NationStates Jolt Archive

Which languages do you

understand?
read?
speak ?
write?

have fair notions of?
have superficial notions of?

Did these skills have any beneficial or profitable influence on your professional and personal life? Do you feel inclined to learn new languages? Do you feel English is quite ok as a "lingua franca" or should we maybe pick up Esperanto again? Etc.


As for me:

- first language : Dutch (Flemish + Netherlands' variety)
- second: English (British + American variety)
- third: French

- fair notions of German, Spanish, Italian (understand, read, speak some, not really converse)

- some notions of Portuguese, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Japanese (travelese, just about enough not to starve or have to sleep on the street)

- plus quite bit of Latin and some classical Greek.

- would like to improve Spanish and Japanese; would like to learn Sanskrit (no joke)


Let's not start on mathematical and computer languages or other artificial ones - Esperanto, Volapük et al. being hardly artificial. And of course we're all fluent in Klingon.

I speak the common tongue, but can revert to Latin when talking to barbarians.

I only speak English, but I'm currently taking a class in Auslan.
These (lack of) skills have had no impact on my life so far, and I don't predict them having an impact on my life in the future.

I speak no language.

English language

Body language

Eyes

Speak and fully understand; English (first), German (second)
Understand and read; Spanish, French, Italian
Can guess my way through; Dutch

- first language : English (English variety)
- second: Probably French (French variety)
- third: Spanish I guess, although French and Spanish are sort of equal (Castellano)

- fair notions of Italian (understand as it is so similar to Spanish, plus I'm a classical musician)

- some notions of Portuguese (again, if you type a sentence in Portuguese I could probably just about understand it)

- would like to learn German (I'm taking it up next year at uni)

Dutch, German and English.

Top languages I'd like to know .. German, Japanese and Russian.

What I feel might be important to learn short term .. Spanish (damnit) one of those Middle east languages and Korean.

None of those I desire or would enjoy.

Spanish is really easy!

Uno Dos Tres Quatro Sinqo? Ses Nuocho? Noeve? or some thing... My reason of having a hardness towards spanish is because spanish speakers are catered to in the US.. almost everything is being changed for them to be able to read and understand it. Our schools are being formed to that shit.. this is america not mexico. I dont care what happened back in 1802.. this is an english speaking country period.. You should learn it. Also many of the mexicans know the language .. but they play like they don't. I'm sorry .. but there ass shouldn't be here.

I know how you feel, we have our own immigration problems here. Are you in the South? Or somewhere like Miami that has a huge flux of immigrants?

Lots of Dutch-speakers, that's nice.

Jij heb sheks mit ein essel!

Previous post must be being overlooked. I'm suprised I havent been burnt over it. Even though it is the truth. I like Sweden.. do you think I'd move there not knowing the language or willing to learn?

No way would I expect another country that speaks another language to cater to me or 100,000 more of sorry asses being allowed into a better country and not be willing to learn to fluently write and speak that language.

I live in North Carolina.. in Winston Salem there are freakin bus loads of mexicans coming in here every week. I see whole territories going to them.. no cant blame them totally.. the previous couldve not sold to them.. but any way.. you go into there place of buisness.. buy from them ...at the register.. they act as if you are shit beneath there feet.. dont say Thank You.. or kiss my ass.

I know how you feel, we have our own immigration problems here. Are you in the South? Or somewhere like Miami that has a huge flux of immigrants?


North Carolina

Hell no man, I couldnt handle Miami

i speak what cant be spoken

I'm gonna make a thread.. no one seems to be noticing this one.

First language: Irish and English (fluent in both)
Second language: French(learning it at the moment)

Speak fluently: Norwegian (1st language), English (2nd language)

And I read, write, and speak a fair bit of French.

i speak English as my first language, then after that i speak some French, a very small bit of Spanish, and a very small bit of Romanian (probably more Romanian than Spanish).

the only language aside from English that i can write is French, and i have a knack for reading languages that have even a vague semblence with English (like Spanish or French). I once translated a friends A level Spanish piece when i had never taken a Spanish lesson. the tenses were a bit out, and it wasnt 100%, but it wasnt bad

Which languages do you

understand?
read?
speak ?
write?

have fair notions of?
have superficial notions of?

I understand and read English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, French, Serbo-Croatian (i.e. Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian).

I speak and write Swedish, German, French, English and Serbo-Croatian.

I have fair notions of Latin, Esperanto, Portuguese and Spanish, and superficial notions of Greek, Japanese and Dutch.

fluent English (american) and French (BA with ed cred)
read and understand German, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese(although I often think its just bad Spanish)

some Finnish, Latin, Ojibwe, Creol, Japanese, Chinese, Tai, and Gaelic.

I can usualy decipher the majority of languages with some effort (Including Sanscrit)

I am english from Canada, I am learning Latin, and i can say a few things and read a few things, tis difficult however, and i know a very little french, i can read, or could, some, not much though, i am interested in learning greek and egyptian as well :D

I'm sorry .. but there ass shouldn't be here.

It's too bad that there English isn't up to your standards.

I speak english, barely enough spanish to get by, and I'm trying to learn Japanese since Spanish bores the hell out of me now.

Damn, and here I thought it'd be about the piss-poor english skills some NSers have

Putain de merde, j'ai oublié, mon petit ami peut parler le français sans problèmes parce qu'il y vivait quant il avait 6 ans jusqu'à ce qu'il avait 11 ans. Il est utile. Je lui parle pour que je puisse améliorer....

fluent latin, english, ancient greek, mostly ancient/dead languges though....i have base knowledge of the romance languages..i know them but not enough to speak them fluently.....(spanish, french, itlaian, portugese).....umm...like i said..lots of ancient languages....but noone uses them.....:p I have a desire to lean urdu and farsi as well as russian.....so.....meh.....

Which languages do you

understand?
read?
speak ?
write?

1. English
2. English and bad english
3. Bad english
4. Really bad english

Is you ain't no good?

Previous post must be being overlooked. I'm suprised I havent been burnt over it. Even though it is the truth. I like Sweden.. do you think I'd move there not knowing the language or willing to learn?

No way would I expect another country that speaks another language to cater to me or 100,000 more of sorry asses being allowed into a better country and not be willing to learn to fluently write and speak that language.

I live in North Carolina.. in Winston Salem there are freakin bus loads of mexicans coming in here every week. I see whole territories going to them.. no cant blame them totally.. the previous couldve not sold to them.. but any way.. you go into there place of buisness.. buy from them ...at the register.. they act as if you are shit beneath there feet.. dont say Thank You.. or kiss my ass.

are you sure English is your first language? (or even in your top five)

My first language was English, and my second was Spanish because I grew up in a bilingual neighborhood.

I can understand bits and pieces of Finnish, but usually not enough to actually understand the sentence. Same with French.

I'm trying to teach myself Finnish, and after I'm done that I want to learn either Icelandic, German, or Gaelic.


Let's not start on mathematical and computer languages or other artificial ones - Esperanto, Volapük et al. being hardly artificial. And of course we're all fluent in Klingon.
Aww.
*wants to learn Quenya*

My first language is English, and I can read and understand Italian pretty well. I also have a slight knowledge of German.

Ich leibe dich

First Language - English
Second Language - French
Third - I dunno probably latin

Good ideas of Russian, Spanish and German

Notions of Japanese and Greek (That's modern greek)

Ack! Another apostrophe error!!!!!!

Ack! Another apostrophe error!!!!!!

Oh hush you gramminazi :p

There I edited it just for you :)

Thank you so much, I actually majorly appreciate it!

My first three languages are Polish, English and German and I have no idea what to make my fourth... (although I'm still not quite finished with German and there are still mistakes in the English :()

I have a pretty good idea of any West Slavic language (Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Kashubian) and French and Latin from high school.

I can try to understand anything Romance, spoken Japanese (gave up trying to read it after the 300th kanji) and spoken Russian (I can read it good, it's just the way they pronounce the words that's very troublesome).

My first three languages are Polish, English and German and I have no idea what to make my fourth... (although I'm still not quite finished with German and there are still mistakes in the English :()

I have a pretty good idea of any West Slavic language (Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Kashubian) and French and Latin from high school.

I can try to understand anything Romance, spoken Japanese (gave up trying to read it after the 300th kanji) and spoken Russian (I can read it good, it's just the way they pronounce the words that's very troublesome).

Yep, those japanese alphabets are a bitch to learn. I found russian printed and written script much easier than even one Japanese alphabet.

Ack! Another apostrophe error!!!!!!
Ehm... can you summarise how the rules were again?

Hmm.

Speak, read and write: English and German (though i'm told my accent is pretty bad now.)

Understand: Dutch, Arabic (Saudi and Iraqi dialects mostly, but get the Egyptian version usually when I hear it.)

Know cusswords and a few choice phrases: Russian, Thai, Czech, Polish, Farsi and Spanish

I used to be able to read and write a little Arabic, and my speaking of it never got over about 200 words, mostly military. I lost most of it from lack of practice.

Fluent: Faroese, Danish and English. (I can also write in all of these)

Understand (spoken): All of the above (obviously) + Norwegian and Swedish

Can read: Some Spanish (Have read the Harry Potter series in Spanish, but I can't read Gabriel García Marquez or something complicated like that).

Know a few phrases in German and if I really concentrate I can understand some Icelandic.

That's about it really, but I would love to become fluent in Spanish, and to learn how to sign (I would love to be able to train hearing dogs for deaf people, so it would come in handy)

First language:Finnish

Then i'm pretty good at English. Reading and writing is good, but speaking needs a little practice.

Then some phrases and words in German. Mostly military terms.

Ehm... can you summarise how the rules were again?

Sure. You use an apostrophe when:

1) Something belongs to someone e.g. John's apple
or
The teachers' apple (the apostrophe is AFTER the 's' because the apple belongs to more than one teacher.

2) You are abbreviating. For example, 'I am' goes to I'm

DO NOT use an apostrophe when:

1) You want to say 'your' as in 'your apple'
Don't you DARE type "you're apple" unless you are saying that apple is your name or colour.
You're = You are
Your = belonging to you

2) you are using a plural, e.g. There are a lot of apple's here
That doesn't have the same meaning as "There are a lot of apples here".

Are we all with it?

I don't know why I went so apple-crazy......

First language: Dutch
Second: French
Third: English
Fourth Latin
and a little bit of Deutsch :)

republicofgaea.tripod.com (http://republicofgaea.tripod.com)

I can in fact neither speak nor write in any language. I just press random buttons on my keyboard in the hope that one day the ultimate coincidence will occur and the end result will be able to be understood.

I think people here are very good at languages. Where I am studying in England most people only speak English and a bit of French. It's lovely to see that so many people here speak a whole bunch of different languages. It makes me feel like I should get started on an other one...

speak english, fluent in irish, fluent in french, okay at german, learning spanish and italian. i enjoy learning languages

-snip-
Yes, I see, thanks.

*was going to make some lame apostrophe mistake*
*is lamer then he tought because he couldn't even think of one*

I can speak a little spanish. To an extent i can understand what people are saying and writing. But then again, i didnt pay that much attention in class anyway

Yes, I see, thanks.

lol I'm happy to help

interested in learning egyptian :D
Good choice. You'll be learning "standard Arabic" that way, courtesy of Egypt's movie industry (their first, tourism's only second) which promoted and spread their variety of the language. Not too hard on the throat at that.

English is my first language. I speak pretty good French & a small amount of German.

First language - English.
I'm pretty good at Spanish, can understand enough French to get by, same with Italian - though I'm trying to learn more....and I know a few phrases in Dutch and German, but nothing particularly useful :p

I can in fact neither speak nor write in any language. I just press random buttons on my keyboard in the hope that one day the ultimate coincidence will occur and the end result will be able to be understood.
You should try your luck in national lottery.

Okay...

My first language is Finnish. Besides that, I can:

Speak, write, read and communicate with English fluently.

Speak, write, read and communicate with Swedish somehow, but I have never wanted to study it and I'm never going to use it. Finland Swedes can speak Finnish with me and Swedes can speak English with me.

Understand some French, although I'm not very skilled with it. After all, I've been studying it only for two years.

Speak a minimum amount of Estonian. I have tried to study it by myself, but it's been hard. And I'd really like to learn it!

English
Thai
Chinese (Mandarin)
Latin
French
Sindarin

going to take up german in year 10 (im 14 and in yr 9)

English, Latin, Wookie, Elvish and Klingon.

I have a (very) little knowledge of French and German, but English is the only language I'm really good at. I seem to have a knack for spelling - I can often spell words correctly when I've never used before.

First language : German

Second language : English

Third language : French

I was forced to learn Latin at school though I personally would have liked to learn a language more worthwile and useful like Spanish or Italian, but I wasn't given the chance.
I know enough phrases for a holiday in Italy and can also read it, with a bit of thought and imagination.

What I would like to learn is Irish and Japanese... but I don't think I'll ever get round learning any more languages.

English, Latin, Wookie, Elvish and Klingon.
You nerd! :D :fluffle:

I know the following languages to varying degrees:
English, Spanish, Latin, Goa'uld, French, German, heiroglyphics (sp?), Igpay Atinlay, Ubbi Dubbi, Tok'ra, various computer programming languages, Japanese, Chinese, Swahili, Tagalog, etc.

i'm fluent in English (duh) and Spanish.

i can keep up a simple, basic conversation in polish (and similar sounding languages, such as serbo-croation, russian, etc.) and languages with latin roots (italian, french, rumanian, etc.)

i can listen to squamish (native near vancouver area) and quechua (native in countries that used to be under incan rule) and i can say a few things, like 'please' and 'thank you' in them. don't ask why, hehe.

and since my area has a huge iranian population, and i've lived here half my life, i can also guess my way through farsi. :)

I speak many languages Hebrew, English, Arabic, Ariamic, Heiroglyphics, French, Latin, Bangladesh Indian, Yiddish, German, Russian, and a tad bit of Japanesse. I pick up languages wicked easily, the only problem is trying to remember to stay in one tongue when speaking. It can get very confusian.

I speak and write & even read English, and I'm pretty much the same with Polish... its a great language for insulting people...

Hi,

I've always really enjoyed taking up new languages and I've tried to learn the basics (present, past, future - read, write & speak) of many different languages.

Fluent in:
English
Danish <- I'm a dane
Italian

Read + a little conversation (I can understand these languages, but am having trouble giving back sensible answers :P)
Swedish - Danish and Swedish are very alike.
German
Spanish
Portugese
Norwegian

Conversation + a little reading and writing (only romaji though, not kana or kanji)
Japanese

Due to my knowledge of other roman languages I'm able to make some sense of French. Not too much though :P

Japansese is my current work in progress. I think it is by far the most interesting language I've encountered so far since it's unlike almost all other languages due to the isolated nature of Nippon.


Being able to speak (if only a little) of someone's native language always helps getting a conversation started and generally people are very happy to see someone trying to learn their language.
I've seldomly had need for different languages when working, but that's because I'm only a student. I try to practise my languages as often as possible.

Best regards
Frederik Sloth

Unfortunately, all I know is English. I'm currently learning German, but I don't know too much of it.

I can speak a few random phrases in French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic, but that's about it.

Personally, I'd LOVE to learn Russian.

What I would like to learn is Irish and Japanese... but I don't think I'll ever get round learning any more languages.

yeah irish gaelic would be a kwl language 2 learn, or scottish gaelic.

English in its various forms and accents, Filipino, German (some), French (learning - my girlfriend's learning it and I gotta keep up with her), Russian (used to be interested and can still read some Cyrillic - Cyrillic ROCKS!)

Gaelic would be cool - though I'd love to learn to sing in Welsh or Italian ever since I heard Men of Harlech (Zulu), Suo Gan (Empire of the Sun) and Cinema Paradiso (Josh Groban's lyrics for my life story's movie).

Cathenia

My first language is nothing. REALLY! I don't speak any language frequently enough for it to be called my first language. I converse mostly in Cantonese, a non-writable dialect of Chinese, although it's about 900 years older than Chinese itself, and sounds much more beautiful.

So...second languages: English (spoken like general American, spelt like general British) and Chinese.

I’m fluent in Swedish, and thus I can generally decipher Norwegian and Danish, and I have some basic understanding of German (Hallo, ich heiße Gilbert, ich bin fünf hundert Jahre alt), but I wouldn’t say I can keep up a civilized conversation.
Also, I can generally guess the meaning of simple words in Latin, Italian and Spanish, but I really don’t understand any of these languages, with any luck I’ll be taking Spanish lessons later this year.
My English isn’t too bad either.

English...(second language)

Chinese and a little bit of Japanese...it is easy to learn japanese since both have a common history, together with Korean...though I find korean a little harder...
Not good at writing though as I have a bad memory to be able to remember all those characters...

Other languagages includes C, Java, Basic and Maths... :D

Mothertongue: Luxembourgish
Fluent (writing, reading, speaking): German, French, English
Not as fluent, but still able to read, write and speak: Spanish
Notions: Chinese
Had it in school and could probably still translate some lines: Latin
I also can read just enough gaelic to translate most of the signs in either Ireland or Scotland (but that's all, I have no clue have to pronounce it, allthough I'd like to learn it)

All this language skills are pretty important to me as a luxembourger, because of our nation's small size. We have to speak at the least the languages of our direct neighbours, because they refuse to learn how to speak luxembourgish. Which means that we even can't go shopping if we can't speak french...

Finnish is my first language, and I also speak pretty good English. From school I've picked up a vague understanding of Swedish, despite my best efforts not to. :)

I'd love to learn a few more languages. Italian I think is beautiful, German, Spanish and French might be just useful to know. I'm also a little bit interested in Russian and Korean.

Understand: Scandinavian languages + English
Read: Scandinavian languages, English, and German
Speak: Norwegian and English
Write: Norwegian and English

I have some vague skills in German in the other three categories, and some useless skills in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and Greek. I've always (starting at 6-8 years old) known English, but I've had little interest in learning more languages. If there was an option, I would've had French rather than German at school, but, there wasn't. And ever since it's been a completely uniteresting subject, which I only have because the school forces me to, and that's killed any motivation for learning it. Thankfully, I only have a few weeks more of it.

Finnish is my first language, and I also speak pretty good English. From school I've picked up a vague understanding of Swedish, despite my best efforts not to. :)

Can't be bothered to repeat

Swedish is my first language.
I can also speak English fluently.
My understanding of Norwegian and Danish is also very good.

First language, spanish.
Second language, mapudungun, that is the native people language here. Since I work with their communities, it serves me to a purpose. Besides, I like that language.
Third language, english. I understand it very well, but have trouble writting it and more trouble speaking it.

I have fair notions of arabic, since my grandparents are arabs and they taught me a thing or two.

Superfitial notions of french, italian and portuguese, although I can read and understand them if I put the time on it. Forget about speaking it tho.

I plan to learning german, that would serve me because I may go work in Germany in the future.

first language: english
second language: japanese

ubderstand bits and pieces of
.spanish
.klingon
.zentreadi
:D

Well, I'm taking spanish but I'd like to know russian.

First language- English (struggling with that)
Second language- Gaeilge (considerably worse than my english)
Third language- French and Spanish (I can have a basic conversation with a french or spanish person if they speak slowly... and in english.....)

I'd like to know russian.

believe me, soon you won't when you start learning. cool language though

I am fluent in over six million languages, even Bocce!

Oh, wait a minute - that wasn't me...

On topic:

Understand? Read? Speak? Write?

German, English; French (about ten years ago)

have fair notions of?

Spanish (about ten years ago), French (nowadays)

have superficial notions of?

Spanish (nowadays). I can order 2 beer and say No hablo espanol. Dos servecas por favor!

Hm...
I can read, speak, and write Spanish, but I have some problems with listening comprehension.

I have "fairl notions" of Dutch, but my vocabulary is sort of limited at the moment. =/

Native - English
2nd - Spanish
3rd and working - German
A friend is teaching me Greek.
I want to learn Arabic and Russian, I have a thing for other alphabets.