Poll: Do you know more than one language?

[sanomaton]

Fluent in English, Finnish and Swedish. I can also speak and understand Japanese (and read, not very good at that yet) and I used to study German which I still understand and speak a bit.

And yeah, I'm from Finland. Wouldn't be able to speak this crazy language otherwise...

 

[ho Huios tes Moiras]

It's a rather funny question to ask on an international forum. Per definition anyone who doesn't come from one of the English-speaking countries is bilingual.

And to be nice and answer your question:

Fluently: Dutch, English. Dutch being my first.

I can sort of understand: Latin, Old Greek, French, German.

Talk to some Germans and they'll say Dutch is just a version of German .

Talk to some linguists and they'll tell you the same =) Would've been helpful though for the Dutch if High German didn't become standard in Germany itself.

You should have quoted the guy who said he speaks Flemish.
Why ? Coz if Dutch is a version of German. Flemish isn't a language at all.

Flemish is just butchered dutch

Speaking as a linguist, no, Dutch is not a version of German; þey're just boþ members of þe Germanic language family, which makes þem cousins. Related is not þe same as derived. Flemish... is a little more iffy; I'm tempted to call it a dialect of Dutch, but as Max Weinreich once said, "אַ שפראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט" ("A language is a dialect wiþ an army and a navy.") In oþer words, þere's not really a concrete definition of a difference between language and dialect. For example, Cantonese is generally considered a dialect of Chinese, even þough by most definitions it would be considered a sister language to Mandarin; whereas, Thai and Lao are considered separate languages even þough þey're mutually intelligible.

Since Dutch isn't my field, þough, I'm going to go wiþ þe general consensus of linguists who do deal wiþ þe subject and say þat Flemish is a set of related dialects spread geographically from Flanders. In English it can also refer to þe dialect of Dutch spoken in Belgium, regardless of region.

 

[Dyme]

German, English, Latin. Yes, Latin.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

english obviously, but I can speak more than enough german to get myself somewhere across town and back if needed, order a meal just fine, and ask for directions. So based on that I'd like to think I speak the language "just enough" to be considered somewhat lingual in it.


also living in america i hear so much god damn spanish around me all the time i have a good 30-40 phrases stuck in my head...obviously they aren't ever good ones but i know what they mean and if needed i can use them.

 

[Ailauris]

English & French

 

[dogenzakaminion]

I'm from Norway so I speak norwegian, but my english is far better. I also speak fluent german. Though I can't speak them, I can completely understand swedish, danish, dutch and yiddish.

 

[Kajt]

I can speak Swedish, English, German and horrible, broken Finnish.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Well lets see, I know Java, C++, C#... oh you mean spoken languages. Then no, just English.

haha i wasn't even thinking about this, but it is true technically, and me and my friends sometimes do nerd speak in java..so why not? it's a language, it has "grammar" technically.

 

[-Torchedini-]

It's a rather funny question to ask on an international forum. Per definition anyone who doesn't come from one of the English-speaking countries is bilingual.

And to be nice and answer your question:

Fluently: Dutch, English. Dutch being my first.

I can sort of understand: Latin, Old Greek, French, German.

Talk to some Germans and they'll say Dutch is just a version of German .

Talk to some linguists and they'll tell you the same =) Would've been helpful though for the Dutch if High German didn't become standard in Germany itself.

You should have quoted the guy who said he speaks Flemish.
Why ? Coz if Dutch is a version of German. Flemish isn't a language at all.

Flemish is just butchered dutch

Speaking as a linguist, no, Dutch is not a version of German; þey're just boþ members of þe Germanic language family, which makes þem cousins. Related is not þe same as derived. Flemish... is a little more iffy; I'm tempted to call it a dialect of Dutch, but as Max Weinreich once said, "אַ שפראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט" ("A language is a dialect wiþ an army and a navy.") In oþer words, þere's not really a concrete definition of a difference between language and dialect. For example, Cantonese is generally considered a dialect of Chinese, even þough by most definitions it would be considered a sister language to Mandarin; whereas, Thai and Lao are considered separate languages even þough þey're mutually intelligible.

Since Dutch isn't my field, þough, I'm going to go wiþ þe general consensus of linguists who do deal wiþ þe subject and say þat Flemish is a set of related dialects spread geographically from Flanders. In English it can also refer to þe dialect of Dutch spoken in Belgium, regardless of region.

I know, You should really fix your th too, It makes reading your post almost almost a job

 

[Alien Mole]

Dutch and English at what essentially amounts to native level, French, German and Afrikaans at 'understandable but with mistakes' level, and I can understand Spanish, Italian and Greek relatively well, maybe even say a few words.

RE: The Flemish thing, as a linguist specialising in English and Dutch I'm tempted to say that it's a variety of Dutch, but still very much the same language. 'Northern' Dutch and Flemish share dictionaries and a linguistic standard. They just differ slightly in vocabulary and grammar, and fairly significantly in pronunciation. But unless you're going to claim that British English and American English are two different languages, neither are Northern Dutch and Flemish, because they're exactly the same thing: varieties with a common standard.

 

[TheIronRuler]

English, Hebrew, Russian and some Arabic.
When I say 'some Arabic' what I mean is that I can read signs and I can converse with people... kind of. I can manage as a tourist, and I can even haggle in a market, but you won't see my shining rethorics in Arabic.
I would gladly learn any European language, since they all have much in common. Latin is second after that.
Or perhaps polish my Arabic some more.

 

[Yopaz]

English, Swedish and some(very little) Spanish.
Being a Swede I can also understand Norweigan pretty flawlessly. Depends on which of their two languages they speak!

I think you might had some problems with my Norwegian. Currently staying in Oslo and they have problems with my dialect.

I speak English and Norwegian fluently, and as the guy over me stated, Scandinavian languages are easy to understand among us, so we'll live. I also speak a little German, some very limited Latin.

 

[TheGuiggleMonster]

I'm from England. I am fluent in French and English. I know bits and pieces of many other languages, but nowhere near enough to have a decent complex conversation in any of them.

 

[Guffe]

Well I live in Finland which in itself is a bilingual country so I speak Finish and Swedish, then I speak English and I understand Norwegian and Danish somewhat.

 

[Arcane Snowman]

I speak Danish and English fluently, have the meekest understanding of Chinese, German, Thai, Spanish and Japanese.

 

[Mordekaien]

German, Slovak, English, Czech, Polish.
Currently learning Welsh, and Finnish.

 

[Zukhramm]

I'm able to post this here, so yes, that's at least two. How many I know depends on where you draw the line for actually knowing a language.

 

[thylasos]

English being my mother tongue, I also speak and read Russian and French to newspaper-novel level, as well as not-quite-as-good-as-that Czech and Spanish, and bits of Italian, German, and Japanese.

EDIT: Oh, and latin.

 

[Maya Posch]

English, Dutch, Japanese, some German and French. Tiny bit of Bokmal (imagine the funny character is in there ).

Want to learn Mandarin and Korean. Also got an interest in Old Greek.