Foreign Languages

[Charles]

Hi all...

Well I was wondering who speaks what amongst the people of this forum. Obviously a alrge part of us speaks (or writes) english besides our native language, but what about the others ?

I speak reasonably well French English and Japanese. I used to be fluent in German and Spanish (it's still there up in my head), and i can have a drunk talk in Russian . I used to speak Swedish as well...

What about you guys ?

 

[bates]

Okai, here I go

Dutch
French
Spanish
German
English

Some Polish, Japanese, Korean

Some Maori and going to study Russian

and off course the language of Love

 

[alexrugby]

Amazing amobokobokoboko, I think you will never get in lost all across the world :cheers:

Well:

Georgian

English

Deutsch

Russian

Have a fun!

Intellectual thread

 

[Fa'atau82]

I speak samoan, turkish, french to a fairly good self-taught level.

 

[bates]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Fa'atau82 @ Sep 18 2008, 03:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

I speak samoan, turkish, french to a fairly good self-taught level.[/b]

Talova lava my friend

 

[Bull]

Afrikaans and English, fluent in both.

 

[An Tarbh]

I speak Irish, English and French with English unfortunately being my mother tongue but the others certainly get a lot better when I'm drunk.

 

[Boggle]

Just Afrikaans and English, although they sort of tried to force North Suthu (sp ?) and Xhosa down my throat in school when I was younger, and I took German for 2 years in highschool.

 

[Sir Speedy]

Granted that being able to speak a language =/= knowing one word, then I know:

English
A bit of French - studying to speak it fluently. ^.^

 

[DonBilly]

French
Spanish
English

I used to speak some German.

Some basic words in Japanese and Korean.

 

[Steve-o]

Don't know any foreign languages, don't really need to.
I can speak Afrikaans and English fluently. Interestingly enough the reason why I'm an English speaker and got a few English speaking relatives, is because we got some Welsh ancestry. Yeah, some dude and his family carrying the last name of Watkins decided it would be a good idea to move to Africa in the late 1800's. What a twat .

 

[gingergenius]

English (obviously)

French (I'd say about 8/10 for fluency)

Italian (make that a 6)

I'm starting Spanish evening classes.

I'll be learning Irish/ Welsh/ Icelandic/ Scottish Gaelic at university.

 

[DonBilly]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Steve-o @ Sep 18 2008, 05:42 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Don't know any foreign languages, don't really need to.
I can speak Afrikaans and English fluently. Interestingly enough the reason why I'm an English speaker and got a few English speaking relatives, is because we got some Welsh ancestry. Yeah, some dude and his family carrying the last name of Watkins decided it would be a good idea to move to Africa in the late 1800's. What a twat .[/b]

Maybe he moved with the British army which was quite busy in SA with your other ancestors in the late XIXth century.

 

[Boggle]

I'm not entirely sure why my family is Afrikaans to be honest, some ancestor of mine decided that France was heading up **** creek and so there was a massive exodus of French hugenots, some during the 1600s then ended up in Africa , an -actual- **** creek.

I guess it's because a lot of French Hugenots settled in Franshoek, which was a dutch settlement as far as I know.

 

[Laetca]

I'm guessing some people here are overestimating their knowledge of languages a bit. I understand most of what is said in Italian and Portuguese if the speaker is talking slowly, and I can stutter a few words in either language, but to me that doesn't mean I speak or know those languages.

I was raised bilingually in Spanish and Dutch, but I'm lost if I have to write something in Spanish, the spelling is beyond me. I had French classes from the age of 10 until I was 19, just like most Flemish people. I haven't practised it very much lately though, unless I count Manga, and calling myself 'moi'.
English was taught at school from the age of 13, but programs aren't dubbed here in Flanders. I learned a lot about the English language by watching sub-***led programs.
I've been trying to master German for a few years now, my horrible exam results tell me I still have a long road before me.

In the future I would like to freshen up my French, and if possible learn how to write in Spanish. I'd like to expand my Spanish vocabulary too, I realised some time ago that I used to be much more fluent.

 

[toup]

English, French and German fluently, Spanish to a very basic, beer ordering level.

It's interesting that some nationalities really take to learning languages, others not so much. It must be partly down to education systems etc, but also I think smaller nations learn foreign languages more readily. Scandinavians and Belgians are (in my experience) the best linguists... thoughts?

 

[Laetca]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (toup @ Sep 18 2008, 10:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

English, French and German fluently, Spanish to a very basic, beer ordering level.

It's interesting that some nationalities really take to learning languages, others not so much. It must be partly down to education systems etc, but also I think smaller nations learn foreign languages more readily. Scandinavians and Belgians are (in my experience) the best linguists... thoughts?[/b]

Belgium has three official languages, though German is only spoken by a smaller number of people. People in Brussels are (in theory) bilingual, kids in Flanders learn French in school, kids in Wallonia learn Dutch. I always heard that the Flemish 'version' of Dutch is a very neutral languages when it comes to teaching other languages, mostly accent-wise. Never saw any scientific proof of it though
I'm not sure how Belgium compares in size to a country like Norway or Sweden, it could be an idea, but we're a wee bit smaller

 

[gingergenius]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (toup @ Sep 18 2008, 09:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

English, French and German fluently, Spanish to a very basic, beer ordering level.

It's interesting that some nationalities really take to learning languages, others not so much. It must be partly down to education systems etc, but also I think smaller nations learn foreign languages more readily. Scandinavians and Belgians are (in my experience) the best linguists... thoughts?[/b]

the english are just **** at languages. Having said that, lots of english people speak other hindi/ urdu/ yoruba etc. as a first language anyway. Or maybe i'm just living in a London bubble. I work as a receptionist in a hospital and its a nightmare having to spell the nurses names (all african), the doctors names (all indian), and all the patients who are from literally everywhere. the worse is the poles with all the tczskz type names. Then there's the accents to get through/ limited level of english...

 

[InsaneAsylum]

fluent english and italian, although my level of italian has slipped over the years due to lack of use.

a bit of mandarin and a bit less of maori.

although i know how to swear in many languages thanks to the ethnic mix that is Australia.

 

[Bull]

If your Afrikaans speaking or understand Afrikaans then it is possible to understand Dutch and German but only when someone speaks slowly, reading it is much easier but some Dutch words can be very misleading.