Besides English, What Languages Do You Speak?

[avedwards]

Fluent in German but without a regional dialect. I'm also a proud speaker of British English, doing my best to prevent American English infiltrating our country .

I plan on learning Russian in the future because it looks like an interesting language and it almost guarantees you a job with the Foreign Office due to the shortage of Russian speakers. Unfortunately the university I'm going to next month doesn't have a Russian faculty though, plus if I want to become a lawyer it makes little sense to devote too much time to learning Russian as I'm unlikely to practice law in Russia.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I took thre years of Spanish in high school and two years in college. I'm by no means fluent, but during our honeymoon to Madrid, I spoke nothing but Spanish (except to my wife, obviously) the entire time we were there. My reading and writing of the language is still pretty good, if I say so myse;f. I'd like to bone up and take another course to sharpen the old skills.

 

[Shangas]

I speak Singlish...can that be a language? Purdy pleez?

 

[rue]

I know how to curse and say dirty insults in Spanish and I can understand enough of it to know what they are trying to say if they speak slowly. Funny.... I didn't learn a darn thing in Spanish I & II, I just learned it living in California [huh]

 

[Miss Golightly]

My French is pretty good but could do with polishing up my grammer - I used to speak a little German but have forgotten most of it - I have also pretty much forgotten how to speak Irish which is a shame (I blame the way it's taught over here).

However, I hope to work on my French and then take up Spanish in the near future.....

 

[Edward]

I was virtually fluent in French when I was sixteen and took it for GCSE, but I'd have to work to pull it all back now as I've spent so little time in French speaking cultures since. Also, our teacher was a bit of a dragon which made us hate the subject, thus I was left with little motivation to keep it up. When I do make the effort, though, it's surprising how much comes back. German I only did for two years at school - I would have been 13/14. Shocked me just how much I can manage to get-by in Berlin and Vienna (the biggest difference between the two I notice culturally is that whereas in Berlin the automatically reply to my German in English, in Vienna they will let me carry on with what I can manage before switching). I think were I to spend a year or two in Germany I could end up fairly fluent, as I have surprised myself there before now by being able to ask things that I had no idea I knew, but clearly absorbed somewhere. Spanish I took for one short year at school, and can manage basic directions and swear a bit. I can understand far more of it written down, due to its similarity to French (result of the common Latin root). My primary language aim for now, though, is to improve my Mandarin as I have over the past few years spent an increasing amount of time in Beijing with work. I can manage a little - mostly introducing myself and pleasantries, some food ordering - I did a short course a couple of years ago and need to sit down with the books and practice. Enjoy it very much. Aside from that, if I can fit it in in the future I would love to learn both Irish Gaelic (I went to state school in Northern Ireland at a time when they hadn't yet started teaching it 'cross-community, so I know about three words and two of those are Sinn Fein), and Latin. I have a handful of Latin vocabulary as a lawyer, but I wish I had learned the language at school. It would make an excellent common language in Europe, what with so much of it being a common basis out of which many European languages developed. Course, back in my schooldays I would have resented learning what I would have thought of as a dead language.... heh.

 

[grundie]

I am fluent in Irish.

There are only 80,000 people in Ireland who use it as their primary language and the government is really trying to push its use. I learned it at school as it is compulsory. Living in Dublin, a city of 1.5million people, I have yet to actually make use of my Irish language abilities. The rural west cost of Ireland is the languages heartland.

 

[Edward]

I am fluent in Irish.

There are only 80,000 people in Ireland who use it as their primary language and the government is really trying to push its use. I learned it at school as it is compulsory. Living in Dublin, a city of 1.5million people, I have yet to actually make use of my Irish language abilities. The rural west cost of Ireland is the languages heartland.

It's such a shame to see it dying out, even if it was in so many ways inevitable. Do kids in the Twenty-Six resent it or treat it as a "dead language" the way English kids might have seen Latin? I truly do wish I'd had the opportunity to learn it in the North. When I was at school it was only taught in the Catholic schools and, alas, had developed a distinctly political association - as, sadly, has so much of our Irish culture in the specific circumstances of the Six Counties. I'd like to see that change, and I know many state schools in the North now do teach it as part of their EMU (Education for Mutual Understanding) programmes. I am personally not a fan of the Gaeltacht(?) approach of teaching kids in it in areas where they are not otherwise growing up with it as a first language - seems to deny the reality of the modern world a bit - but all the same, it's a significant part of our cultural heritage and I like to see it maintained. I also think it is tremendously interesting from a Northern point of view: most of the Northern dialects of English are heavily infused with Gaelic, reflected in vocabulary, grammatical construction and even, often, diction.

 

[Smithy]

Like Edward I was not too shabby at French after 7 years of learning it at school, alas now I've forgotten so much of the vocab, although I think the grammar is still there.

Now apart from English, I speak Norwegian fairly proficiently (comes from having a Norwegian wife and having lived twice in Norway).

I also have a small smattering of Spanish (oral not written) from living in Chile for 6 months and a little German and Latin from school. And I can understand a small amount of Maori.

 

[Philip A.]

English is actually only my fourth language. French, Italian, Spanish, Hausa, West African Pidgin. Read Portuguese, Rumanian, Catalan. Working on Swahili at the moment.

BTW, almost everyone in Africa speaks at least 3 languages, no matter the education or lack thereof. This has probably to do with the myriad of small tribes and related dialects, and with the emergence of a number of "linguae francae" along the major trade routes and across the various empires - of which English and French were but late comers.

 

[Philip A.]

English is actually only my fourth language. French, Italian, Spanish, Hausa, West African Pidgin. Read Portuguese, Rumanian, Catalan. Working on Swahili at the moment.

BTW, almost everyone in Africa speaks at least 3 languages, no matter the education or lack thereof. This has probably to do with the myriad of small tribes and related dialects, and with the emergence of a number of "linguae francae" along the major trade routes and across the various empires - of which English and French were but late comers.

 

[C-dot]

He should whisper, "tu belle fleur" a vous, le matin et le soir.

Vous êtes un charmant romantique, Harp Merci beaucoup.

كنت على حق، فإنه مخيف الصوت.
(You're right, it does sound scary.)

lol

I forgot to mention how it looks lol

 

[Widebrim]

English is actually only my fourth language. French, Italian, Spanish, Hausa, West African Pidgin. Read Portuguese, Rumanian, Catalan. Working on Swahili at the moment.

BTW, almost everyone in Africa speaks at least 3 languages, no matter the education or lack thereof. This has probably to do with the myriad of small tribes and related dialects, and with the emergence of a number of "linguae francae" along the major trade routes and across the various empires - of which English and French were but late comers.

You are a veritable human polyglot, Philip. What part of East Africa are you in, and do you originally hail from there?

 

[Harp]

Vous êtes un charmant romantique, Harp Merci beaucoup.

Mon plazir, mademoiselle.

 

[TCMfan25]

I can also write and pronounce/speak in British English, mostly due to speaking with my Father, Grandfather, and Nanny(Grandmother) who were all English from Britain until 1969, and partly because of my love of Top Gear.

 

[Harp]

Aside from that, if I can fit it in in the future I would love to learn both Irish Gaelic (I went to state school in Northern Ireland at a time when they hadn't yet started teaching it 'cross-community, so I know about three words and two of those are Sinn Fein), and Latin. I have a handful of Latin vocabulary as a lawyer, but I wish I had learned the language at school. It would make an excellent common language in Europe, what with so much of it being a common basis out of which many European languages developed. Course, back in my schooldays I would have resented learning what I would have thought of as a dead language.... heh.

Gaelic was considered a ba***rd tongue when I was at university; though
everything else-including Serbo-Croatian and Swahilli were readily available,
if not standard language staples-so I took a stab at "Irish" whenever chance offered.
Encountered Latin again in law school, tempus fugit, itaque and I have made
some renewal effort since. As a side bar, I found Nicholas Ostler's Ad Infinitum;
A Biography of Latin most enjoyable reading.

 

[avedwards]

I can also write and pronounce/speak in British English, mostly due to speaking with my Father, Grandfather, and Nanny(Grandmother) who were all English from Britain until 1969, and partly because of my love of Top Gear.

I'm very glad of that . I have no problems with Americans speaking American English (in fact I quite like the sound of the accent) but what I really resent is that all over the world people who learn English as a second language speak it with an American pronunciation. I'm not a fan of Top Gear though simply because I can't stand the main presenter .

 

[Widebrim]

I'm also a proud speaker of British English, doing my best to prevent American English infiltrating our country .

Hear, hear!

 

[avedwards]

Hear, hear!

But you live in America... How did you learn to speak properly ?

 

[Edward]

Gaelic was considered a ba***rd tongue when I was at university; though
everything else-including Serbo-Croatian and Swahilli were readily available,
if not standard language staples-so I took a stab at "Irish" whenever chance offered.
Encountered Latin again in law school, tempus fugit, itaque and I have made
some renewal effort since. As a side bar, I found Nicholas Ostler's Ad Infinitum;
A Biography of Latin most enjoyable reading.

That's not a book that has crossed my radar - I'll look into it.