"So, what language can you speak\write?" Topic

German and "Mother tongue" English. Which annoys the out of me when they will not allow English as a "fluent language" on my C.V, because "You have no paper work to prove it". (!!?? ING WHAT???)

von Scharnhorst,

Man, I feel for you! Here are mine:

Native – American English

Passable – German, Polish

Restaurant – Spanish

Starting out – Silesian

Italian, native

English (writing: decent; reading: excellent; speaking: passable)

Spanish (Castillan) mostly through similarities with Italian

Romanian (conversational, with lots of mistakes)

I probably can remember 10% of the Latin and Attic Greek I studied

I have studied Japanese with little success (I can recognize a few words, that's all) and I can say "yes" "no" and "I love you" in Hungarian :-)

English is my native language and I can speak and read Russian a fair bit. Other than that I have a half dozen phrases and many words from German, French, Italian and Spanish.

English, Irish (or Gaelic, if you prefer) and French

If you only go for reading and writing, then Elder Futhark Runic.

I guess speaking does not enter into that somehow.

I have had long struggles with Russian, French and English. Fluency has so far remained in hiding.

In German and Spanish I may read, and say a few simple things, one supposes.

At one time I did have some of the lovely Кубанская балачка (it is mostly Russian, some Ukrainian, some Circassian – with cossak pronunciation), but it is likely all gone.

- un ami

Could at one time, so I suppose I could pick back up with a brief refresher Homeric Greek (read, write, and speak it but not converse if that makes sense or maybe better phrased as read aloud)

Handful of phrases is Polish from growing up, and German from high school – again now out of practice, but suspect like riding a bike, not that hard to pick back up.

Always thought it was handy to know a few key phrases for wherever I traveled. One friend, a Navy helo pilot working in the Med knew for every country possible, the phrases for "Beer please", "Where's the loo?" and "He's paying".

I have picked up other key phrases that will see me through many awkward social circumstances. In French, I can say "the butcher's truck" and "look at the snow", while in Japanese, I can count to five, and say "Help, help I've been poisoned by the water". Clearly, being armed with this sort of knowledge is key to success overseas.

I've found foreign children to be incredibly smarter than US kids. In the US, kids struggle with French all through highschool, but in France, the average preschooler on the street had no trouble with that foreign language at all…

Once upon a time Burmese as a US Army linguist but 30 years without practice …

And my high school French and German and college Latin are worse.

Another comment on an old thread:

I'm learning Queen's English, otherwise known as British English, especially the colloqualisms and finer nuances of how the Brits speak as opposed to how Americans speak. I'm also learning Sign Language.

I can navigate a German webpage and do google research in German okay, but am far from fluent in the language. I am working on fluency though. Actually, I've done research in Swedish and Norwegian and found what I was looking for even though I didn't speak the language at all. I don't recommend it though as its very difficult. I was looking for Viking Metal radio stations and other music stations of interest. The only languages I can't do research in cold turkey is those that don't use roman letters for the most part – usually. I did accurately translate some vulgar Hungarian into English. The fool did not attempt again to type such rubbish. LOL

I'm learning to read only, as I slaughter all foreign accents with a slaughtered British accent (I'm American): French, Japanese and Russian currently. I'm also working on trying to get a passable translation of my sister's website in to 7 different languages – the ones previously mentioned, plus Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and eventually Portuguese within the next 2 years or so. As soon as I get my memory games and flash card games done, I should have no problems learning the languages. That and reading native langauge websites. Its the only way when you can't afford a tutor.

I forgot Biblical Hebrew! Its only apart of my culture. How can I forget?! Oy! No, I'm not fluent yet, but its another language I'm working on.