E-Melting Pot

[ReanimateMagnus]

How many languages do you speak? (English)
Wie viele Sprachen sprechen Sie? (German)
あなたはどの言語を話しますか？ (Japanese)

Which languages are you learning? (English)
Quelles sont les langues d'apprentissage vous? (French)
哪些语言你是否想学吗？ (Chinese)

Malina coerced me into created this thread.

[Malina]

*laughs* Muahahaa, meet the terrible Malina, who wields such formidable powers of coercion she can pressure helpless innocents into opening multilingual chat threads.  ;D

Right, so, I guess I should switch into German, now?

Ich spreche eigentlich nur eine Sprache fließend, und zwar Deutsch, mein Englisch ist ganz okay, aber mein bißchen Französisch ist so schlecht, daß es an eine stümperhafte Metzelei dieser eigentlich sehr schönen Sprache grenzt, wenn ich mich an einer Unterhaltung auf französisch versuche. Mein Latein ist sogar noch schlechter als mein Französisch. *lacht* Von anderen Sprachen kenne ich nur kleine Bruchstücke, einzelne Worte oder Sätze, vielleicht ein paar Lieder.

[ReanimateMagnus]

Ich habe auch, kenne nur eine Sprache, und das ist Englisch. Deutsch Ich habe seit über 2 Jahren studiert, als ich im College war. Ich habe studierte Französisch als ich in der Grundschule war.

[Malina]

Französisch schon in der Grundschule (primary school)? Hast Du vielleicht in Frankreich gelebt?

[Kuroneko]

Watashi wa nihon-go o hanashimasu. 

An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?   Just learning, though.  I'm pretty bad at it, lol.

[ReanimateMagnus]

@Malina Sie haben Französisch und Deutsch als Optionen in der High School. Ich habe noch nie außerhalb der USA gegangen.

@Kuroneko Watashi wa anata no bunshō ga konran shite imasu.

[Malina]

@ReanimateMagnus  -  Ah, ich verstehe, Grundschule, das sind hier die ersten vier Schuljahre, die High School nennen wir allgemein weiterführende Schule, denn davon gibt es hier verschiedene Formen (Gesamtschule, Hauptschule, Realschule, Gymnasium).

@ Kuroneko  -  Dia dhuit! Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú? ... And that's about all the Irish I know.  ;D

[ReanimateMagnus]

Ja, ich war nicht sicher, was es wirklich nennen.

[Lilias]

Five, with any degree of proficiency. Native Greek, near-native English, licenced to teach French, close to licence level Spanish, decent Italian.

If dabbling counts, the list grows exponentially to include Latin (pretty drilled into me at school, but I'm way out of practice), Japanese, Russian (one and two years of classes respectively, but a long time ago), Portuguese (half a year of online study) and Scots Gaelic (some self-study).

Languages are my obsession. I don't know if the list will have more items added (I do want to learn Turkish one day, though, as well as make use of my Philo-Celtic Society membership), but I definitely want to pick up some of the less-studied ones again.

[Malefique]

Native English, French, Russian, Latin, Anglo-saxon, Old and Middle English (and if you don't think those count as separate languages  go try reading some), smatterings of Japanese, Italian, Spanish and German.  And I can say rude things in Cantonese and Urdu; I believe it is vitally important to be able to swear multilingually. 

[Elina]

English and Hindi.

[ReanimateMagnus]

licenced to teach French

J'essaie d'apprendre le français. Comment est-il si loin?

[Jag]

I speak English.
Je parle un peu français. (I haven't used it in...forever, so please don't test me...I probably even got that sentence wrong)
I'm also in the middle of learning American Sign Language. It might not be verbal, but it's still a language.

[ReanimateMagnus]

I'm also in the middle of learning American Sign Language. It might not be verbal, but it's still a language.

My wife knows this, it's pretty cool.

[Avis habilis]

My native language is English. Lorsque j'habitais le Canada, j'etais traducteur (du francais vers l'anglais, ca va sans dire). I ought to learn Schweizerdeutsch since our company's home office is in Zurich. Or just German because I dig Mittelalter music. I've forgotten almost all my Russian, Irish & Klingon.

I can pick up enough of a language to order lunch in about a week of total immersion, which consternates Mrs h to no end because she's never had much luck with languages.

[Jag]

My wife knows this, it's pretty cool.

I started learning it because of my daughter. She isn't deaf, but she doesn't speak very well yet and a lot of her words sound the same. She loves Signing Time anyway, so we picked up a bunch of the DVDs from the library and we're learning it together. It's been very useful. Since her 'Eat' sounds a lot like her 'Feet', she's gotten used to saying 'Eat' while making the sign so that we know what she's wanting. Same with 'More' and 'Ball' and 'Milk'. She even signs when she calls the dog. She says 'Allie!' while making the sign for 'Dog'. Some signs she can't get her fingers to make (like 'Water' or 'Fish'), but we've learned her little makeshift signs for them and a few others.

I also like her learning it because she has a deaf girl in her Sunday School class that she likes to play with. I think it'll be good for her to know it and be able to communicate with her as they get older.

[ReanimateMagnus]

My wife probably learned it for a less noble reason. In high school she wanted to learn how to speak without talking to her friends across the classroom.

[Jag]

Might not be a 'noble' reason, but she learned it. I only took French because my parents said I had to take a language and I knew the teacher was an easy grader. >.>

[Valerian]

I am an incorrigible dabbler in languages.  Aside from English, my best language is German, and though I read it fairly well, my composition is terrible.  Ditto for French, though it's been longer since I really practiced that.

Languages I've dabbled in, in rough order from best to worst, include Russian, Spanish, ASL, Latin, and Hungarian.  Russian was because of a friend who has a master's in Russian literature and and got me interested; Spanish because of my Peruvian sister-in-law; ASL because we had a regular customer at the bookstore where I worked for many years who was deaf; Latin because, well, it's Latin; and Hungarian because I was temporarily insane.  Er, that is, I saw a new language class on offer and signed up without realizing that it was so hard.

Szia.  A nevem Val.  Beszelek magyarul.

This means, "Hello.  My name is Val.  I speak Hungarian."  Except I can't get a whole lot farther than that.  :P

[Avis habilis]

...and Hungarian because I was temporarily insane.  ...

Speaking of language craziness, we had a friend who started learning Hebrew because her wife is Jewish. She said it was for recreation. Says I, "so you're learning a language with no vowels ... that you read backward ... to relax?"

[Caeli]

I love languages. :) I pick up languages really easily, even without formal instruction, and I just really enjoy learning new vocabulary and new ways of speaking and the different sounds.

My first language was Chinese, but I'm more fluent in English. I am conversationally fluent in two dialects in Chinese, though one is more fluent than the other, and my writing and reading skills are pretty dismal.  I know a smattering of Japanese, but it has fallen into disuse.  I've picked up some Korean (a combination of having lots of Korean friends and watching a lot of Korean dramas), can barely recall the French I learned in high school, and I know some ASL. Picked it up because my community service group signs songs, and as we learned new songs, I've learned new words. :P Also learned phrases here and there out of interest and curiosity. :)

I someday desire to be fluent in all that I mentioned above, and I hope to add Spanish and Italian to the list someday.

[HockeyGod]

I speak English as my first language.

I lived in Moscow in high school for 6 months and took the language for 4 years in high school and 2 years in college. As such...

Я говорю по-русский.
I speak Russian.

I really want to learn Spanish, French, and ASL.

[grdell]

I only speak my native language, American English - as of right now. I took three years of Spanish when I was in high school, but seeing as how that was twenty years ago now, I can safely say that I've forgotten most of what I learned there. I have been independently studying Latin just because I think it's cool. The one that I really want to learn, though, is German. My family's from Germany, but my grandfather stopped speaking it because they were "in America now." So he never taught his children, so I never learned either. But I want to learn it and some day go to Germany and see where my family came from. Until that day, however, I am a pathetic unilingual. Even though I do speak my native language better than average. Does that count for anything? ;)

[Jag]

I only speak my native language, American English - as of right now. I took three years of Spanish when I was in high school, but seeing as how that was twenty years ago now, I can safely say that I've forgotten most of what I learned there. I have been independently studying Latin just because I think it's cool. The one that I really want to learn, though, is German. My family's from Germany, but my grandfather stopped speaking it because they were "in America now." So he never taught his children, so I never learned either. But I want to learn it and some day go to Germany and see where my family came from. Until that day, however, I am a pathetic unilingual. Even though I do speak my native language better than average. Does that count for anything? ;)

My great-grandpa was the same way about German. While he still yelled it when he got angry, he never taught it to his children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren (me being one of those) because he was 'an American' now.

We were offered German in high school (Spanish, French, German, and Latin), but I only took the French. I kind of regret it. I would like to learn German one day too.

[Valerian]

While I do have a certain knack for languages -- I'm good at picking up accents, and after a week in Peru, I was understanding far more Spanish than I would ever have expected -- I didn't inherit my great-grandfather's skill, sadly.  Aside from English and the three main Scandinavian languages, he also knew German, Dutch, French, Finnish, Polish, and several of the Algonquin languages -- I think Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Fox.  As a child, my father would go around visiting with him, and at each neighbor's house, my grandfather would switch easily to whatever language might be native there.