How many languages do you speak?

[amanito]

Just out of curiousity, I actually wanted to know who speaks Russian, but well.

Native language Dutch

Second most used language English

Third most used language Spanish

I also speak French, athough I don't practice it anymore.

I understand German, but don't know how to speak it. Long, long time ago I studied Latin and ancient Greek. Latin has really helped me to learn German, Spanish and French.

Planning to study Russian next school year and to study French on my own, repeating the verbs and all that and read a book or two.

[PositiveHAL]

one, poorly

[Torsten]

I am fluent in german and english. I can read dutch and italian pretty well. Dutch because it is so close to german and english that I can derive most things. italian because I did latin for 5 years.

I can also understand spoken dutch if I stay in holland for a few weeks.

[amanito]

That's cool, Torsten, I thought it was mainly Dutch-speaking people who understood German than the other way around. Did you ever visit Belgium, if so, what's easier for you, Flemish or Dutch (Holland)?

[Marcel]

I speak Polish and English fluently, and I can get by in French after a few weeks in a francophone country. Croatian and Ukrainian and Slovakian are so similar to Polish that I understand most of what's said in those languages too.

[∂an]

Native English speaker, French and German at a very basic level - but trying to improve. I much prefer learning German over French, suits my personality better perhaps.

[Alice]

Only English, but I can count to ten and swear in 4 others. Do they count?

[qualia]

2 - english, and fluent in drunken gibberish

[LadySwan]

Ну вы даете мужики.

I'm native russian, english is my second language, and not perfect one

I admire your ability to learn so many languages. I learned english only to get a job in my native country long time ago, and improved it a bit to immigrate to Ozzy ;)

and I can swear in german as well

Edited June 4, 2012 by LadySwan

[amanito]

Hey LadySwan,

How was swtiching between the two languages? How long did it take you to master the alphabet and read/write basic words in English?

Any warnings, tips .... for learning Russian?

Edited June 4, 2012 by amanito

[Bert&Ernie]

i speak English as my first language but am trying to learn Spanish as my girlfriend and all her family speak it

[Halcyon Daze]

I'm semi fluent in Tok Pisin (PNG) and I'm currently learning, you guessed it, my girlfriend's tribal language.

Namb eesa-peso (me, garden, going to) -I'm going to the garden

wano, eep kamul-pooh (Boy, water, bring, go) - hey kid, go and bring me some water.

She speaks 4 languages!

Here's some tok pisin.

Hey Wantok, kam, yumi go kilim bigpela pik na kisim kambek blo yumi lo kaikai olgetta.

Hey mate! come, let's go and kill a big pig and bring it back for us all to share (eat together).

Edited June 4, 2012 by Halcyon Daze

[watertrade]

I don't do any very well, but I grew up with English, Taught French and afrikaans at School and now am starting to understand some Malay - Bahasa Melayu. ( at least I know I'm being talked about. )

Edited June 4, 2012 by watertrade

[amanito]

Watertrade, als ik Nederlands tegen jou praat, dan begrijp jij mij waarschijnlijk? Ik heb niet zoveel problemen om Afrikaans te begrijpen.

[Xenodimensional]

I am fluent in English, html, music, art, fractals and Shpongolian. So one I guess. :-(

Does telepathy count?

[dionysus]

when i was stil in high school i could speak conversational japanese, but due to my early departure and since lack of practice that has gone far down hill. my grandmother on my mothers side is dutch and for a long time was married to a danish person, if i spend a day or 2 in that house i start to understand the basic gist of what is being said a bit better and can watch some films from the area without subtitles, but i could not speak anything much. in my glorious employed days also i worked for a greek family in a fish shop, i developed a small amount of broken greek, but certainly nothing impressive. i like this about australia, there really is a fair amount of diversity through the people if you ignore the anglo media.

[space cadet swami]

My wish is to learn Spanish this year, as a trip to Peru is high on my agenda. I think it would be quite awkward to travel in a country & not be able to communicate with the locals. And seeing as how it is the 3rd most spoken language on the planet, hey why not.

[Bert&Ernie]

My wish is to learn Spanish this year, as a trip to Peru is high on my agenda. I think it would be quite awkward to travel in a country & not be able to communicate with the locals. And seeing as how it is the 3rd most spoken language on the planet, hey why not.

 

If you find a good school to learn it at or whatever give us a buzz

[watertrade]

Watertrade, als ik Nederlands tegen jou praat, dan begrijp jij mij waarschijnlijk? Ik heb niet zoveel problemen om Afrikaans te begrijpen.

 

Het is zeer oud geweest. Ik leefde slechts in Afrika een paar jaar toen ik een kind was. Ik was nooit zeer goed bij talen

[incognito]

English and central west Australian

I would like to learn some vietnamese and Khmer.

Edited June 5, 2012 by incognito

[amanito]

Space cadet, just start already, what are you waiting for! It was also my motivation before going to L-America. They don't speak English ... By talking with them you know what's going on in their heads, their opinions etc, discuss things, makes your travel so much nicer.

Spanish is really not that hard and it's very beautiful and sucha rich language, full of expressions.

[Belching]

I learnt Japanese at school, but I've forgotten a lot of it. I could probably get by as a tourist.

I started learning Italian to help at work, but I couldn't get my head around the genders. Disappointed that I couldn't go further.

[OPP]

<p>When I was at school I studied Indonesian for my HSC.</p>

<p>Most of it is long gone but a few weeks over there would probably bring alot of it back.</p>

<p>Can speak enough Japanese to ask for directions, order food and get by. Just.</p>

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[watertrade]

Het is zeer oud geweest. Ik leefde slechts in Afrika een paar jaar toen ik een kind was. Ik was nooit zeer goed bij talen

 

Ik moet bekennen ik hulp met dit het schrijven had!

[woof woof woof]

Cool to see that there are many here that speak or understand more then one language;

I myself speak 4 fluently. Languages were never really my strong point believe it or not.

1st Dutch, 2nd English, 3rd Spanish, 4th a creole language. (The language is very specific to my location so will not name it)

I also speak & understand German at a basic/decent level. Learned it in my late 20's. Mostly self taught and with help of 3 German speaking GF's who got the ball rolling. And yes I was on a roll in the German speaking woman sector :-) and because it is so close Dutch, it makes the transition easy. Just the grammar Und Das Artikel need a (GOOD)bit of tweaking.

Never really dove into Afrikaans, but since it's more then 50% Dutch,... I'm sure It's not that difficult for me to understand or learn.

From my mother's side her parents spoke Limburgish which is a strong dutch dialect that I understand very well, but never really spoke it. I grew up with it. Funny to see that even most people in Holland have trouble understanding it and look at me crazy when they notice that understood every word of it.

Portuguese I can understand decently, but only speak a few words. I guess it's the same with Italian as they are so closely related to Spanish and the creole that I speak.

I was thinking on taking on French,... or maybe not... lol,.... maybe better to think about building that fishing boat or putting my energy into something else.