What Language(s) Do You Know?

[Claire]

I realize we have had an increasing number of members who live in countries other than the United States. Because of this, I figured we could have a thread about language(s). Obviously everyone here can either speak, write, or comprehend English. We can also discuss languages we are interested in knowing.

I, for one, aim to be multilingual. But currently, I can only speak tidbits of other languages - nothing snazzy. I took French I and plan to take Spanish I & Spanish II. I have taken the time to try and learn Irish Gaelic, but I would prefer to learn a language which is more commonly used before I learn more uncommon languages (although I really want to be able to speak Irish Gaelic someday fluently). I basically would love to know some more rarer languages, but quite a few of the more widely spoken languages (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, etc).

What language(s) do you know how to speak, read, or write?
What language(s) do you intend to learn?

[Smitie]

I can speak/read and write Dutch and English. I had French and German classes, but I completely forgot about everything (so I can't read/speak or write it). I also had Latin classes for 5 years, but I only learned how to translate Latin texts to Dutch. If you give me a dictionary, grammar book and a Latin text, I can translate it for you :P. I don't want to learn a new language now, I only want to improve my English a bit more.

[Konota]

I know 3, English, Japanese And Dutch, i can pronounce, spell and understand em, i just cant read Japanese and Dutch>_<.

[Akiranon]

Only English and Dutch, really. I can also read and understand German and had two years of French, but I forgot most of it >_>

Learning Japanese would be an interesting experience, however. Seeing how there's so many symbols and dialects in it I think I'll refrain from learning another language for now. Two is good enough. :P

[Josh]

I know English. How awesome am I. Although I would learn Dutch if it was an important enough language to be taught anywhere. :P

[lonely_moon]

I am learning Japanese at the moment, but I can only speak a little of it so far.

This year, we're starting to learn kanji, and boy, is it hard. Hiragana and katakana are fairly easy, but there are heaps of kanji. What's worse is that the kanji can have completely different meanings and pronunciations depending on what context you're using it in. AND it is so hard to write small with them, due to the insane number of strokes in some of them.

Anyway, it's good to learn a language, and I hope to visit Japan someday. I like a lot of Japanese stuff, too.

[Master Link]

Yes I am awesome because I know English! I'm fairly good at it too.
I know some tidbits of Japanese, but I don't know any Kanji.

I am taking Chinese in high school and I only know how to say one think so far. Ni Hao! (hello)

I am also planning to learn Japanese sometime in my life. Whether it be a college course, private tutor, or a computer course.

[Y2K3]

I can understand English too. Go me!
I can also read/write/speak some French and German.
I know random words in a few other lanuages (eg, Spanish), but not enough to get me along anywhere.

If I had to learn another language, it would be Russian (@Smitie: and Dutch :P).

[UsayEldaZay]

I lived in Spain for like 3 years, so I know a little Spanish. I was 3 when I moved, that's why I know so little. English, of course :). I'm hoping to learn Latin and German soon..

[Dabombster]

I can speak English and... bad English. I can understand some Japanese, since my grandparents speak it all the time. I can't read, write, or speak it though. I can also understand some signs from American Sign Language. Other than that, I'm lost when people speak/type in other languages.

[Amelie]

I speak German and English. I can write English better then I can speak it and I seem to speak German much better then I can spell it sometimes. I have a bad memory for things like that so the only tongue I am going to concentrate on right now is just my English ^^

[DisappearingMist]

English obviously. I took 2 high school years of Spanish and a year in college, which is about 2 high school years, again. I also went to Mexico and used the language a bit there, talking to locals. Good experience for me. I'd like to learn some more Spanish, to keep it up.

Japanese would be fantastic, but very hard. I have watched a lot of animes in Japanese, and can pick out a lot of words.

[bellum]

well the only language I currently know is English, next year I am considiring to learna new language, french possibly, I dont think I'm gonna learn spanish.Well I may just stick with English all my life who knows.I think Japanese would be cool to learn beacause then I could speak with Shigeru Miyamoto and Learn everything about Loz.

[Bob Majinki]

I grew up learning a mix of Arabic and English. It ended up that I exceeded in English, and am not too great in Arabic, however it is my native tongue and I am learning the language once more and it is pretty easy for me to grasp since I've been exposed to it my entire life.

As a child, my school thought I was Chinese, and grouped me with the actual Chinese kids who spoke no English, so I was exposed to that. Then they decided I wasn't Chinese and put me with the Mexicans, and I was exposed to Spanish. Then they finally just gave up and put me with all the other Americans.

In 5th grade I was put into French class. I stopped taking French last year, but I still remember a good deal of what I was taught. I'm not fluent but I can go around France or Canada and communicate with the people. In 7th or 8th grade I began independent Japanese studies. Native Japanese people say my accent when speaking their language is pretty much spot-on, so this is good.

In college I want to pursue a double minor in Arabic and Japanese. If possible, I'd also like to take Korean classes. The Korean exchange students in my school say I have a good Korean accent as well, so yeah I think I'd be good at it.

[zeldafreak]

English is the only one that I can understand fully.
I can understand Cantonese and Mandarin when it comes to listening, but I can't write or speak them.
I want to learn Spanish. It's a lot more fun IMHO.

[El Bagu]

Swedish is the language I master (would be strange elsewhise since I was born and raised in Sweden).

I took classes in French and German in school (I can make some conversation in French I found out last year, hurra!)
I went to Spain and took classes in spanish, I´ve been to Costa Rica and various parts of Spain and it seems I can manage communication pretty well in spanish. My english is decent I guess, I understand pretty much anything although writing and speaking it is not completely flawless on my behalf.

[Skull_Kid]

I know Portuguese, english, french, spanish, a bit of deutsch, a bit of japanese and I think that's all.

In fact, my first word was in english, and not in Portuguese, cause I have a lot of british cousins

[Onilink89]

I know:
-Turkish, because i'm raised in a Turkish Family. I Can speak and write the language.
-Dutch, because i live in Holland, Also can Speak and write the language.
-English, Watched too much dutch subbed cartoon network when i was a kid. After 5 years of ZD my english grammer became better then normal, and it came in handy with school. I had a 9/10 as the my final grade (all grades+final exam and the average of those grades) for english. With speaking, well i don't talk it much in real life, because there is no english person to talk to.
-Japanese, Well i don't fully understand the language, but i learned it by watching too much english subbed anime. I can't write the language with the japanese kanji/Kana/Rōmaji, but i can write it in normal latin lettters.

[Hylian Hobbit]

I only know how to speak English and some spanish. My spanish did actually improve very quickly when my three aunts came to visit from Panama to help my mom. They all speak spanish, and some english. I helped them out with english, and they helped me with spanish. =P I understand a lot of it, but I'm not good at writing or speaking it yet.

[LucarioMaster]

well the only languages i know of are:
english (born in amarica)
german (i just know some)
spanish (my sister taught me)
hylian (zelda wiki)
and thats it

[Kybyrian]

I don't know English, I has a translator here. I kid, I kid. I know English and quite some German. Tiny bit of Dutch thanks to our own Smittens the Smiecht.

[Amelie]

My mother wants me to learn french. Its bad enough everyone thinks I am french from that movie >< I guess it would be fun to learn and my mother says my english is good enough already. French is a pretty tongue.. so it would not be bad to learn how to speak it. I dont know anyone around here that speaks it besides my mother though so I dont know when I would use it. I guess I could watch french movies or go to french websites ^^

[zeldusfanaticus]

i speak primarily english. ive been taking french. i know some spanish. So im trilingual. WOOT.

my moms trilingual, so i learn from her, i have about 40 relatives in spain, france, and a few living in germany(but we dont talk about them).

i also learned from my grandpa how to say "i love you" and "i love beer" in danish, which is the best language ever.

[Linkmaster]

...being a Californian, I pretty much know only english, though I know a bit of spanish and maybe one word in french...lol, "I love beer"...:D

[linkman8]

I speak English a little more fluently than some would ask for, I speak conversational Japanese, basic German, and basic Spanish. I love learning languages, so I use phrases from different languages as often as I can to familiarize myself with the phrases and accents.

[random letters]

Of corse I know English and does pig latin count cuz that's the only other launguge I know.

[MOS3]

I can speak/write/read/understand Spanish and English (although I've been told I sound "asian" when I speak english :D ....I can understand a bit German.....used to speak it but not anymore :(

btw...Does hylian count?....lol jk...I'm not THAT geek....I hope <.<

[Zeanith]

I can speak English, Gibberish, and Ancient Sfarinlean.

I used to be able to speak French and Spanish, but my lack of foreign friends quickly disipated those acquired skills. v_v

[midnightokami]

Japanese is my first language but I can't write japanese or read japanese. I know english and its my second language.

[Kazumi]

Well, I of course speak, perfect English. I am also taking French classes, and I'm quite good. But I can't speak it fluently yet. I really would like to learn Japanese. Mostly because I plan to move to Japan when I am older. And for some reason, I would like to learn Russian. I just think that it sounds awesome. But living in a county with two official languages (French and English), knowing both of them is quite important.

[Dark Princess]

Well, I know English, of course. :P
I've been trying to teach myself Japanese, and I only know a few words.
I know like 7 words in Spanish.
I'll hopefully be able to learn German. I know only a few words.
And I'll be taking French next year. :P

[Zeruda]

My first language was Spanish, but I've long forgotten it since I quit speaking it around age 4. I'm trying very hard to pick it up again, though, because I want to be able to understand my family. When I met them a long while ago, I couldn't understand a thing, and since I'm set to inherit a ranch in Spain, it'd be good for me to learn.

I also speak Japanese, but not fluently. I'm pretty good at it, but anybody who speaks knows that learning to actually write it is incredibly hard. I picked it up back around 1992 when a friend asked me to join a Japanese Ragnarok Online server.

I used to speak Hmoob (Hmong) back in grade school, because a lot of the Asians in CA are Hmoob and Mien. I stopped some years ago, though, because after a while I really didn't have the patience for it anymore. I can still understand a little bit, though.

And now I'm picking up on Korean, mainly because a lot of the MMOs out there are Korean, and I like to BETA test.

And, lastly, I'm learning Italian, because my fiance is Italian and we'd like to go to Italy one day and maybe even live there (if not Spain).

[El Bagu]

i also learned from my grandpa how to say "i love you" and "i love beer" in danish, which is the best language ever.

Denmark. Danish. Danes. There is so much you could say about this topic! Did you know that it takes a danish child more time to learn how to speak than children growing up learning other languages? Reason could be this (quote from my grandfather): "Danish is not a language but a sound!"

Still I love Denmark, danes and danish! Awesomeness ;)

(And I agree, it´s the best language ever!)

[linkman8]

Denmark. Danish. Danes. There is so much you could say about this topic! Did you know that it takes a danish child more time to learn how to speak than children growing up learning other languages? Reason could be this (quote from my grandfather): "Danish is not a language but a sound!"

Still I love Denmark, danes and danish! Awesomeness ;)

(And I agree, it´s the best language ever!)
lol, quite interesting. I'll have to learn Danish some day, considering that I'm part Danish.

As an update of sorts, I'd like to say that since I last posted, I've learned more and more regarding how to write Japanese. I'm really good at Katakana, OK at kanji, and poor at hiragana.

[basement24]

My frist language is English, but I do know a bit of French. I should know a LOT more given I took it throught school, but it just wouldn't stick for some reason. I know enough to get by if I were ever in a Frech-only speaking area of the world, but I'm afraid I would be butchering tenses and the finer details like the masculin / feminine-ization of items.

[K4KING]

Let's see the Languages i know....

Well all i know are English and Filipino. Filipino is the language of the Philippines so don't get it confused with other countries. I plan to learn some Japanese but that will be in the near future.

Other languages i plan to learn is French. It is the Language of Love which may help me impress a girl.:lol:

The language of the Philippines is very Vast. We have over 70 dialects in my country but we basically speak Filipino and English. I also see a LOT of Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese etc. in some parts of the Philippines so for me they're normal.


Here's me saying Filipino words(don't worry there's a translation)

Mabuhay ang laro ng Zelda!
Translation: Long live Zelda games! :cool:

Magkita tayo sa SB.
Translation: See you aound the SB.

[emy]

I know English, and only English. D:

I definitely plan on learning Spanish, though. I live in Southern California (USA) so it's a pretty important thing to know.

[BlueLink57]

I can speak, read, and write English, speak and read Turkish, speak, read, and write Latin (I have it in school), and I know a little bit of Japanese and Spanish.

[Durion]

I can speak a few languages:

I can fluently speak my first language, Which is obviously English. Only rarely used words in english can confuse me.

I can speak quite a lot of Spanish and French and a couple words of my Nations native language, Being Manx, But unfortunatly this is classed as a official dead language as the last mother tongue alive died recently.

[x-Link-x]

I know English, Spanish, French and a bit of Japanese.
Lets starts by saying that Spanish is my first language, after all, I am Hispanic. Heehee. <3

[Crimson Prince]

This is quite an interesting thread.

First language is Spanish for me. I was born in Mexico. I can still speak, read and even write in Spanish, the problem is the accents that are written, I never quite learned them. Second language is English, I've been here for about 10 years now, if I recall correctly. I can read, write and speak English well enough, I believe.

I hope to learn Japanese some day. ;_; I can only say a few words in Japanese. And I think that's it for me.

[Cyrus Skyray]

I can speak English and Welsh fluently (although not as fluently as I'd like).

I also intend to learn Japanese, a desire that has arisen after watching all those animes (if I could find the time and will to do so).

[MalonMaverick11]

English. I took spanish for 5 years and i know what 'hola' means. that's it.

[Deku Scrub]

Yo puedo hablo el español y el ingles, pero mi primero es el ingles.

So yeah, I speak English, but I'm pretty fluent in Spanish as well.

[arkvoodle]

Well, I can speak, English(being my first language! :P), french and a bit of Spanish and Italian.
I can write in French ,English and Spanish, but am still only a learner in italian, Yay me!

[Zenox]

Well, I obviously know English, as most Americans do, but I also took spanish last year. I'm not taking it this year, mostly because I hate it, and partially because I failed it :P Soo ... yeah, I know English and that's it.

[Izanami]

I speak English.=P

I took a class for German in my freshman year but quit due to the teacher doing more screaming than teaching.

[ResidentZelda]

I can write, Read, and Speak English yay I'm awesome :P. I can also Read, Write in Spanish but man I suck at speaking it >:/

[Medix]

I speak italian and english. I know french too, and I'm studying japanese on internet.

[Yoshi_FTW]

I know English! :o I also took Latin for about a year but I didn't learn that much. Going to take Spanish in high school though.

[Crystal Clair]

I know basic Spanish and I'm about at medium level with Japanese (I can read almost 500 kanji) but I have to work on that a little more. I keep falling out of routine since I graduated high school.

Foreign languages are fun!

[Immortal_One]

I speak English, some Hindi and local language of India native to a few of the western states called Gujurati.

I can write and read in Hindi, but not near as well as English.

[Master Kokiri 9]

For now i only read, speak, and write english. But i intend to eventually learn japanese.

[Len]

i know:

english (yeah i know, this is dunno)
french (studying)
african (its too easy...for me)
spanish (not too easy i must say)

and finnally:
danish (i have learned this by my own)

[Atsuma]

English and Spanish, very fluent in both. So yeah...Kick me or something. ^^

[zeldusfanaticus]

im going to teach you folks helpful (more random than anything) phrases in danish...

jeg elsker ol = i love beer
jeg elsker dem = i love you
Få mig en Majroer = bring me a turnip
Zelda er den bedste videogame nogensinde = zelda is the best videogame ever
Jeg vil gerne have et stort mac, store FRIES, og Mellemlangt koks venligst = i would like a big mac, large fries, and medium coke please

and if your angry here are some swear words in a few languages...
S***
merde(french)
imierda(spanish)

F*** you
shibai yo ma(korean) that is how you pronounce it

use this knowledge wisely

[deku guy]

iknow italian perfectly ingilsh almost perfectly latin i suck french i am learning and spanish perfectly

[Alex_Da_Great]

Well I speak fluent English,
almost fluent Macedonian
you could say Serbian, Croatian etc. but to me, they sound so very different to Macedonian! :lol:
Learning French (upto my 3rd year this year)
A few words of Australian also :P

And yeah! I want to learn Spanish though...

[Ikana]

All I speak is English but sometime later I would like to learn to speak and write in Japanese.

[LANZZ]

My native tongue is Malaysia. Iw also speak English....

[TyphoneAlexis]

I speak English
Im horrible at spanish
And im studying French
I plan to take Spanish again exept the teacher is way too boring

[Bigelover88]

Well I'm dutch so of course I speak dutch but also english, french and german and I understand a tiny bit of spanish

[Viral Maze]

I speak English fluently and I'm semi-fluent in Punjabi (my parents are from India). I can also speak a lick of French, enough to converse with a 3 year old french kid and even that might be pushing it >_>

[Jetter]

Well in my elementry school we have a duel language program that first started when I was going to go to Kindergarten. My mom signed me up and I've been doing it ever since. Now this my last year because I am in 5th grade. So spanish is my other language.

[blubb]

My mother tongue is German, or more exactly, Rhine Franconian dialect (dialects differ extremely in German, for example there are dialects like Low Saxon which is much closer to Dutch and English than it is to Bavarian or Swiss German).

The first foreign language I took in 5th grade (aged 10) was French, I took it from 1997-2003 and unfortunately I've forgotten most of it until now because there are so few possibilities to use it, though I was one of the best in class. And I found it very hard too, because its orthography has almost nothing to do with its pronunciation, for example there are words like "eaux" which is pronounced [o], or words like "un", "en", "in-", "an" and "on" which sound almost alike, at least to my ears...

Starting from 7th grade, I took English, which is the foreign language that I use most frequently (you won't get far without it nowadays, especially on the internet!). I finished my "Abitur" (which is a German degree allowing you to study at university) in 2006 with English being one of my three "Leistungskurse" alongside Chemistry and Maths (lit. "power subjects", which are a little harder than "Grundkurse"="basic subjects"). So I'd say that my knowledge of English is above the average of Germans of my age, but still you'll see me make a lot of grammatical and word order errors when writing in English.
My abalities are very different in that case:
Reading English is the easiest, I almost understand every English word unless very archaic or specific Latinate words are used. We had to read short stories from Edgar Allan Poe in the last year of class, and they contained a lot of such words which forced me to consult my dictionary quite frequently ;)
When it comes to writing English, most people will understand me but like I said, I'll sometimes use the wrong word/sentence structure etc.
Speaking English is something I'm not very fluent in, it's a lot worse than writing. the reason for that is probably the radically different word order compared to German.
Understanding spoken English is probably the most difficult for me, as it doesn't happen very often that I get to speak to someone from the USA/UK etc.
Sometimes I'll meet some US army soldiers who are stationed around here (via a friend's family who have been traditionally hosting a few of them for Christmas/Fastnacht/Birthday/New Year's parties since the 50s). One of them was born in Scotland and he had such a bad accent that I had to ask 2-3x to understand what he said, while another guy from Wisconsin(?) spoke very clearly, even to his fellow Americans so I could understand him perfectly).

Then I started with Spanish in 9th grade, but I quit after less than a year because the courses were at the worst possible times and the teacher sucked big time, but anyway my French knowledge lets me understand a lot of Spanish and Italian words, but I can't really speak those languages.

Other languages I can partially understand are:
Dutch, because it's a West Germanic language just like German and English. Sure, there are some linguistic false friends but if you know the basic Dutch words like pronouns etc and know German and English, it's really easy to understand. Even the sentence structure is almost identical to German (even closer to my native dialect). I probably understand 90% of a written Dutch text, maar ik kan het niet praten of schrijven ;). Spoken Dutch is something else though, I can't understand most of it, only some fragments. Fun Fact: I can understand spoken Flemish (Dutch spoken in Belgium) a whole lot better than Holland-based Dutch. I think it's because Flemish has a closer linguistic relationship to my native German dialect (on top of that, both are heavily French-influenced, I live only 150km away from the French border) than "Holland-Dutch" has.

Swedish. Though it's a North Germanic language (and therefore farther away from German than Dutch and English are) it has a lot of Low German loanwords (from the Hanse time) which make it quite easy to första (=German "verstehen", English "understand") a good part of it. I know some basic pronouns in Swedish too, but that's all. I maybe understand 50% of the words in a Swedish text.

Another language which intrigues me is Russian. I only know some swear words though :D But I can read the cyrillic alphabet without problems (as a chemistry student, you don't get around learning the Greek alphabet by heart anyway, and Cyrillic isn't a far stretch if you know both Latin and Greek alphabets). But I think that I'll never ever be able to produce the Russian "r", it's just plain impossible! How can someone make a vibrant with the tip of the tongue? Whenever I try, the best I get out is d-d-d-d-d... though I can perfectly pronounce the German "r" which many learners consider "hard" (why that?), the English "r", the Spanish tapped "r" and even the Japanese "r"~"l" sound isn't a big problem for me, but the Russian/Italian "r" or Spanish "double r" are so impossible to pronounce :S

BTW I didn't expect these forums here to be so international, in the two days I've been here I've already seen (besides US-Americans), Canadians, Englishmen, Dutch (a lot of them actually), Italians, Mexicans, Portuguese, Swedes, Poles, Malaysians, Phillippinos etc, I didn't expect that at all ;) (but I seem to be the only German here, strange...)

[TriforceHunter]

I speak English.
I speak Spanish because my Parents/Family are Mexican( I was born in L.A.)
I know a few words in Japanese.
I wanna learn French, German, or Chinese.

[Hero Of Spirits]

I'm an English bloke, & I learnt a fair bit of Indonesian & French a few years back. Forgotten nearly all of it though lol. I'm taking Japanese as a elective at school, & that's going well for me lol :)

[Meego]

Hola ameegas! (Thats all the Spanish I know, i have a Spanish friend) I am English, but also know some of the American phrases. I also speak quite a bit of French (just ask Hazel!) I want to learn the languages where my forgein friends live but I have to learn German next year as well.

[pahurtgen]

I made a point of studying my native language in its entirety first. I think everyone should make sure they have their own language down pretty darn good before they aspire to learn a new language. In any case, I'm currently learning Spanish, and I hope to learn a spot of either German, Greek or French.

[Jesper]

I know Norwegian and English (swedish and danish, cuz these are basically the same as norwegian). I know more languages aswell, but norwegian and english are the languages I can fully understand...

I've taken spanish for over 2,5 years now, but I know more german T_T

[athenian200]

I can only speak in English, but I can write basic Latin (though my pronunciation sucks). Finally, I know just enough to be able to read very basic French, German, and Spanish to some degree, maybe a 2nd grade level sprinkled with technical terms.

I want to know more about Japanese and Chinese, but I can't understand those languages at all.

[NES]

Languages are so interesting -- I wish a knew a ton of them. Now wouldn't that be cool? :)

I speak Spanish and English. Mostly Spanish, but I'm pretty much fluent in English. I guess my grammar could use a bit a work, but I'm getting better. My friend is Japanese and he's taught me a few words (The only ones I really remember are 'sexy' and 'delicious', though...). That's pretty much it besides taking a couple years of French, which I failed at miserably. I really want to learn other languages.

[Xinnamin]

I obviously am fluent in English; I can also read a decent amount of Spanish (as in to the point of basic comprehension, I kinda gave up on Spanish after a while). I understand a good deal of Chinese, but can only speak and write a tiny bit and am currently studying it so as to hopefully one day become fluent in my family's native tongue.

[Hazel]

I am fluent in:
-French, lived in France all my life, born here, Yup, I'm a frog.
-Swedish, my mum's a Swede
-English, well duh.