How many languages do we speak?

[Mihai]

More correct it will be 2 and a half. Romanian (native), English (pretty good) and some rusty French.

[connorkimbro]

I speak english of course, and i get get by rather well in korean, though not at a highly educated level (it's coming little by little, once i actually MOVE to korea, i should get much better very quickly, i'd imagine) as well as smatterings of german, french, arabic and spanish. I only counted myself as bilingual though, i could just barely get with what little i remember of german, and not at all with french or arabic or spanish.

[connorkimbro]

I'm not sure about chinese and other eastern languages and their histories, and that is why i excluded them. They may have changed a great deal as well, even if it was only mixing in a bit of mongolian. The chinese and japanese and others didn't have a great deal a cultural assimilation IIRC

From what little i know (according to my korean teachers)
Korean has ALOT of chinese vocabulary (something like 70%) but it's all pronounced just slightly different . . . but as far as the grammar and structure of the language goes, they are completely unrelated. Actually (again, this is according to my PhD in linguistics korean teacher, he speaks 12 languages fluently) Korean(s) actually came from the mongol's, who used to live much farther west, thus alot of the grammar and structure of the language is much closer to Finnish.

As far as japanese, i really couldn't say, other than the fact that they share some chinese vocab as well, but not as much.

[Sikander]

I have studied several languages, and some of them I actually was able to communicate in fairly easily, though through lack of use I am pretty pathetic in most of them now.

English - (my native language)

Japanese - (we lived there for 6 years when I was a kid, and I spoke as much Japanese as English until I went to school)

French - I took this in school, but the instruction was as poor as my work habits. Still, it helped me to get around when I was in France, and didn't hurt my verbal scores on my college entrance exams.

Mandarin Chinese - I took about two years of this in college, and was good at it. I haven't used it at all though, and it occupies a dusty corner toward the back of my mind.

Russian - I was pretty good at Russian. I studied at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California, worked as a Russian Linguist for the Army for a couple of years, and then took another year at the University when I got out. Disuse has sapped my abilities, but I was surprised when I had to translate for my girlfriend with one of her Russian clients that a lot of it came back fairly quickly.

[Hydey]

does sign language count?

I often speak cave man after many beers.

[Roland]

Native language: Bavarian (and it is a destinct language; you won't understand much no matter how good your standard german is)

School: standard german, english, latin (passive), french (rusty)

English, latin and french make for acceptable passive knowledge of most romance languages; eg simple new articles or legal texts in spanish and italian (italian would be simple if it weren't for all the nella and della... ).

Started spanish and esparanto once, but didn't follow through.


Natan:

How about writing a bit of jiddisch ?

[Atahualpa]

German and English
I mean yeah I could count French, but for that it would have to be a little better

[Goingonit]

English is my mother tongue, and I learned French, and Hebrew (if I can still remember any of it). I guess I could have counted Latin, but Latin is dead.

[Provost Harrison]

All this talk of mother tongues. It's disgusting, I tell you, disgusting!

Well I can speak English well, obviously. A bit of French, and some really ridiculous things in German. I can ask for the bill in Greek, say some basic things in Turkish like 'Hello', 'Yes' and 'The Young Man Is Not A Policeman'

That is it I am afraid. Unless our more xenophobic contingent, I am not proud of my lack of linguistic ability, nor do I adapt to new languages particularly readily.

[Stefu]

Well, ya know what they say - one who knows three languages is trilingual, one who knows two languages is bilingual, and one who knows one language is American

I know Finnish, Swedish and English, although I wish I didn't know Swedish. Booya!

[Bereta_Eder]

Greek, english and french.

I'd speak some German too if I didn't skip class every other day so I could see my girlfriend early.

Why must I be a teenager in love

I had taken too much on: university, work, girlfriend and German.

Something had to give and it was the German class.

The only thing I remeber is «kleine» and «naturlich» «eins, zwai, drei» (I propably horribly mispelled them)


edit: BTW naturlich was a very useful word. In everything the teacher would ask me (and of course I didn't understand a thing) I would always reply (in a very confident tone): «Naturlich». I think I had made her crazy by the end of the year. (first time I was a «bad boy»

[Kassiopeia]

In order of fluency:

1. Finnish - naturally.
2. English - hmmm... naturally?
3. Swedish - Jag hatar min svensklärare...
4. German - Ich bin laden (I am loaded)
5. French - not much, but enough to list it.
6. Latin - Sic transit gloria mundi.
7. Italian - but just a few phrases. Did take a course on it, but it was taught by my Swedish teacher

I would say that I speak four languages, and know fairly two more.

[Adam Smith]

English of course.
Enough French and German to get myself into trouble.
I once used the wrong German pronoun and propositioned a hotel desk clerk. But she was a very good looking fraulein
Working on Mandarin.
Anybody up for a Zhongwen thread in time for the New Year?

[ranskaldan]

I am
though i don't have a program that can type Chinese at this point.

[jasev]

Spanish --- my language
German
English ---- but some people in these forums would disagree with that

And a little French and Dutch.