General Question

Hawaii_Jake's avatar

Do you speak more than one language?

Asked by Hawaii_Jake (37748points) September 10th, 2011

I speak English and Japanese and a smattering of French and German. I also study Classical Greek as a hobby. Language fascinates me.

Learning a foreign language for the first time actually changed me. I had to think differently. I had to get past the erroneous idea that languages were simply codes of each other, and I had to latch onto the notion that language actually contains the heart of a culture.

Do you speak more than one language? (Yes, sign language counts.)

What are they?

What language are you curious to learn? Why?

If you only speak one, can you explain why? Would you like to learn another language?

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40 Answers

XOIIO's avatar

French, because I was in a french immersison school, and a code that I memorized so well I accidentally write in it instead of english.

KateTheGreat's avatar

Russian, English, Ukranian, Romanian, Estonian, Serbian, Greek, and a little bit of French, Italian, German, Icelandic, and American Sign Language.

I am currently learning Arabic.

athenasgriffin's avatar

Only English, really. I retain very, very little of my high school French. I attempted to learn Russian, because I am fascinated by the country, but, er. . .it didn’t go so well.

Ayesha's avatar

English, Urdu, Punjabi, and some Dutch.

ANef_is_Enuf's avatar

English, Ukrainian, and my German is rusty.. but it’s there. Sort of. I was supposed to be brushing up on it, but that fell apart because something came up and I wasn’t able to focus on it at the time. I would still like to do that, though.
I would like to learn Hebrew.

dreamwolf's avatar

I use finger snaps to my dogs. And can speak Spanish in regards to food. Filipino but its slang. I can speak proper English, Street English and California English as well.

size7's avatar

I speak American & my mothers language, Cu’pik. I also took 4 other languages, but sadly, don’t speak them.

Jude's avatar

English and French.

manolla's avatar

I speak Korean and am learning English and Arabic.

Hacksawhawk's avatar

Dutch, English, French, Greek, German (passive) and a bit Spanish (not that much).
Also studied Latin and Ancient Greek but since those are dead languages there isn’t much ‘speaking ‘going on.
Sometimes I write in a secret writing I once developed… But since that’s not being spoken but only written down for my secret and shameful thoughts I guess that doesn’t count either.

Languages which I find beautiful (but not planning to learn those in the near future): Japanese, Turkish, and Danish because of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

harple's avatar

English and Welsh fluently. I have level one British Sign Language, and a smattering of Brazilian Portuguese.

the100thmonkey's avatar

English and colloquial Japanese.Good French and passive Spanish/Italian.

Hibernate's avatar

Yes I speak more [I wont brag which ones] but can only write in only a few. I’d like to be able to learn more but it’s rather hard now and if I won’t be able to use it at least once every few days I’ll remember only a few words. I wanted to learn Polish, dunno why but I wanted to know it ^^

ragingloli's avatar

German, English, back in the day French, now not so much, HTML, SQL, PHP

jesienne's avatar

I want to learn Icelandic! it’s said that it’s one of the oldest languages in the world.

stardust's avatar

English, German and Irish. I’d like to learn French and Spanish. I’m rather envious of you multilingual folks.

Nullo's avatar

Italian, and I can stumble along in Spanish and Portuguese, if I have a dictionary. I can read French on a good day.

janbb's avatar

English, French, a bit of Hebrew and a bissele Yiddish.

heresjohnny's avatar

English and German.

I would love to learn Spanish, but whenever I try to speak it, missing words are filled in with German. I don’t get how some people can speak 4, 5, or more languages, my brain is just not wired that way.

@KateTheGreat That is quite an impressive list.

LuckyGuy's avatar

English and Japanese. @Hawaii_Jake We’d get along fine.

CWOTUS's avatar

Hablo poquito EspaƱol. Muy poquito.

gailcalled's avatar

English and pretty good French, some Spanish and grandmother Yiddish. I studied Latin in hs and tried to teach myself Ionic Greek, the key word being “tried.”

MrItty's avatar

El mismo que @CWOTUS.

poisonedantidote's avatar

Fluently: English, Spanish, Catalan, Mallorquin

Almost fluent: German (oral only)

Some phrases and words: Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Lithuanian, Tagalog, and a handful more.

I’m now planning to start learning Mandarin, it is looking very probable that I’m going to be visiting if not staying for a while in Taiwan at some point in the future, so that is why.

Coloma's avatar

I speak a handful of spanish and mandarin, ( a combined handful, haha ) and, I am fluent in goose, cat and horse. lol
I took German in HS and I barely passed. :-P
The irony..my mother was a translator for the U.N. at one time and spoke French, Spanish and German fluently, she was also a concert pianist, and I resisted all her attempts to teach me both.

Roby's avatar

I only speak…Southern…“How’s ya momma an ‘em”

Coloma's avatar

One can travel anywhere with only a minimal foreign vocabulary.

As long as you can hail a taxi, find a bathroom, and order cocktails, it’s all good.

Dos cerveza, tres flautas, donde esta el bano?

To the Sheeewaaa!

smilingheart1's avatar

Just the universal language on restrooms etc. Oh, yes and they say a smile means the same thing in any language.

Nullo's avatar

@smilingheart1 The bit about the smile is not universally true; in some cases it is inappropriate to smile and doing so is considered a Bad Thing. :D

Your_Majesty's avatar

I can speak in 4 languages: Bahasa, Chinese, Mandarin, and English (still trying to improve my beauty on this one).

French and Latin sound so interesting, but I haven’t had enough time to study these languages, and there’s hardly any department that teach the Latin language.

bob_'s avatar

Spanish, English, Italian and a very rusty German. I can read Portuguese.

MRSHINYSHOES's avatar

I speak English, and a little Chinese (Taishan dialect) and a little Japanese.

PhiNotPi's avatar

I would say that I can speak French fluently, but that would be a lie. I only know a little bit of it (compared to the immense size of the language).

mattbrowne's avatar

I know ten Klingon words. Does this count?

tlm's avatar

I speak Russian (native), English (almost as good as native) and German.

andrewmagnum's avatar

I speak English as my foreign language at a medium level, know a bit of French and German (very little). In the following years i hope i will advance in my english and get good at German and French (maybe).

harple's avatar

Hey @andrewmagnum Welcome to Fluther! What’s your home language?

andrewmagnum's avatar

Hey @harple thanks for the welcome. Romanian is my home language,a latin language, thanks for asking :).

harple's avatar

I must say, @andrewmagnum your English is superb :-)

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