What languages do you speak?

English, And When Everything Goes Belly Up, Profane....



Cheers Glen.

 

English and some "regional variations".
Learnt French for about 7 years in school.
German 1 year. I might remember the Russian I learnt if I got a bang on the head, but its worse than my German. If I ever move to Moscow I'll learn it properly. But generally, I speak English when I'm abroad. I tend to use the spare brain cells for other things.

 

I speak English fluently, as a child I was pretty good at ASL, but I kind of lost it because I had no one to practice with. I took 2 and a half years of Spanish in high school, but the last half was a joke because we had a new teacher that year and she decided we didn't learn anything the year before and retaught us first semester of Spanish 2, hence why I didn't go through with the second semester of Spanish 3. So basically, I can get around in Mexico a little better than your average American tourist. I can read a fair bit of it, but am terrible in conversation because I am from Texas, and those of us in Texas who speak English primarily speak quite slowly. Haha.

 

English... took 5 years of spanish through school... remember enough to spark up a simple conversation.. but nothing too complex

 

Cool variety of languages taken! I am curious for you U.S citizens - are languages like Chinese and Japanese offered in your high schools or is it mainly the European languages?

I really want to learn Russian - but it will be many years before I can. I never intended to learn Korean but now I have a Korean partner, I kind of need it for his family. Mandarin is still my big love though.

 

And portuguese too, I would imagine? I've studied a bit of latin and naturally I find it helps with all the romance languages.

 

English and some varieties of Italian dialect, principally Calabrian. And Japanese, if the words are karate related...

It's funny, we all have dialects in our languages. Take swimming costumes. Depending on where you're from in Australia, they can be bathers, togs, or cossies. In some states, sport is played on an oval (even if the playing area is rectangular) but in other states it's a field.

Certain types of meat product are called fritz in South Australia and luncheon or devon in other states. We have chicken or lamb yiros while the eastern states have doner kebabs or just kebabs.

And so it goes, in a country with only 25 million people.

As for Italian, the dialects can be so radically different as to really be different languages. A person from near the Austrian border will be nearly incomprehensible to a Sicilian, unless they both speak proper Italian.

I guess other languages are the same?

 

English, I speak Italian but not fluently, I can understand it when spoken/written and I can write back alright, I just have real problems pronouncing it properly. My family are Sicilian and the language is so different from the standard learning books!

I also speak a little elvan


And cat.

 

Afrikaans and English are my main languages, and I speak both equally well. Afrikaans is technically my first language, but my English is of such a high quality that you might as well say that it is also my first language. In fact, I take both as home language in school, and I'm going to study creative writing in English next year.

Afrikaans is quite a lot like Dutch, so I can speak and read Dutch. It also has some similarities to German, plus I've listened to a lot of German music, so I know a tiny bit of German. If you speak German really really slowly, or give it to me in writing, I will probably be able to decipher the basic meaning of something.

 

I Did Quite The Opposite Actually, Rather Than Learn "Cat", I Instead

Chose To Teach My 6 Cats English....

And One Of The Best Examples Of This Was Only A Few Minutes Ago, When

Just On Dusk The Resident Feral Sat Right Next To Myself And 2 Cats

In The Garden.

I Asked Him A Series Of Questions, And Every Time He Came Back With

A Different Answer, The Exceptions Being, When I Call His Name,

And When I Initially Greet Him.

He Has A Seperate And Consistant Reply To Each Question....

Far Easier To Let Him Do All The Work Rather Than Try

And Teach GLEN Cat....



Cheers Glen.

 

English. Being the bastard language it is - probably a dozen languages, too. But yeah, English and a bit of French (who doesn't know a bit of French?).

 

just spanish in my high school, but it was a small school.

 

We had to learn maori the Nz native language at primary and intermediate school here. I wish I had been able to learn it to fluency at school.

 

English, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil, Hindi - fluent
Several years before could speak conversational French and Spanish. Now forgotten but can be gotten back with a few months practice.