How many languages do you speak?

Seriously a little Polish and I was good at Hakka in the 90s but most of it now forgotten
 
Basic French

Fluent English and Gibberish

and Latin plant names.
 
English (inc. Northumbrian)
Bit of French - I'm back at nightclass trying to get to grips with the tenses.
I find speaking French much easier than understanding which makes conversation difficult.
 
Fluently in English and Irish but have a little French and Spannish from school. Enough to get me fed at least.
 
So for someone who really struggled to grasp french at school, and has since felt a bit ignorant when it comes to other languages.... what did you find was the best way of learning other than living in the country for X amount of time, which isn't necessarily practical?
 
lee said:
So for someone who really struggled to grasp french at school, and has since felt a bit ignorant when it comes to other languages.... what did you find was the best way of learning other than living in the country for X amount of time, which isn't necessarily practical?
Click to expand...

Listen to podcasts in that language - works a treat. Also, befriend a native.
 
lee said:
So for someone who really struggled to grasp french at school, and has since felt a bit ignorant when it comes to other languages.... what did you find was the best way of learning other than living in the country for X amount of time, which isn't necessarily practical?
Click to expand...


Having a Turkish wife means you want to be able to understand what she and the mother in law are discussing :suspect::suspect:
 
Note to anyone who has a foriegn partner, learn how to say "I know what you are talking about" in their language, then watch their faces drop as you walk out the room.:lol:
Dean:)
 
English and nonsense... often nonsense.
I can read a little spanish.
 
Loopy said:
I find speaking French much easier than understanding which makes conversation difficult.
Click to expand...

I find I can speak French much better in France than in England when speaking to a fluent French speaker (e.g. with a friend who is a French teacher).

I have also found that my most succesful conversations in France were with me speaking French and the French person replying in English!

My problem is in the listening rather than the speaking.


Steve.
 
Dino f said:
Note to anyone who has a foriegn partner, learn how to say "I know what you are talking about" in their language, then watch their faces drop as you walk out the room.:lol:
Dean:)
Click to expand...

One of the girls in our office is married to an Indian chap who speaks fluent English and Hindi. She's picked up the odd word of Hindi here and there, but her best one is 'yeah, whatever'. Because she's very pale and clearly European, it freaks out the natives in the street/ shops when they visit her in-laws! Works a treat
 
Hacker said:
Apparently I can talk [PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER].

Fluently.
Click to expand...

:lol: beat me to it bas***d! :D

I can order beer in any country in the world and swear in many of them. The trick as any sassenach will tell you is to increase the volume in inverse proportion to your actual knowledge of the language in question ;)

I also have very basic Cobol and once saw some Fortran in print!
 
I'm fine in Norwegian, understand Swedish when it's spoken (except the deep south) but can't read it too well, I can read Danish fine but am clueless when listening to it (accent), French is reasonable and I can survive in German (if they want me to :()
Finnish....I worked quite a lot in Finland and pretty much failed miserably. The whole thing seems to be a series of grunts aimed at excluding anyone outside of the family from comprehension.

I once made a comment on a report...
"Communication was a challenge, I had a Hungarian, two Finns, a Pole, two guys who I believe were from the Ukraine and an Italian....none of whom spoke English.
We managed to work together and communicate for three days without too much drama.
However, my wife of 25 years and of the same native tongue, constantly says that I don't understand her and frequently mis-interprets what I've said....ring any bells guys?"

Bob
 
^^^ I gave up trying to understand Women years ago Bob!
We've been married 35 years and according to my wife I still haven't got a clue.
 
Oh yeah, another language I know is T-SQL :) Working on Excel VBA now too although haven't found much time for it.
 
Interesting topic, makes me feel a bit bad of my language knowledge compared to some guys and gals here.
Well, I speak Greek and English fluently, my French is getting worse but can still communicate, I can understand and speak a little German (my girlfriend is German and... you know ;) ). As most, don't know why, never had training or whatever, but can understand Italian and Spanish when I read them, and when they talk really slow.

The thing that strikes me as peculiar though is that whenever I am in Cyprus, British tourists approach me and start speaking in English, automatically assuming that I speak the language, and I've noticed that a lot. I am Greek, and trust me, I look Greek as well :p. So, two occasions from last Xmas. I was fishing in Cyprus, and this guy comes up to me and says "Hey mate, did you catch anything?", so we had a talk, gave some advice on fishing in Cyprus etc and he left. After that I realised that he didn't even ask if I spoke the language. The next day, I went to the same place, but with my camera this time, and this British couple approaches and the woman says "Hey, I've noticed you are taking pictures of birds, there was a kingfisher perching on a boat on the other side of the port, if you wanna try your luck there". Don't get me wrong, I'm always too pleased to have people come and talk to me, I always enjoy the conversation and I'm always into new acquaintances, but whenever I do the same thing, I always ask the other person if they speak the language or not.
 
stylgeo said:
The thing that strikes me as peculiar though is that whenever I am in Cyprus, British tourists approach me and start speaking in English, automatically assuming that I speak the language, and I've noticed that a lot. I am Greek, and trust me, I look Greek as well :p. So, two occasions from last Xmas. I was fishing in Cyprus, and this guy comes up to me and says "Hey mate, did you catch anything?", so we had a talk, gave some advice on fishing in Cyprus etc and he left. After that I realised that he didn't even ask if I spoke the language. The next day, I went to the same place, but with my camera this time, and this British couple approaches and the woman says "Hey, I've noticed you are taking pictures of birds, there was a kingfisher perching on a boat on the other side of the port, if you wanna try your luck there". Don't get me wrong, I'm always too pleased to have people come and talk to me, I always enjoy the conversation and I'm always into new acquaintances, but whenever I do the same thing, I always ask the other person if they speak the language or not.
Click to expand...



That's probably because they're of an age to remember Cyprus as being shown in pink on school maps and therefore part of the British Commonwealth ;)

Or they're too young and just ignorant.....

Having said that, I found myself speaking German in Mallorca last year without giving it a thought. Most of the island is now overrun by Germans except for a couple of Chav enclaves.
 
English fluently, French badly, Spanish and Greek - set phrases, usually beer, food, or swearing related.

I also chose to learn Latin at school rather than Spanish or German. I must have had a reason but I couldn't tell you what it was now :thinking:

My sister is brilliant with langauges and I've always been a teeny bit jealous of that. I'm ok with vocabulary but struggle badly with grammar / tenses etc.
I can still recite the whole amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant, Latin verb ending thingys but that never seemed to help much in the exams :(
 
2blue4u said:
That's probably because they're of an age to remember Cyprus as being shown in pink on school maps and therefore part of the British Commonwealth ;)

Or they're too young and just ignorant.....

Having said that, I found myself speaking German in Mallorca last year without giving it a thought. Most of the island is now overrun by Germans except for a couple of Chav enclaves.
Click to expand...

It must have been the first, since on both occasions they were in their mid 50s :)
 
DaveBG said:
English. Worked as a service engineer for a few years and picked up a bit of French, Spanish, German and Greek.
Tend to get a bit confused and mix them up.(Must be my age) :shrug:
Click to expand...

I had the same teacher for GCSE French and Spanish. Mondays was double French, Tuesdays was French, then Spanish straight after in the same room with the same teacher. Wednesdays no languages, Thursdays was Spanish then French straight after, Fridays was double Spanish.

I also had the same teacher for GCSE Latin and Greek, with a similar arrangement.

My head still hurts from it all.

I speak English, pretty good French, alright Spanish and bits and bobs in German and Portuguese. I remember quite a lot of my Latin, and a fair bit of Greek. All of those put together means I can read almost any European language, but only stare at people when they try to talk to me.

Oh, and Perl!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top