What other languages do we speak

[doumeizhen]

Also, German, English, and obviously three or four naughty words of about a million other languages.

runehh~ I have a friend whose theory is that the only thing that really really matters in a foreign language is: Help! I am stuck in an elevator!

[Yuchi]

English

Mandarin

Shanghainese

Spanish (2 years)

German (1 year)

Cantonese (Basic phrases, not even sure the tones are right)

I'm beginning to feel deficient comparing my list to others

[Weronika]

Hungarian (native)

English (good)

Polish (beginner)

Mandarin (beginner)

Updated: 2006.10.28.

[yonitabonita]

English native

Cantonese native

After a year of living and intensive study of Japanese, I got it up to Level 2 Japanese Proficiency exam. That was ten years ago. Like the young and cocky twat that I was, I got complacent and took on this and that figuring I could always return to the Japanese. These days I can just make out enough to know when my Japanese classmates are paying out on the teacher, and I can barely read a thing.

I SWEAR I won't let this happen to my Mandarin.

[Lugubert]

I'll try to entice a former study mate to get active here.

Some people are awed when they are told that I translate from several Indo-European languages and know a teensy weensy bit of Chinese. (Should have been much more after three university semesters ) Really not more than one language family.

That girl has Vietnamese and Cantonese for mother tongues, is now as I understand it quite fluent in Putonghua having taken 2 semesters in Sweden and two in Beijing, and manages English and Swedish enough to be on the point of graduating with a Swedish Masters in Chemical Engineering. Awesome!

[David W Jackson]

Native English, Modern Languages Major (German and French both fluent), conversational Spanish, some Italian and Arabic after a year in the West Bank, Mandarin (intermediate), smatterings of Hindi and Hebrew. RP, Yorkshire and Lancashire dialects and the ability to imitate most British regional accents except for Welsh which I just can't crack.

[atitarev]

I have a little update of my previous post in here (some Arabic and Korean):

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=62074&postcount=78

[Roee]

As far as I'm concerned the one million dollar question is: how do you maintain language skills when there are several languages involved.

Some have natural abilities to retain even 10 or 20 languages, for us mortals how is it possible to maintain 4 languages or even 3 in the long term? If I go home for even two weeks it seriously effects my mandarin. One year? I'll probably forget half of it.

[felixthecat]

I speak FLUENT Hakka/Cantonese/Mandarin dialects.

[zhonghuarising]

Interesting mix of languages in this thread. As for myself, I have studied Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Japanese, and Mandarin in addition to my native English. But being able to speak those languages fluently is another matter entirely

[FireEater]

I claim fluency in the following idioms:

Gobbledygook,

Double Dutch,

Flap Doodle,

and, my native tongue:

Gibberish:roll:

On a less flippant note:

French

Spanish

German

Swedish

Serbo-Croat

Tataa!

[Bruce_B]

I'm native English.

I had French and Spanish in high school.

On my own I've studied (not in order):

Spanish

German

Latin

Scottish Gaelic

Japanese

and now Mandarin

I've always felt like I needed to focus on only one second language to really become fluent in it. I just haven't figured out which one to focus on yet. It was Spanish for a long time and then Japanese for a while. Now it's going to be Mandarin. Maybe I'll find what I'm looking for in Mandarin and strive for fluency. I avoided it for a long time after I heard about the tonal aspect of it. I guess I've decided to get over that and give it a shot.

[magores]

-English (native)

-Mandarin - Working on it right now

-Spanish - Read okay, Understand okay, Speak badly.

-Russian - Studied for a year, forgot most of it

On the other hand, I can also say "hello" (but nothing else) in

-Gaelic

-Cantonese (actually, I can count to 5 in Cantonese, and I understand good portions)

-Mongolian (Not sure exactly what dialect, I was just told "Here's how you say it.")

-Korean

-Kenyan (Once again.. Specific dialect. Not sure which. Oddly enough, the syllables are similar to Mandarin.))

-Arabic

-French

-German

-Swedish

-Norwegian

-Dutch

[FireEater]

For saying hallo, in these languages you do the following:

Finnish - Terve

Hungarian - Servus,

You seem to be highly polyglot, and I think we might benefit from exchanging notes. It you feel like it, feel free to mail me at

jan.kilander@chello.se

PS, that Kenyan language is probably ki-Swahili:roll:

You be good now and learn some more. They say there are thousands of languages still alive, so what is really to stop us?

Tataa!

[Lil']

Italian -native-

English -fluent-

Mandarin (I should be a zhongji...even if I'm taking a degree in chinese culture and language)

Spanish (can read and understand but I want to take a course asap: I simply LOVE it!)

Latin (studied at high school but obviously never practised)

French - probably can read and say something (like good morning and my name is...) cos I studied at school for a very short time.

That's it!

p.s. Magores, "hello" in italian is "ciao"! How do u say hello in korean? I knew it but I forgot!

[FireEater]

Hi Lil,

Here is a way of getting into Spanish.

Find a book called 'La verdad de las mentiras', by that Peruvian litterateur, Vargas-Llosa something, utterly brilliant, using Spanish to an admirable effect. But I guess, we should be promoting hànyu in this forum, so let me say: may that book be issued in Chinese. It is VERY good!

Tataa!

[kangrui]

2 Filipino dialects - tagalog and bisaya

english - fluent

spanish and korean - okay

How do u say hello in korean?

annyeong haseyo.

currently learning mandarin. 你好！

[Sashawang]

i'm a native Chinese speaker

English 15 years from elementary school until now

German 2 years

Japanese 2 years now stop

i really want to study German well, but i'm engrossed in work everyday, so i want to know some friends who speak German.

it is said that German doesn't sound as beautiful as French, but i think the pure German accent is also beautiful.

if we want to learn a language well, we might as well focus on it only, practice the prononciation and do some writings.

learning several languages at the same time would interrupt prononciation

[FireEater]

Spoken German can be beautiful, and as a rule, the further south you go in Germany, the better it sounds.

Spoken French can be hideous. No rules here I know of.

Big Rule Number One: Charming people sound charming, whatever language they happen to use, and dreary people sound dreary no matter what:roll:

Tataa!

[Mark Baker]

Spoken German can be beautiful, and as a rule, the further south you go in Germany, the better it sounds.

That sounds like a "slightly provincialist attitude," but I completely agree.

1. Amurkun English (though I've localized documentation sets more than once to "International English," which will no doubt make Roddy cringe)
   
2. Mexican Spanish (with an Italian accent; don't ask), learned in high school
   
3. German, 2nd major in college
   
4. Mandarin Chinese
   

And I completed "Lesson 1" and "Lesson 2" in Korean, meaning I know the sounds of the Korean alphabet, can "read" out loud texts written in Korean, but have little or no idea what the heck it means.