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How many languages do you speak? (1 Viewer)

How many languages do you speak

  • 1, and it's enough!

    Votes: 2 8.3%

  • 1, but I'd like to learn another language

    Votes: 4 16.7%

  • 2

    Votes: 10 41.7%

  • 3 or more

    Votes: 8 33.3%
  • Total voters
    24
bub

bub

R.I.P. Léo
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Hi!

Here in Belgium, like in Switzerland or Luxemburg, there are 3 official languages (Dutch, French and German), and if you want to get a good job you need to be able to speak (+- good) at least French, Dutch and English.

But, according to statistics, 60% of the Flemings (Dutchspeaker, in the north of the country), 70% of the people in Brussels (mainly Frenchspeaker) and only 30% of the Walloon (Frenchspeaker, in the south) are bi- or trilingual.

Myself, I am Frenchspeaker, and at school I've learnt Dutch (6 years) and English (3 years, and my accent is terrible!), plus classical Latin and Greek (not to speak it, just to learn how it work and open my mind to ancient cultures) and during 2 years, I attended lessons of Japanese, after the school (but I gave it up, it was impossible!!!)

Some students also learn German or Spanish in addition of Dutch and English.


In the States, I guess it is different since English is enough to travel worldwide, or do you think it is not enough to meet people from other countries and understand its culture? What do you think?
 
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The poll was vague enough for me to claim three. I used to speak Russian but haven't used it since I left the military forty years ago. Now, I speak Spanish but am certainly not fluent. My native language is English.
 
My native language is English, and I am becoming increasingly fluent in Loglan. I shall eventually learn Japanese simply due to my increased immersion in the Otaku subculture, and would like to learn others as time permits.
 
I speak Hebrew, Arabic, and English fluently. I can also speak a smattering of Yiddish, Farsi/Dari, and Urdu.
 
English and Spanish(I didn't want to take a hard language like Chinese)
 
English and French, although I've lost alot of my French in the past 3 years.
 
english is the only language that I speak fluently. I do speak some portuguese though and am able to understand a good deal of it. and I know a few words of spanish.
 
I've studied Italian and German, though I have forgotten much of both languages. I know most of the Spanish curses, thanks to my time teaching in San Diego. Otherwise, I just talk English good.:mrgreen:
 
I speak all languages known to mankind except the language from the Isle of Greece.......

In other words.......













It's all Greek to me.:3oops:
 
Patrickt said:
The poll was vague enough for me to claim three. I used to speak Russian but haven't used it since I left the military forty years ago. Now, I speak Spanish but am certainly not fluent. My native language is English.
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Knowing what I know about Oaxaca, and the exotic mota I have known from there, I am surprised you can speak at all......:mrgreen:
 
I have a friend who speaks 9 languages, fluently. He's 15.

I myself speak .8 languages. .78 English and .02 Chinese.
 
English fluently. I hear and read Spanish better than I speak it, though not anywheres near fluent. A very little Hebrew. A very little Klingon.
 
I speak two languages, almost three since i'm studying spanish. And that is defenetley not enough! I really can't understand how people can be satisfied with speaking only one or two languages! But it's maybe just because i'm from sweden and wouldnt survive in the world without other languages than swedish... and also for that i really want to travel and see the world. and i don't think you can see and experience so much if you only speak english... after all not that many speaks english!
 
Fluent in English...not quite fluent in Spanish but getting there. Can understand Spanish totally but am still learning to speak it since I mostly speak slang/spanglish.
 
bub said:
In the States, I guess it is different since English is enough to travel worldwide, or do you think it is not enough to meet people from other countries and understand its culture? What do you think?
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I think that it is more a matter of necessity.

The US is 3,718,710 sq. miles (9,631,420 km). Europe is 3,837,081 sq. miles (9,938,000 km) and has 47 countries.

Here in the States, we can travel an area almost the size of Europe without leaving our country. We only have two neighboring countries, and one of them is also an English speaking country. For me to get to a non-English speaking country requires either about 20-24 hours of driving or an overseas flight.

We just don't really have the impetus to learn other languages.
 
I used to be fairly fluent in French, having studied it for 6 years. Unfortunately I never traveled anywhere or exercised the skill so now it's mostly lost. I could probably speak it well enough to get around in France, but I'd stand out like a sore thumb and the youth would laugh at me.

I can count to ten in Spanish, twenty in Korean. Plus various random phrases like "Thank You", "bitch", "let's go", etc. I doubt that I'll be learning much more Korean unless my kids go back to Tae Kwon Do classes. My Japanese is very very limited, nothing more than one picks up from reading books. No Chinese, unfortunately. I would really like to visit China.

I know a very small bit of German, not enough to use in real life scenarios. Only enough to appreciate the irony and general depravity of Rammstein songs.

I think it's essential to speak the language when traveling. It's downright rude to not even make an effort. Most likely I will be learning Italian and Chinese at some point in the future, as those are places I would like to visit most.
 
I can speak Hebrew and English.
 
If you learned Spanish in school, you probally only know how to speak textbook Spanish. There are several variations of the Spanish language. In the carribean they don't pronouce d when its between two vowels.
 
Here in the States, we can travel an area almost the size of Europe without leaving our country. We only have two neighboring countries, and one of them is also an English speaking country. For me to get to a non-English speaking country requires either about 20-24 hours of driving or an overseas flight.

We just don't really have the impetus to learn other languages.
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Wow, I agree!!!

You know, if English was not so important in the business/cultural world and if I did not love california, maybe I wouldn't have learnt it!

I could probably speak it well enough to get around in France, but I'd stand out like a sore thumb and the youth would laugh at me.
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Only fools would laugh at you.

Last year I've spent one month in California, and apparently I had a so strong accent that even when I was saying "good morning", the kids asked me to repeat :rofl Nooo that was funny! During the 2 first weeks I have not understood a single word of what they told me, but it was very fun, to try and be understood!

But when people see you are making efforts to speak in their own language, they don't laugh at you, they just smile and kindly try to help you!

And if you don't want to lose your French, you may go and write on French forums! (or send me mails lol)

It's downright rude to not even make an effort.
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Of course!

Most likely I will be learning Italian and Chinese at some point in the future, as those are places I would like to visit most
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If you are good at French, choose Italian, it's very close from French, and not very difficult! And Italy is extremely beautiful :2razz: (but me too I'd also like to visit China!)
 
A friend of mine who is Chinese has two sons. One studied English and the other Spanish. My friend said, "With Chinese, Spanish, and English, you can do business in most of the world."
 
I can fluently speak English, German and Legalese. I can also combine pantomime and english to communicate in spanish.
 
Swedish, french, english, spanish and chinese FTW! and i'm considering arabic or russian too:2razz:
 
I speak Spanish, English and French and I get around in Yoruba and Portuguese.
 
Deng for president said:
Swedish, french, english, spanish and chinese FTW! and i'm considering arabic or russian too:2razz:
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Which dialect of chinese? I assume Mandarin? I grew up speaking Malay, Hindi (Khari Boli), and Japanese.......my most used language currently is Hokkien (Taiwanese), Mandarin (mainland chinese) and of course english. I spent 12 years studying French but never used it so I am worthless speaking or understanding it but I can read it ok.
 
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