What languages can you/do you want to speak?

[sajro]

First off: I know nathangrubb started the "Poll: How many languages do you speak?" but it's not the same focus. I'm wondering who speaks what, how they came about that, and what they want to learn.

I, myself, natively speak English due to where I live. I also speak a decent amount of Spanish (enough to get around) from learning it at school. I want to learn German, Russian (both of which I'm working on), and possibly Swedish. I actually plan to study linguistics in college.

What about you?

[klange]

Native English speaker. 3 years of Spanish, after which I can't say squat. I'd love to learn Japanese.

[KingTermite]

C/C++, java, C#, Perl, Ada, Fortan, a little Visual Basic, etc....


oh come on...you knew "somebody" was going to do it!

[hessiess]

I only speck english, and (if you count programing languiges) C++

[Masoris]

I want to speak English, although I can reading, listening and writing on English, I never talked with other English speaker, because I don't have any chance to do this.

[sajro]

I want to speak English, although I can reading, listening and writing on English, I never talked with other English speaker, because I don't have any chance to do this.

Really? I would've thought South Korea would have some English-speaking tourists? Is your city not a real tourist attraction?


C/C++, java, C#, Perl, Ada, Fortan, a little Visual Basic, etc....

Visual Basic...such an incoherent language. I normally like auxiliary (invented) languages like Esperanto, Interlingua, etc. but Visual Basic just isn't natural!

[nekroskoma]

i have a very basic understanding of every romantic languages, and japanese, and alot of programming languages

but i can't hold a conversation in any of them

[medic2000]

My native language is Turkish and i can speak English as well. Nowadays i am trying to improve it by reading and memorizing the words i don't know.

[KingTermite]

Visual Basic...such an incoherent language. I normally like auxiliary (invented) languages like Esperanto, Interlingua, etc. but Visual Basic just isn't natural!
My favorite quote about Visual Basic came from a previous co-worker.

"Aaaah....Visual Basic. The programming language for secretaries."

[jjgomera]

I'd love to learn Japanese.
me too, but really thats a chimera.

Spanish native, same English, i understand fairly, but expression is more difficult, and a bit of Deutsch

[visionaire]

Native Spanish, a little English, and want to learn Swedish, Greek,German

[anxfisa]

me too, but really thats a chimera.

Spanish native, same English, i understand fairly, but expression is more difficult, and a bit of Deutsch

One of my favorite series for learning japanese was actually "Japanese in Mangaland," It was translated from Spanish. I learned to speak but most reading materials are very dry. This one has really helped me with the reading side.

Also, "Japanese Step By Step" is awesome!

[FFighter]

Hmmm... I just had a dejavu... it seems I've answered a similar some days ago.

Anyway...

Brazilian Portuguese and English (tending to the north-american culture/slangs).

Oh, I'd love to learn German, but haven't got the time nor $$$ right now.

[days_of_ruin]

I speak fluent pseudocode (aka python) :lolflag::lolflag:

[FFighter]

lol...

I'm an intermediate speaker of python... and I'm really enjoying it!

[BlueSkyNIS]

Native Serbian, English and Romanian. I also know Croatian and Bosnian because they are similar to Serbian.


Cheers

[schauerlich]

English native, I've taken 6 years of Spanish, and I'm just starting to learn German.

[FFighter]

For someone who already mastered english, is German too hard to learn?

[cardinals_fan]

I'm a native English speaker learning [in school] French and [out of school] German. Plus a little Perl and Ruby :)

[dn_desaku]

I speak English and Khmer. I took Spanish, can barely muster it up to save my life :lol: Learning, Japanese would be really useful.

[Kingsley]

I'm quite decent and am still learning to read German through news sites. Verbal communication is tough because I have nobody to practice with.

[golgo13]

native english speaker
struggling with japanese at the moment out of necessity (just moved there)
BTW do not consided Japanese unless you really want to study hard
any language with 3 groups of characters and characters that can have multiple sounds and meanings is not for the faint hearted
if you just want to understand manga put the subtitles on....:)

[wdaniels]

I've been living in Greece (and trying to learn Greek) for 4 years now, and I still can't even manage the very basics (i.e. stuff like "ti kanete" - how are you?). I know the words and how they are supposed to sound, but when I try to say it, it just comes out different and all I get are blank stares, even after repeating myself a few times. It's got to the point where it's just plain embarrassing and I'm about to give up, so if there's anyone here living in Athens who can save me, please get in touch!

[keynell]

I hear that Esperanto is free and easy.

[zmjjmz]

Well, I'm English speaking natively, I took Hebrew for 7 years and I know very little, I'm taking Latin now but next year I start taking German.
That was just in School.
Out of school I've [tried to] teach myself Greek, Japanese, and bash.
Rune I've mastered, but that's just transliterations.
I'll probably be learning php and javascript and such in the summer.

[Arkenzor]

Native French speaker. I can write/read English pretty well though my oral skills are terrible, know a bit of German because it's a mandatory subject in Swiss schools, and I'm somehow starting to understand oral Japanese after watching tens of thousands of hours' worth of anime. Guess I should try to at least memorize katakana and hiragana one of these days.

[Stefanie]

Dutch (Flemish variant), French, English, Modern Greek, basic fluency in Italian. I can make German sentences, but only when I really have to :-) Right now I'm learning Hindi. I also know Ancient Greek and Latin, but I don't speak these of course.

[anaconda]

Finnish, englsih, swedish,
and some french and german

by the way.. to anyone who wants to learn a new language I recommend pimsleur:s courses.. If interested just google for the word pimsleur

It is an amazingly fast way to learn to SPEAK and pronounce a new language..

[tribaal]

Native French/English (mum is French, dad is from the US), I can also speak Spannish and a little German.

I started learning Mandarin, which is a nice and easy language despite the reputation...

- Trib'

[artir]

Native Spanish.
I Also can speak english and a bit of chinese :P.

[mostwanted]

Native French/English (mum is French, dad is from the US), I can also speak Spannish and a little German.

I started learning Mandarin, which is a nice and easy language despite the reputation...

- Trib'

你会说汉语马？ 我会说一点儿。也说丹麦语英语。

I speak Danish (native) and English. Understand the other Scandinavian languages completely and speak a little Swedish. Know a bit of French too.

I'm going to study Chinese in uni as part of a bigger programme called Asian Studies. Very much looking forward to that. Also want to learn Korean and Spanish on the side.

[gn2]

I speak English and have no need or desire to learn any other language.

[DoktorSeven]

Ignoring the tons of programming languages that I know since that's not the focus of the question ( :) )...

English: native speaker
Spanish: Fairly fluent, though a bit rusty due to not using it much lately
German: Only somewhat familiar, can get by if I only have to ask for some beer and where the bathroom is :)
Japanese: Again, somewhat familiar (both spoken and written). Definitely not enough to survive...

Out of all of these, I want to work on Japanese much more.

[joninkrakow]

Well, I speak English, and for the past 10 years, since moving to Krakow, speak Polish--a language I recommend if you enjoy languages, but hate exceptions to the rules. ;-)

-Jon

[anxfisa]

For someone who already mastered english, is German too hard to learn?

English and German are very similar, learning one does make it easier to learn the other.

[karnakdk]

For someone who already mastered english, is German too hard to learn?
It´s definitely NOT as easy as English. It has a lot of additional difficulties (very different words, 3 genders and no rule to know the gender of a given word, Declension of articles and adjectives). But at the same time it´s not as hard to learn as, say, japanese.

[god0fgod]

English. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language so if I had to choose it may be that. But then I'd also like to speak Italian. Living there for a few month a year at least would be awesome and knowing the language would help.

As for programming languages, since when did you speak them?

[elmer_42]

I'm a native English speaker, and would one day like to know Mandarin (Chinese), Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. Why? Because those (including English) are the top 5 languages in the world. If I had to pick just one, though, I'd probably pick Spanish, because the US has a lot of Spanish speakers.

[clanky]

I was raised as bi-lingual (English / Irish)

I learned French, Spanish and German at school.

As I work at sea I have worked with people of many nationalities and have learnt bits of many languages:

Urdu, Tagalog, Polish and Dutch.

The only ones which I can speak reasonably well are German and Dutch, but I am presently trying to improve my Polish and Spanish.

[funrider]

no one uses lolcode here?

KTHXBYE

[cmay]

i speak english and danish (dk is native language )
i have tried to learn as much from my friends that are non danish people which means
island, bosnia, holland, norway. but i cant say i speak any of the languages i just know words and common uses sentences

i would like to learn more of the language of lakota .

[tezer]

I speak Russian (native), Chinese (Mandarin) and English.

[jnorthr]

a bit limited, only speak american,british,canadian, aussie and kiwi :lolflag:

[Grant A.]

My first language is English, and I am currently on my second year of Spanish. Mi Espanol es muy bueno. (I have no dead keys on this set-up :lolflag:)

[s.fox]

I did German when I was at college. This is the only non English language I am 100% confident in reading, writing, speaking and listening.

Since then I have picked up conversational French and a bit of Spanish due to my itchy feet wanting to go places :). I also spent a fair amount of time in Barcelona and learnt conversational Catalan. I also did a night class course studying British Sign Language and hold a British Sign Language Level Two Certificate.

I am always looking to self-improve and at some point next year I will be moving to Rome for 6 months or so and hopefully pick up some Italian.

[Sam the Wizer]

Seems like it would be pretty easy to connect with other people that want to trade languages, (english speaker wanting to learn japanese, japenese person wanting to learn english) through some sort of website. People could just chat back and forth with images to help each other learn. Might need someone that's fluent in both to moderate the site to allow people to meet up.

With that said, I speak English, some Spanish (not as well as I should be able to after studying it for 8 years) and understand a little bit in French, Italian, and German.

[lisati]

Native speaker of New Zealand English (some of our American readers might notice that I sometimes use the "British" spelling for some words, e.g. colour)
A little bit Samoan (mostly pleasentries like "Hello, how are you?", "Thanks for listening" and stuff like that)
A few Maori words and phrases......


(Must go.... family stuff to deal with)

[Lostincyberspace]

Seems like it would be pretty easy to connect with other people that want to trade languages, (english speaker wanting to learn japanese, japenese person wanting to learn english) through some sort of website. People could just chat back and forth with images to help each other learn. Might need someone that's fluent in both to moderate the site to allow people to meet up.

With that said, I speak English, some Spanish (not as well as I should be able to after studying it for 8 years) and understand a little bit in French, Italian, and German.
there is a sight kind of like that.
www.Livemocha.com I am using it study Japanese.

Any way about my self I am a native English Speaker and speak decent German(I could probably be fluent with a couple months in Germany). Like I mentioned earlier, I am learning Japanese. I know a few words in Spanish, a few French and a thats about it right now. I hope to learn more of what I already speak, and Russian, Portuguese, Swedish, and an African language not sure which one though.

[dizee]

Native English, good Irish (though technically it's native too, even more so, it's not my first language), decent French (really should go to Québec to practise it :p ).

I can also read the Russian (cyrillic) and Korean (hangul) alphabets but only know a few phrases in each of them. Maybe I'll try learning them properly sometime.

[sharon.gmc]

i know a little Spanish. Native English speaker. .

[Giant Speck]

I'm a native English speaker, but I spent almost two years learning Russian for the military. I don't think I'm that good at Russian, but the military thinks I'm somewhat proficient. :lolflag:

Plus they pay me to know the language so... :)

[Eisenwinter]

Native hebrew, and my English is pretty much on a native level also, though sometimes I do get stuck when I have to use a word I rarely ever use.

Or I get confused in English sometimes, if the word spoken to me has a different meaning on the Internet :lolflag:

words like "variable, function, routine", I'll immediately associate those with programming, so I'll be confused for a few seconds.

[geogur]

german english and a little french . i really would like to learn spanish but can not find the time . i work too much right now to learn spanish i must get a spanish girlfriend and then i will do better at learning spanish.

[wispygalaxy]

I can speak English and Spanish quite well. 8-)

[mips]

Fluent in English & Afrikaans.
Know enough Zulu to get around.
Can read & understand Dutch.
Can read a bit of German & if you speak slowly I might get the gist of it.

Would like to learn Italian & German.

[tezer]

i'm a native english speaker, but i spent almost two years learning russian for the military. I don't think i'm that good at russian, but the military thinks i'm somewhat proficient. :lolflag:

Plus they pay me to know the language so... :)

Руки вверх!:)

[eternalnewbee]

Dutch, Arabic, English, Thai, and a little German.

[CholericKoala]

c#

[Giant Speck]

Руки вверх!:)

Я невинен!

[halovivek]

my native language is Tamil.
i speak English, Telegu, Kannada, Hindi
i love to learn swedish, french and German

[billgoldberg]

Native: Dutch

Good: French, English

Pretty bad, but I can manage: German

Oh and I almost forget, I can read and understand Afrikaans.

[Magnes]

I speak Polish and a little English but I don't have much experience in English speaking (and writing - as you probably see). Altough I watch many English movies and television series (Doctor Who rocks!) without subtitles and read English books (so I don't have to wait for translation).
I never had time and motivation to learn any other language.

[favadi]

Vietnamese --> French --> English. :(

[mips]

Oh and I almost forget, I can read and understand Afrikaans.

Would be weird if you could not.

[eternalnewbee]

Would be weird if you could not.:lolflag:

[artir]

Native: Spanish
Good at: English
Learing: Mandarine Chinese (call me masochist!)

[Onyros]

Native European Portuguese, read, write and speak a lot in English; also speak Spanish, Italian and French, though I'm most fluent at Italian out of those 3. Taking those Latin courses in school surely helped.

German is my forgotten language, unfortunately, due to lack of practice. I've been learning some Gujarati, but I wouldn't venture into reading or even writing it, as all I've learned was thaught by a few Indian friends at an Indian restaurant I usually go to - I'm a regular there, it's my favourite food in the whole world - extra hot :P

I'd love to learn Russian as, to me, it's one of the most beautiful sounding languages in the world, it has something truly poetic about it. One day will eventually learn Mandarin :)

[ajeffreys]

Native english speaker. I've learnt both French and Spanish for a few years, but at school, and have already forgotten most of what I learnt :(

Currently trying to learn Russian:) As my girlfriend is Russian, and I want to be able to communicate with her in her own language one day... Just about managed to get to grips with the alphabet so far:)

If anyone knows any good sites, or has any tips etc for Russian it would certainly be a big help:)

[Thirtysixway]

I speak English, and I took some spanish classes.

I want to learn either German, Japanese, Chinese, or French.

[chucky chuckaluck]

if i'm familiar with the subject, i can kind of read in german and french. i used to be able to do the same in italian, but since i stopped messing with opera my italian has vanished. on the golf course, i've been known to speak in tongues.

[migge]

I speak German natively and English fluently. I can follow a conversation in Italian and French, but can't really speak either one of those. I studied Japanese for 3 years before ditching it (mostly because the grammar is horribly complicated, I knew I wouldn't get a chance to spend serious time in Japan in the foreseeable future and I would have been forced to learn classical Japanese if I kept studying). Now I'm learning Chinese in my free time. Grammar seems easier, studying characters IS easier (mostly only one pronounciation per character as opposed to 2-4 in Japanese). Pronounciation is hard in the beginning, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

[DrHackenbush]

English and a very little Irish.

[MikeTheC]

Natively: English
Barely: GW-Basic*
Barely-Barely: AppleScript**
Want to Learn: Hmm... It's a toss-up between Klingon, Elvish, and Latin. And the sad part is I really have no preference.

My only interest in other languages is purely academic. It interests me inasmuch as it informs me on the thought processes of the speaker, since we all think in our own native language, fundamentally. Were I to go to some other country who's native language is not English, I would feel it incumbent upon myself to learn their language, if for no reason other than as a show of respect.



* Self-induced blunt-force trama to the back of the skull would be more useful to you than asking me for help with this language.

** Jumping off a cliff while holding onto a lead weight and severing your connection to the bungie-jump cord would be somewhat more useful to you than asking me for help with this language.

[Hellfirept]

Native European Portuguese, read, write and speak a lot in English; also speak Spanish, Italian and French, though I'm most fluent at Italian out of those 3. Taking those Latin courses in school surely helped.

German is my forgotten language, unfortunately, due to lack of practice. I've been learning some Gujarati, but I wouldn't venture into reading or even writing it, as all I've learned was thaught by a few Indian friends at an Indian restaurant I usually go to - I'm a regular there, it's my favourite food in the whole world - extra hot :P

I'd love to learn Russian as, to me, it's one of the most beautiful sounding languages in the world, it has something truly poetic about it. One day will eventually learn Mandarin :)

Olha um tuga! :D

European portuguese is my native language, I can say, write and listen a few words in English and a somewhat limited German. I'd love to learn Italian! :D

[rubiin]

Native Speaker of Portuguese and I've studied English for about 7 years.
Also, I would love to learn Latin or Japanese :)

[Nevon]

I'm fluent in Swedish and near-fluent in English. I also have some basic understanding of French and Italian, but I'm nowhere near fluent in either of them. I would really like to re-learn French, as I feel I'm losing more and more of it every day that I'm not exposed to it.

[EdThaSlayer]

I want to learn Klingon and maybe Lojban.

[MikeTheC]

I want to learn Klingon and maybe Lojban.

Well, let's see here... You know, Amazon.com is an interesting place. Check this out:

The Klingon Dictionary (http://www.amazon.com/Klingon-Dictionary-Star-Trek/dp/067174559X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229052683&sr=8-1)
Klingon for the Galactic Traveler (http://www.amazon.com/Klingon-Galactic-Traveler-Star-Trek/dp/0671009958/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229052683&sr=8-2)
Conversational Klingon (Audio CD, w/ Michael Dorn) (http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Conversational-Klingon/dp/B000G6XKLO/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229052754&sr=8-30)

And then, when you become properly fluent in Klingon, here are some other books you might enjoy:

The Klingon Hamlet (http://www.amazon.com/Klingon-Hamlet-Lawrence-Schoen/dp/0671035789/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229052683&sr=8-4)
Gilgamesh (in Klingon) (http://www.amazon.com/Gilgamesh-Klingon-Translation-Roger-Cheesbro/dp/1587153386/ref=pd_bbs_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229052683&sr=8-6)

I should think that'll keep you busy for quite some time. Let us know how you get on with your linguistic studies! :)

[WaeV]

English, and 9 years of Spanish class, which basically means English only. :roll:

In 7th grade we had a Japanese exchange-teacher come over for a year, which was cool. All I remember is that the language is phonetic with nearly all consonant-vowel pairs. I based a lot of made-up languages on that.


Languages that are, IMO, "cool":
German
Icelandic/Nordic
Quenya (Elvish, lol. I downloaded a pdf to learn it, but I realized how pointless it was.)

[th-busch]

Currently trying to learn Russian:) As my girlfriend is Russian, and I want to be able to communicate with her in her own language one day... Just about managed to get to grips with the alphabet so far:)

If anyone knows any good sites, or has any tips etc for Russian it would certainly be a big help:)

Somewhat same situation here, russian girlfriend and my native language is german. I can read cyrillic but understand and speak only some basic russian sentences, though it definitely improves every time we visit her family in russia.
Learned french in school, but unfortunately forget almost all due to lack of practice. Oh and i don't speak english very good.

[WaeV]

The only Russian I know is "dah" and that backwards R letter. I think it'd be neat to know another language, but there's really no way to apply it in the US, unlike Europe. The closest place to me that speaks another language would probably be Quebec with French, and that's almost 300 miles away.

[Glenn Jones]

Well it pleases me to be the first to say I'm a native Welsh speaker. I also fluent in English. I know a little French.

I'd love to learn Arabic, Russian and one of the Latin based languages

[xarte]

English first language.

A bit of highschool french: I can usually get the gist of things but can't construct sentences.

Some Classical Greek and Latin from a few years University study, mostly forgotten. A slight smattering of modern Greek from an interest in Greek Poetry in Translation like Cavafis and Seferis, read in dual-language volumes so I could get a sense of the original.

I attempted to learn Scottish Gaelic, but the bizarre phoenetics just do my head in. And I found many speakers to be defensive and sometimes offensive, so figured it was pointless to persevere.

I'd love to learn German, as I enjoy a lot of German film, music and literature - Wittgenstein, Bach, Mozart and especially Rammstein.

[cb951303]

native: turkish
fluent in: english and french

I would like to speak japanese and russian

[Metallion]

Native Dutch speaker and native level English although with a slight mix of Flemish and Scottish accents. :) People usually ask either if I'm Irish or if I learned my English in Scotland.

Not fluent but well above conversation level are French and Japanese. Then finally I know the basics of Swedish and Spanish but can't hold a conversation in either... In Swedish I can get most messages across though.
So my language skills would be like this:

(Dutch = English) > Japanese > French > Swedish > Spanish

And ever since reading that thread about Chinese on this forum I've gotten interested in learning that but don't know if I ever will. :)

[Strike4!!]

print [I speak Logo. I love my Turtle.]

Then, several languages. 7 fluently, and learning chinese.
With languages, the more you know, the easier to learn a new one. But it's also easier to mix'em up in strange ways, particularly if they're similar (the worst two, by far, are italian and spanish).

Btw, someone talked about VisualBasic. That's not a language, that's a documented architectural mistakes compendium (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gap123/2448767745/in/pool-546729@N21/).

[Sand & Mercury]

Having spent most of my life in Australia which is pretty isolated and you really never hear any other language than English, I never bothered to learn another language. Now that I'm living in Romania I'm trying to learn Romanian.

[jpmelos]

Native: Brazilian Portuguese
Fluent: English
Basic: Spanish
Want to start learning in 2009: German

[mikjp]

First off: I know nathangrubb started the "Poll: How many languages do you speak?" but it's not the same focus. I'm wondering who speaks what, how they came about that, and what they want to learn.

I, myself, natively speak English due to where I live. I also speak a decent amount of Spanish (enough to get around) from learning it at school. I want to learn German, Russian (both of which I'm working on), and possibly Swedish. I actually plan to study linguistics in college.

What about you?

I speak: Finnish, Swedish, German, English
Read: Latin, some classical Greek, French & Italian
Would like to speak: French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Turkish, Estonian, Russian...

[jbitkill]

I speak fluent English and Welsh. Learning a little French and starting Spanish next year in Year 9!

[pelicanghost]

Native English speaker, studied Spanish for four years, I would love to learn Arabic or Farsi. (sic)

[vkbl111]

I can nativley speak/read/write in Russian, Ukrainian, and English. Im learining japanese right now so im hopeful with that :D.

[upapilot]

I speak English, Hindi (as i live in india) and Marathi (a language of a state of India). Iwish to learn Chinese and Arabic):P

[abhilashm86]

well i can speak english,hindhi,kannada and little bit of telgu!!!!!!!
for those who heard these stuff first,let me confirm that i m from india:p

[S0VERE1GN]

Hablo Ingles y Espanol.

[dannytatom]

All I can speak is english (:(), but I'd love to learn Icelandic.