How many languages do we speak?

[Dis]

But if you are going to know second languages it might as well be a useful one. I could never figure out why people took french in high school. It made no sense to me. My city speaks English and Spanish.

Here's my oder of importance of languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, German. I know that doesn't include certian dialects. I know chinese has several differences in regions.

[Anodyne]

Originally posted by Dissident
What's the point of knowing more than 1 language anyways?

Well, that's quite an elitist statement, too... there are ~5 billion people on this planet that do not speak English as their mother tongue. And English is a necessary language in today's world, but many English-speaking persons fail to realize what one's mother tongue (more often than not it isn't the lingua franca) might actually mean for him. I love the tongue my ancestors have spoken for millenia as I love my own life, perhaps more, and would never part with it...
Yeah I know you didn't include us non-English people but what comes to knowing more foreign languages, I only have to say that knowledge is still power.

[Zopperoni]

Originally posted by Dissident
But if you are going to know second languages it might as well be a useful one.

Actually, it's something like my eighth language, or shared sixth anyway

[Dis]

that's why I included my list above.

I just can't see learning latin.

It is important to learn the language of one's enemy (yeah I stole that from a movie- sue me). Why I included Chinese and Arabic. Of course they aren't our enemies. But who knows the future holds in store.

And Spanish is a must for the U.S. Even my non language learning ass knows some Spanish- and I continue to improve. Although I can excuse it if you live in the north. But Spanish should be taught in elementary schools in most of the U.S.

[Natan]

There are a lot of reasons to learn foriegn languages, Dissident. I learned (or try to learn) Hebrew so that I could read the bible and visit Israel, German because my school didn't offer any language I actually wanted to take, Yiddish for the look of joy it brings to the faces of those I converse with in it, and Arabic so that I could read Arabic language materials (newspapers, books, etc.) and also so that I could converse with Arabs in their native language.

[Zopperoni]

Originally posted by Dissident
that's why I included my list above.

I just can't see learning latin.

It is important to learn the language of one's enemy (yeah I stole that from a movie- sue me). Why I included Chinese and Arabic. Of course they aren't our enemies. But who knows the future holds in store.

And Spanish is a must for the U.S. Even my non language learning ass knows some Spanish- and I continue to improve. Although I can excuse it if you live in the north. But Spanish should be taught in elementary schools in most of the U.S.

Well, I do know English, German, French and Mandarin Chinese, and my Spanish is improving since we got the Spanish network back

[mactbone]

Why should Spanish be compusarily taught in schools? Shouldn't the immigrant population have to learn English? My ancestors had to...

Oh, and Dissident, certain areas of the country that employ lots of factory workers are seeing an explosion of mexican immigration. Take northern Indiana for example. Manufacturing is one of the largest businesses in the area, and there is a large enough hispanic population that many advertisements are bi-lingual and there are now stores that are all spanish. Pretty bad when I can't read anything about a store...

[mactbone]

Oh, BTW, in High School and now college I'm learning German, because my choices were German, French, or Spanish, and I wanted to learn some about my ancestors. Plus erman is the closest to English.

Ich habe Rollerschuhe. (I have rollerskates)

Prima! Super! Toll! (Great! Super! Great!)

auf wiederschreiben

[Asher]

I can speak French almost decently, can't write it worth a damn, and can usually understand it when listening and especially when reading it.

*mumbles something about how evil it was to force French onto children in public schools in Canada*

[Dis]

so what really is "die bart, die" in German?

[Ramo]

I'm only fluent in English. (I'm an American; what do you expect? )

I can speak French adaquetely and *understand* (not speak) Bengali fairly well.

[klesh]

Bilingual... with some very poor french on the side.

All americans should learn to speak spanish....you'll need it. Heh.


-FMK.

[Kaak]

I love the tongue my ancestors have spoken for millenia as I love my own life, perhaps more, and would never part with it...

Unless you speak chinese, I don't that your ancestors would understand a word you say Languages changed very rapidly in prior to modern times, eg: I'd like to see any englishman talk to Chaucer hehe... A millenium is a long time, much less milinea

(side note: 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)

[Eli]

Hebrew, Russian, English...

Though I already start to forget words in Russian because I almost never use it.

[GePap]

Surprised

I must say i am surprised that trilingualism plus is even with monoligualism. Either the English speakers on this thread are more language educated than I would expect, or they haven't yet voted.

As for moi, I know English and Spanish fluently, with about 5 years of German, though I am pretty bad at it still, since I never practice, and I can read French pretty well, but not really understand it spoken or write it, since I have not practiced it after leaving my trilingual primary school over a decade ago. So, I count myself as bilingual.