Who can speak another language?

[adamturner]

Just out of interest do any of you speak other languages beside English? If so which language and to what standard? Do we have some linguists as well as talented webmasters?

Myself I speak French (fluent enough) I lived their for two years.

[Isaac]

Hey,

-Italian
-French (a little)
-Hebrew
-Greek (Biblical, and modern)

Thanks my .02/4 languages, take your pick.

[fashola]

What really is behind your question?. I personally speak and write very good french and i will like to know why you are asking this question and english is my first language.

There are quite a lot of bilingual webmasters out there? and remember that speaking good french is different from writing good proposals, participating in meetings and business/webmastering.

Clear the air?.

[adamturner]

Hi there, I was just curious as to who or how many webmasters in this forum spoke other languages..that's it. I know my French is not great for writing but I can hold my own when speaking to the everyday person about most general things. If I had to present a business proposal for my internet business I'd be a little out of my league for the vocab though. I'm trying to learn Spanish next.

[adamturner]

Hey if anyone knows of good websites that help you learn foreign languages then post them here.

[CJ]

Hello,

I'm 16 and this is what I know (I will be honest)

- Dutch: near to perfect in writing, reading and speaking (I can understand 100% of a conversation)
- German: near to perfect in speaking and reading, good in writing (I can understand 100% of a conversation)
- French: good in speaking, writing and speaking (I can understand 95% of a conversation)
- English: good in speaking, writing and speaking
- Italian: I only know a little Italian, but basically I can understand 70% of all words when I read an Italian text. This is because I have done 3 years of Latin not so long ago.

BTW.... Dutch and German are my maternal languages and there is a french speaking part in Belgium on 30 km from my place and we get it 4 hours/week in class and last years that was even 5 hours. English I learnt on the net and a TINY bit in school.

[Caesar]

Hey, I know English, Japanese, Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, Malay,French(a little though) and Chinese since I am a Chinese.

And I ain't joking ....

Take care ...

[adamturner]

Looks like we have some very foreign friendly peolpe. Being from the UK we're not encouraged that much to learn other languages.....I'm glad I do know French though.

[Elledan]

I'm afraid that besides English I only speak Dutch... Quite logical since it's my native language

I never felt the urge to learn other languages, although I'd like to learn Spanish since it's a world language (together with English and Chinese).

BTW Chinese seems a little too hard to me

[Peter Hibbit]

If you can speak three lanuages you are trilingual.
If you can speak two languages you are bilingual.
If you can speak one language you are English.

We are sooooo behind the rest of Europe when it comes to languages. I went to the Netherlands a while ago and was waiting in a queue at a bakers. There were about five other tourists in front of me, and the person that served them spoke to each in their own language, made me feel very small.

I think we're still kind of stuck in an Empire mentality. Because everyone else speaks English we (as a nation) don't seem to make the effort to learn others. I think we'll come unstuck because of it. Being an island can't help.

Did you know that English has more than double the number of words than any other language. I guess that's how we can have a game show like 'Call My Bluff', so many words in our own language that we don't even know the meaning of.

Does any other country have a Call My Bluff type game?

Peter
(Speaking English and Codswallop)

[cyberbrain]

I wasn't thinking that French was so popular!

I'm talking French too! < It's my maternal language!
Also some Spanish and Italian.
I' have been living in the South of France for many years. Since to me the girls in the country next to mine sounded more attractive than the one in my country, I have been pretty often in Spain and Italy.
I can talk a little bit of Spanish and Italian, but not much. On the other hand I understand most of what can be said.
I'm supposed to be able to talk German, but I'm not. I learned German at school, 2 years who sounded pretty long to me! I never used it and totally forget about it.
I can not talk Latin, but can do pretty good translation, it's also something I learned at school. There is not a real purpose of being able to do anything with Latin, except perhaps the fact that it's really helping in French, Italian, and even Spanish. Even on the churches they are not using Latin anymore.
That's about it.
Oh, yeah...I'm fighting with my English since 6 months. It's mostly an easy language, even if I realize that I'm doing a lot of mistake talking/writing it, I'm confident that pretty soon it will be better. But I know that if I had to work with English speaking people they will think I'm never been to school...lol

I have to agree with Fashola, it's really different to talk a foreign language, and to be able to participate in business meeting or write good proposals in a language who is not really your. But I'm pretty sure that a lot of you are doing so, and certainly doing it pretty well. That's giving me some hope. May be in few time I will be able to make business with English and US people???

[Sparkie]

Freesources, I am SO envious of you! Being in the middle of all those languages, and speaking 4 of them natively. Want to trade countries?

I'm fluent in Spanish, took three years of French and a year of German. I studied Russian independently for some time, but due to lack of resources, I could never get beyond the basics.

I've travelled extensively throughout Spain and visited Gibraltar. Looking to visit the rest of Western Europe in a couple of years. Fascinating!

[adamturner]

Originally posted by Peter Hibbit
If you can speak three lanuages you are trilingual.
If you can speak two languages you are bilingual.
If you can speak one language you are English.

Love the joke! It's so true... what will we Brits do to improve?

[James]

I know the following:
[list][*]Engligh, my first language [*]French, I can get by in France but don't know it very well[*]Latin, I did 2 years of Latin in school so I know it to a reasonable standard[*]German, I have only just started learning this so I don't know much yet

[qslack]

Nice one Peter H.!!

Right now I'm learning French. I was forced to take Spanish for 6 years, and you can see how much I love it since I'm not taking French.

I'm taking a long trip to France and the rest of Europe in two years so I hope I'll have learned French by then.

I also want to learn Latin sometime. Unfortunately I can't learn German because I tend to break out in laughter when I hear the accent (I can't help it, for real!). Japanese looks cool.

But Peter H., if you think England is bad at languages, look at the US. Soon the majority of the population will NOT be English-speaking but Spanish-speaking, and no one knows that language except for Spanish teachers, it seems like.

[adam_shep]

English (or American ) is my native language.

I studied French for about 6-7 years in school, but I'm not so good at it because who am I going to speak French to around here?

I speak a very little bit of Spanish.

I spend some time in India studying Pali, and ancient Indian language similar to Sanskrit.

I also speak a little bit of Hindi.

Originally posted by d3v


But Peter H., if you think England is bad at languages, look at the US. Soon the majority of the population will NOT be English-speaking but Spanish-speaking, and no one knows that language except for Spanish teachers, it seems like.

Isn't that amazing. There are so many Spanish speakers all around, and yet how many people actually learn more than their 2 years of Spanish in High School

[sbdi]

english
irish
bit of french
bit of spanish, but im not meant to be speaking a bit of spanish its meant to be a lot of it

[daniel_eastley]

I can speak:

English
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Scottish
Gaelic
Portuguese
Indian
Chinese
Japanese
Welsh
Dutch
Russian
all 100% perfect!

[Hierophant]

I can speak enough Spanish to live, happens when the predominate language is Spanish.

I also took French in High School and can read it still but have problems pronouncing it since I have never used it conversationally once I graduated.

[Plebius]

I can speak:

English
German

and can understand some spanish and a tiny bit of french.

My major is probably going to be linguistics and german.

[Elledan]

Originally posted by daniel_eastley
I can speak:

English
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Scottish
Gaelic
Portuguese
Indian
Chinese
Japanese
Welsh
Dutch
Russian
all 100% perfect!

COOL

I'd like to speak so much languages, but since I'm short on time, it'll probably never happen...

Je beweerde dat je 100% perfect Nederlands kan spreken? Volgens mij kan dat eigenlijk alleen maar als je echt Nederlander bent, maar ik kan me vergissen

Dutch is supposed to be one of languages that is hard to learn

(Note for moderators: I'm willing to translate this piece of Dutch to show that it contains no illegal 'stuff', or you could ask daniel )

[pedro_gb]

Je parle Francais (If that's how you say it)
Eu falo Portugues (My native language)
But I don't speak English

Sorry for the lack of accents on the two "accented" languages.

[ddeile]

Not me. I can barely speak english.

[daniel_eastley]

Oh just to varify the fact: I was being Sarcastic in my Last post! (If you hadn't of guessed already)

I really only speak English and German (Neither of them very well either)

[mjames]

Hola forumers. Me llamo es Marcos y soy de Nueva Jersey, Los Estados Unitos. Espanol es fresco.

I speak Spanish, in addition to English (obviously).