , Spanish , Italian and French pretty fluently . Get by quite well in German and Portuguese and still remember a lot of Latin , Lallans and Milanese dialect .
I worked with a multinational who gave you some language lessons for a couple of weeks before you took up an overseas posting . Once in the country they paid for you to take any intensity of lessons you wished for a month and would send you home after Two months if you could not carry out your job in the local language . Nobody ever got sent home .

I am a native English speaker. I can read Latin fairly well, can speak it a little and I have a pretty good ear for it. I can also read Koine Greek (though not as well as Latin). While I was once fairly competent at reading German and French, my ability to understand either languages has faded a great deal over the last several years.

A bit of Japanese, and a smattering of German, but from a practical point of view, only fluent in English. I think one has to speak a language every day in order to become truly fluent.

American English, smatter of Russian and German and Coeur d'Alene Native American language.

English and some random phrases in places that I was deployed to or stationed in.

Heard a joke about this:
What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Tri-lingual
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual
What do you call someone who speaks one language? American

English (learning since 6 years old)-> A linguist firned told me I am native Speaker/Reader/Writer, but my accent is bastardized (just look up my youtube channel) and I make frequent spelling and orthographic mistakes.

Greek-> Native Speaker/Reader/Writer. Again though tons of spelling, orthographic mistakes, and in this case punctuation mistakes

Italian-> I can read it fair, but have difficulty expressing myself in it, or understanding native speakers if they are speaking fast. I firmly believe that if I spend a year in Italy, I will become quite fluent.

French-> I can understand 2/3rd of a french film if it has french subtitles. I can read it with the help of a dictionary. Cannot speak it, or understand it when spoken.

Turkish-> Due to necessity basic survival conversation.

I am always surprised considering my writing and speaking issues (I suspect I am dyslectic but due to the social stigma, my parents never let a doctor look at me) that I got a PhD and teach in an academic environment. As I tell my students ,perseverance and obstinance are the most important skill in academia (probably).

I am extremely envious of people who are naturally able to learn languages. It really does open up the world.

English.

Some French.

Smattering of Swedish and even less Italian.

Used to be able to get by in Klingon….but it has been a while and it has all pretty much gone.

There's a joke in here somewhere.

I speak natively American English. I took 3 years of German in High School, then 4 semesters in college. Would not say I am anything but a novice (little opportunity post-college to practice).

Damon.

English (native), conversational German, and enough Bulgarian and Turksih to get my face slapped after dinner. I also know minor phrases in Italian, Catalan, and Arabic.

American-English native, and conversant in most other variations. Also have spent years of my life in learning French, Russian and Yoruba. So, I guess that makes me pretty lingual.

American English.

Collectively, this is pretty impressive coverage!

For myself, I'm a Native speaker of (American) English. Decades ago I spoke Spanish and German fairly well, but now too rusty to hold a conversation. I had one year of college French, so I can still make some sense of the written language, but never really could converse. I also had one semester of Classical Greek, but never mastered much beyond the alphabet.

@sneakgun,

Coeur d'Alene? I'm from N.E. Oregon. Where do you live now?

Being British, I can only speak English. Although I can understand American and Australian as well. Mostly….

Five years of being taught French at school resulted in the ability to remember about a dozen words.

And COL Scott? I take issue with your punchline. Surely it should read 'British'?

I am English but have lived and worked in Switzerland since 2001. I speak English, Swiss German and High German most days. I can read French newspapers but only say fairly basic things.

I work with Chinese and Korean factories and can say hello and thank you.