maybe You should be learning a second language!

[Jonluw]

I speak English and can write some rudimentary French.
Norwegian being my native language also means that I understand Swedish and Danish.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Do you live in France if you do then the whole fail pass thing kinda matches to my o'd high school, we had to pass both spanish classes to graduate but we could fail english.

OT: 1. Mostly english in my state.

2. Yes

3. I know three, english cause I'm american, spanish from my stepmother, and japanese from my grandmother. Working on belgian from my other grandma makes my brain hurt.

 

[Cybele]

1. Yes. I live in Estonia so there are quite a lot of Russians here. Despite that I haven't learned any Russian, the language simply doesn't interest me. What pisses me off though is when some Russians who have lived here their whole life can't speak a single word of Estonian or just don't want to try and get angry because I can't speak Russian.
2. I can speak Estonian, English and German. I've thought about learning French but I have no use for it here. I'd just forget it after a while.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

I guess it's german then, she's from Belgium so I kinda just assumed y'know.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

1) Nah, the area I'm in speaks English pretty exclusively, save for our international students.

2) Sí, hablo español.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Only English here, and the only language I ever learned was Latin, so no help there.

 

[DanielBrown]

1. Do you live in an area where more then one language is commonly used?
Nope. Pretty much everyone knows how to speak English however. Only the senior citizens that might have some problems with it. They are often better at speaking German as far as I know.

2. Do you know more then one language?
Aye.

3. If yes, what other language do you speak
English and Swedish fluently. Also know a little bit of Spanish(extremely little).

 

[opeth1989]

1. Somewhat, If you consider white trash hillbilly a different language, which IS a valid thing to do as it is deviated from English more than the differences between English spoken in Europe and spoken in North America.

2. Jes

3. I am fluent in Geek. However I am in the process of learning German, French, Spanish and Chinese none of which have I earned a great deal of proficiency with. With the exception of German I am barely beyond the picking up on words and phrases phase of the language.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Other thought: It really bothers me. Why is it that certain people from a certain geographical location equate multilingualism as a sign of intelligence when they originate in a place where it is infinitely easier to be multilingual due to having more natural exposure to other languages from a much younger age?

For example, Go to certain parts of Florida, Texas, California with higher populations of Latinos and it will be infinitely more common to see non Latinos with at least a rudimentary understanding of Spanish than it would be in many parts of rural heartland America. If you simply are not exposed to other languages directly, then its not exactly as relevant skill for you to learn. It is no gauge on ones intellect. But for some reason it doesnt stop those who are nestled in a land where they are surrounded by dozens of other languages from viewing it as a sign of intellectual superiority.

I have no idea why someone would feel superior from someone else simply for knowing a 2nd language. This is most certainly not the case with me and I apologize if this is what you got from my post. I know how hard it is to learn an other language, I have tried to learn spanish in my free time, and trust me I am no where near ready to have a conversation in spanish. If someone ONLY knows english, hey, that's ok with me, my only problem is the way the cashier insulted this lady after she left simply for not being able to speak english properly since he was not even able to speak a word of french.

Also, I do believe in a bilingual area, yes, you should be able to at least speak basic french and english (if those are the languages of your area) but I don't view anyone as *inferior* for not being able too.

I certainly do not view my self to be more intelligent than anyone else simply because I can speak two languages, however I will not stand for the kind of disrespect that this cashier was showing after she left.

If he had simply gotten a french employee to help her, I would have never had any problem with this guy.

 

[cathou]

1-It depend. i work in montreal wich is 60% or so french and 30% or so english. But the area where i live is like 95% french

2,3- yes i speak english (french is my first language), not that well, but i understand it very well.

and i see very often situation like the one the OP saw here. sometimes it's an english person who rant about someone who cant speak english, sometimes it's from someone who speak french and rant about english people.

 

[Marter]

1. Not really. I don't hear many French speakers in this part of the country.
2. Somewhat. I'm in the process of learning it.
3. French.

 

[farscythe]

1 nope just english here
2 yes
3 dutch and english fluently , german well enough to get by and very broken french (long as you try to speak someones language they seem more willing to speak yours out of sympathy for the effort heh)

 

[opeth1989]

Do you live in France if you do then the whole fail pass thing kinda matches to my o'd high school, we had to pass both spanish classes to graduate but we could fail english.

No, I live in Canada, New-Brunswick to be precise, in a mainly english and french community.

 

[Smokej]

I acquired most of the languages which helped me to get sh*t done at the academic level (arts).

Those include: German (native), English + French (at School), Latin and some classical Greek (at Uni). The old languages are obligatory in most examination regulations for studying languages and liberal arts. So you either have to had them for 5+ years at school or make an exam at uni (which is alot harder and if you fail 2 times you're out...) Outside of the academic level the old languages have little use other than to show off and be a wise-ass

In my country German is the most important language, of course... but you have large crowds of turkic or arabic speaking immigrants as well(who are often only fluent in their native language)

 

[JustiHentze]

1. Nope, mostly one language used where i live, however we are taught several from an early age.
2. Yes.
3. My native language, is Faroese. But i speak fluently English, Danish and Norwegan. Pretty above decent German. and can understand most Icelandic, and Swedish. Am currently fiddeling around with Japanese.

 

[viranimus]

Snipped for spaaaaaaace.

My apologies. My statement was not intended to be directed at you or your post.

It is no gauge on ones intellect. But for some reason it doesnt stop those who are nestled in a land where they are surrounded by dozens of other languages from viewing it as a sign of intellectual superiority.

This was more to where my issue was directed. Toward... yanno, that place.....over there. You know the one, the one where they have country piled on top of country on top of country. Obviously its not some sort of law written in stone but there do seem to be an abundance of people who behave with that smug sense of superiority as they look down their noses at you because they know 4 different languages and you know one.

But honestly language isnt the only way it plays out either. Many times you see people start getting smug any time they know something you dont. People can be amazingly close minded and short sighted that way.

 

[mParadox]

1) Yes. English, Urdu and Punjabi.

2 & 3) 2. Urdu and English.

 

[Irriduccibilli]

This is why I hate grammar Nazi's. They expect everyone to know perfect english and sometimes forget that not everyones native language is english.

But to answer your three questions:
I guess you could say that I live in an area where we use more than one language. I live in a small town in Denmark, pretty close to the German border (about 20-30km from the border), so it sometimes happen that I have to resort to speak german, but thats really rare.
Danish is my native language. I can speak english, a bit swedish and norwegian and some german, but not grammaticly correct.

 

[scorptatious]

1. Well considering I live in California, both English and Spanish are used frequently here.

2. I know little tidbits of some languages, but not enough to actually speak a sentence in a different language.

3. Same as 2.

 

[Fayathon]

1) Spanish is the second most common language here, next to English.

2) Not to any degree of real fluency, but I am working towards knowing more languages.

3) I'm planning on knowing French, German, Spanish and Japanese on top of my native English. Dunno if that'll pan out properly though, so it might just be one or two of those.

This is why I hate grammar Nazi's. They expect everyone to know perfect english and sometimes forget that not everyones native language is english.

I'm a grammar Nazi in the sense of 'if you should know better.' I'm willing to overlook some grammatical problems and chock it up to it just being human error, but when I know someone is typing in the most lazy and half-assed way possible it makes my blood boil. To be fair, any language I pick up I'm gonna be a grammar Nazi in because if you can't be arsed to speak/write in a language properly then I'm of the opinion you should shut your mouth.

Not directing that at anyone in this thread, just wanted to air it out.

 

[Scarim Coral]

1. English is the main language over here although a few people speak in Welsh (I lived in Wales).

2. Half yes (Cantonese Chinese however I never went to this Chinese speaking school so I can't speak it proerly. At most a few sentences.

Before you ask me that I should try to speak Chinese properly, I refuse. Now don't get me wrong I would like to speak it some day but I don't view it to be necessary in my life (yes I have a great interest in my heritage but the language is not one of them and the only time I would need to speak it is when I'm in China).