What languages do you speak?

[politicallefty]

English is my native language. I've taken a few Spanish courses to have some grasp of the language, although I could probably only speak basic phrases. I have a decent vocabulary when it comes to text, but not so much listening. I would like to eventually become fluent, or at least close to it. The other language I would really love to learn is Japanese. I consider it a goal of mine to at least become trilingual. If I got that done, then I'd perhaps look at some other languages.

[batmacumba]

I can speak English better than write it, for some reason, and I should be able to speak French, but I can only read and can't understand more than 10% of what people say. That's something I must improve on the same schedule Hash have for his Italian.

I also master the great Portuñol language, am able to read any Spanish and to understand what Spaniards say. Writing it is easy, but when I try to speak, Portuñol blocks any tentative Spanish.

Surely, sometimes I can speak proper Portuguese, if I try. But I tend to revert to Mineiro, even when I'm trying to speak Spanish. Being uncommunicative is quite unnerving to a Brazilian.

Spanish and Portuguese. My English is not that bad. Intermediate French and basic Chinese.

Spanish in Spain is somewhat different from Latin American Spanish, obviously (Spain uses the "vosotros" verb conjugation).  How different is Portuguese in Portugal from Brazilian Portuguese?  I'm sure at least a little.

I might want to learn Portuguese after conquering Spanish.  Could the usefulness of Portuguese increase with the rise of Brazil?

The main difference between PT-PT and PT-BR is pronounce. This doesn't mean that other differences aren't big. But it's easier for me (and for any Brazilian who didn't live in Portugal) to understand some Spanish accents than European Portuguese ones. I think it's much like as Scots English  or even Scots would sound to a Southener, in the USA.
Apart of these, there's a change away from the traditional second person, in Brazil, similar to the English drop of 'thou', replacing 'tu'/'vós' with 'você'/'vocês' (Spanish 'usted/'ustedes'), which is a third person pronoun, and we have a gerund, while PT-PT uses forms in the infinitive. The difference in word meanings is a little bigger than the British/American English situation.

Sure, Brazilian dialects are plenty of innovations, but this isn't the normative language's case. Knowing Portuguese will probably be more useful than today; we're starting to get less provincial than usual and look up to the rest of the world, but the average foreign language knowledge for the typical Brazilian (even the most educates ones) is below any civilized standard.

[Niemeyerite]

I can speak English better than write it, for some reason, and I should be able to speak French, but I can only read and can't understand more than 10% of what people say. That's something I must improve on the same schedule Hash have for his Italian.

I also master the great Portuñol language, am able to read any Spanish and to understand what Spaniards say. Writing it is easy, but when I try to speak, Portuñol blocks any tentative Spanish.

Surely, sometimes I can speak proper Portuguese, if I try. But I tend to revert to Mineiro, even when I'm trying to speak Spanish. Being uncommunicative is quite unnerving to a Brazilian.

Spanish and Portuguese. My English is not that bad. Intermediate French and basic Chinese.

Spanish in Spain is somewhat different from Latin American Spanish, obviously (Spain uses the "vosotros" verb conjugation).  How different is Portuguese in Portugal from Brazilian Portuguese?  I'm sure at least a little.

I might want to learn Portuguese after conquering Spanish.  Could the usefulness of Portuguese increase with the rise of Brazil?

The main difference between PT-PT and PT-BR is pronounce. This doesn't mean that other differences aren't big. But it's easier for me (and for any Brazilian who didn't live in Portugal) to understand some Spanish accents than European Portuguese ones. I think it's much like as Scots English  or even Scots would sound to a Southener, in the USA.
Apart of these, there's a change away from the traditional second person, in Brazil, similar to the English drop of 'thou', replacing 'tu'/'vós' with 'você'/'vocês' (Spanish 'usted/'ustedes'), which is a third person pronoun, and we have a gerund, while PT-PT uses forms in the infinitive. The difference in word meanings is a little bigger than the British/American English situation.

Sure, Brazilian dialects are plenty of innovations, but this isn't the normative language's case. Knowing Portuguese will probably be more useful than today; we're starting to get less provincial than usual and look up to the rest of the world, but the average foreign language knowledge for the typical Brazilian (even the most educates ones) is below any civilized standard.

I understand Mexicans, Peruvians, Venezuelans... but Portugueses... it's so f***ing difficult to undertand all they say. And I've been to Portugal many, many times. 

[TDAS04]

Thank you for the info on Spanish/Portuguese, batmacumba and JulioMadrid. 

Here is one interesting fact I once learned:  "Ano" means "year" in Portuguese, but in Spanish it means "anus."

[dead0man]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

[batmacumba]

I can speak English better than write it, for some reason, and I should be able to speak French, but I can only read and can't understand more than 10% of what people say. That's something I must improve on the same schedule Hash have for his Italian.

I also master the great Portuñol language, am able to read any Spanish and to understand what Spaniards say. Writing it is easy, but when I try to speak, Portuñol blocks any tentative Spanish.

Surely, sometimes I can speak proper Portuguese, if I try. But I tend to revert to Mineiro, even when I'm trying to speak Spanish. Being uncommunicative is quite unnerving to a Brazilian.

Spanish and Portuguese. My English is not that bad. Intermediate French and basic Chinese.

Spanish in Spain is somewhat different from Latin American Spanish, obviously (Spain uses the "vosotros" verb conjugation).  How different is Portuguese in Portugal from Brazilian Portuguese?  I'm sure at least a little.

I might want to learn Portuguese after conquering Spanish.  Could the usefulness of Portuguese increase with the rise of Brazil?

The main difference between PT-PT and PT-BR is pronounce. This doesn't mean that other differences aren't big. But it's easier for me (and for any Brazilian who didn't live in Portugal) to understand some Spanish accents than European Portuguese ones. I think it's much like as Scots English  or even Scots would sound to a Southener, in the USA.
Apart of these, there's a change away from the traditional second person, in Brazil, similar to the English drop of 'thou', replacing 'tu'/'vós' with 'você'/'vocês' (Spanish 'usted/'ustedes'), which is a third person pronoun, and we have a gerund, while PT-PT uses forms in the infinitive. The difference in word meanings is a little bigger than the British/American English situation.

Sure, Brazilian dialects are plenty of innovations, but this isn't the normative language's case. Knowing Portuguese will probably be more useful than today; we're starting to get less provincial than usual and look up to the rest of the world, but the average foreign language knowledge for the typical Brazilian (even the most educates ones) is below any civilized standard.

I understand Mexicans, Peruvians, Venezuelans... but Portugueses... it's so f***ing difficult to undertand all they say. And I've been to Portugal many, many times. 

É pera ca tu náum intandaix nâda, máijmo.

[Niemeyerite]

Thank you for the info on Spanish/Portuguese, batmacumba and JulioMadrid. 

Here is one interesting fact I once learned:  "Ano" means "year" in Portuguese, but in Spanish it means "anus."

True hahaha...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

All offense but why is it in all language threads do you act like an arrogant dick?

Just sayin'. Yeah report this post, whatever. Don't care.

[DC Al Fine]

I can speak passable French so long as the other person talks like I'm 3 years old

[politicus]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

Depends who you wanna communicate with and the level of understanding you are interested in. The wast majority of the Earths population doesn't understand English.

[Lumine]

Spanish (native) and English (in a somewhat decent level).

[Leftbehind]

Only English, unfortunately.

Regret not trying in Spanish at school.

[GMantis]

Bulgarian as a native and in declining order of fluency: English, German and Russian.

The easiest grammar probably belongs to a far South Slavic language (Bulgarian is what I'm thinking of), as they've been influenced to a great degree by East Romance languages (Romanian and its relatives), while English has been influenced to a great degree by West Romance languages (particularly French). Still, as you can imagine, the level of kinship is pretty minute.

Considering that no other Romance language has actually any of the features Romanian shares with Bulgarian (and Albanian), it's most likely the other way around (or at least they were all influenced by the same language).

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

[Gustaf]

Fluently I speak only Swedish and English. I know a fair bit of French and German (typically enough to get through newspaper articles all right, but not enough to feel comfortable running any kind of interesting conversation).

I also know some Latin but that works differently.

[Vosem]

Bulgarian as a native and in declining order of fluency: English, German and Russian.

The easiest grammar probably belongs to a far South Slavic language (Bulgarian is what I'm thinking of), as they've been influenced to a great degree by East Romance languages (Romanian and its relatives), while English has been influenced to a great degree by West Romance languages (particularly French). Still, as you can imagine, the level of kinship is pretty minute.

Considering that no other Romance language has actually any of the features Romanian shares with Bulgarian (and Albanian), it's most likely the other way around (or at least they were all influenced by the same language).

Well, correct me if I'm wrong (my knowledge of Bulgarian comes basically entirely from its Wikipedia article), but as I understand it, relative to other Slavic languages Bulgarian has a much lighter focus on cases; many more different ways in which to conjugate its verbs; and also a system of indicating definiteness (Bulgarian uses a suffix or absence thereof; English has a/the), all of which should be far more familiar features than my native language (Russian, which has at least six cases but really nine-ish or so and no way of indicating definiteness). I don't know whether those features in Bulgarian come from Romanian influence or something else or whatnot; I kind of pulled that out of my ass in that post.

[GMantis]

Bulgarian as a native and in declining order of fluency: English, German and Russian.

The easiest grammar probably belongs to a far South Slavic language (Bulgarian is what I'm thinking of), as they've been influenced to a great degree by East Romance languages (Romanian and its relatives), while English has been influenced to a great degree by West Romance languages (particularly French). Still, as you can imagine, the level of kinship is pretty minute.

Considering that no other Romance language has actually any of the features Romanian shares with Bulgarian (and Albanian), it's most likely the other way around (or at least they were all influenced by the same language).

Well, correct me if I'm wrong (my knowledge of Bulgarian comes basically entirely from its Wikipedia article), but as I understand it, relative to other Slavic languages Bulgarian has a much lighter focus on cases; many more different ways in which to conjugate its verbs; and also a system of indicating definiteness (Bulgarian uses a suffix or absence thereof; English has a/the), all of which should be far more familiar features than my native language (Russian, which has at least six cases but really nine-ish or so and no way of indicating definiteness). I don't know whether those features in Bulgarian come from Romanian influence or something else or whatnot; I kind of pulled that out of my ass in that post.

You are correct about the grammatical differences, but many of them are also shared with some of the languages bordering Bulgaria, while not occurring in other languages of their respective language groups. Most notably, there is a suffixed definite article, which doesn't exist in any other Slavic or Romance language, except Bulgarian and Romanian respectively. So these languages are considered to belong to the so called Balkan Sprachbund. There are different theories about how this came about, though the influence of an ancient language is considered most likely.

[dead0man]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

Why should I spend the time learning another language?  To "broaden my horizons"?  How many hours does it take to learn another language?  hundreds? thousands?  Couldn't I broaden my horizons more by using that time to actually, ya know, broaden my horizons?


...and Gully, I don't report posts.  I have self esteem.

[Niemeyerite]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

Why should I spend the time learning another language?  To "broaden my horizons"?  How many hours does it take to learn another language?  hundreds? thousands?  Couldn't I broaden my horizons more by using that time to actually, ya know, broaden my horizons?


...and Gully, I don't report posts.  I have self esteem.

Yeah, the are many ways of broading your horizons, like spending your time trolling on internet Forums.

[Beet]

Obviously I'm fluent in English. I speak and write in standard California English.

I am proficient in conversational Bengali; I actually regularly spoke Bengali before I spoke English. My accent is clearly of East Bengal and not West Bengal, but otherwise it is distinguished by its lack of any noticeable regional features; even the nonstandard forms that my parents use weren't passed on to me, although I'm not sure why. The register I use is filled with anglicisms and relatively informal (I don't generally use or even understand the Sanskrit words for things, but the same goes for obscenities and other very informal language); my Bengali vocabulary is most robust when it comes to everyday life. I only learned to read the language six months ago, and I still struggle with reading more than a few words at a time.

Congratulations on your progress. May I ask you how long it took you to learn that?

As for myself, I am only comfortable in English. However, I can speak and understand some conversational everyday Mandarin Chinese. When I was growing up, my parents spoke to me in Mandarin, however they never taught me vocabulary beyond certain utilitarian basics of everyday life. And until very recently (and even now), they never learned English beyond some very basics. On top of that was compounded cultural differences. So around the age of 13 or 14, my communication abilities with them hit a ceiling. It had quite a chilling effect on our relationship, and I'm sure I don't feel as close to my parents as I would if we shared a fully vocabulary together.

Now, their English is better than it was, but I still don't feel comfortable speaking with them in English. Our language is Mandarin, that's the way I denote I am speaking to family; it's the inherent intimacy of it. If I spoke with them in English it would sound very wrong. It would be like turning the home into some cold and impersonal, like speaking to strangers. I know that seems silly, but it's been that way for too long to change now probably.

[dead0man]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

Why should I spend the time learning another language?  To "broaden my horizons"?  How many hours does it take to learn another language?  hundreds? thousands?  Couldn't I broaden my horizons more by using that time to actually, ya know, broaden my horizons?


...and Gully, I don't report posts.  I have self esteem.

Yeah, the are many ways of broading your horizons, like spending your time trolling on internet Forums.

meh, I'd call that a hobby.

[GMantis]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

Why should I spend the time learning another language?  To "broaden my horizons"?  How many hours does it take to learn another language?  hundreds? thousands?  Couldn't I broaden my horizons more by using that time to actually, ya know, broaden my horizons?

Who told you that you should learn another language? There's nothing bad about knowing only one language (the vast majority of people don't, after all) but acting superior because you do so makes you look ridiculous.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

English, the only one anyone needs to know.

If this attitude is your way of compensating for not knowing any other language, it's not very effective.

Why should I spend the time learning another language?  To "broaden my horizons"?  How many hours does it take to learn another language?  hundreds? thousands?  Couldn't I broaden my horizons more by using that time to actually, ya know, broaden my horizons?

Who told you that you should learn another language? There's nothing bad about knowing only one language (the vast majority of people don't, after all) but acting superior because you do so makes you look ridiculous.

This.

And the fact that you assert that your own language is superior due to the various accidents of history makes you a dick. Sorry Deadman.

[Leftbehind]

Chauvinism is truly the last thing I'd expect from dead0man.

[politicallefty]

My high school required a minimum of three foreign language credits to get an honours diploma. Unfortunately, it, like most schools in the US, only emphasizes other languages upon entering high school as opposed to elementary school when it would be most beneficial.