[macintologist]

Definition of "know":

You are not necessarily fluent, but you are good enough to speak freely with a native speaker of that language and they can speak freely back to you, in full speed, knowing that you'll understand everything. You do not speak very slowly or stutter incessantly when speaking this language. You understand a fluent speaker of that language perfectly, unless they started talking about philosophy and linguistics and used a lot of big words.

If you can speak a language fluently, but not read or write it, like Arabic or Hebrew, you may count that as knowing as language.

[mdc]

fluent in english, but i don't meet the requirements for fluent for afrikaans and italian.

[Randman]

English (my language), read and write
Spanish (I'm Hispanic), read and write

I can carry basic conversations and get me way around in a taxi or ordering at a restaurant/shop in German, Mandarin and a little French. Also, know a few words/phrases in Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay, Japanese and Thai.

[Oisín]

First option should be “Only my native language” rather than “Only English” - there are many for whom English is a foreign language, and their level of English might not be high enough that they will count themselves as 'knowing' it.

My answer: Six.

Danish (native language), English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. The sixth one is sort of a cheater: I understand Swedish and Norwegian perfectly, and German very well, and can speak them all relatively fluently. I cannot, however, speak them grammatically and idiomatically correct (ie. perfectly understandable, but no native speaker would ever take me for a native speaker myself), so I combined the three and counted them as one extra.

If that doesn't count, then five.

I can also, to various lesser degrees, speak, read and/or understand Portuguese, Gaelic, Greek, Latin and Dutch, but definitely not to a degree where they count in this context.

[Scifience]

English is my native language.

I also can get around well with Japanese.

[macintologist]

Oisin, I think if you can get around on MacNN fine, then you know English. I bet I could have a good political discussion with any of the non-English speakers here.

[d.fine]

English, Dutch and Spanish fluent read & write. Just some basic french, so I didn't include it in the poll.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by macintologist

Oisin, I think if you can get around on MacNN fine, then you know English.

Not necessarily. I think there are some people here who, because they feel their English is not particularly good, don't post here that much. On other forums I post at, there are frequently people who post in quite bad English, and say that they feel they can't express themselves in English. I'm sure there are some here too; they just post less.

[bubblewrap]

I speak English first.
And German and Spanish.
And enough French to piss off a Frenchman.(or Canadian)
I can speak some Vietnamese.

[E's Lil Theorem]

Just two for me. Spanish is my native tongue and I can usually trick people into thinking that I speak/know English.

Originally Posted by Oisín

...

My answer: Six.

....

Pimpy.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by E's Lil Theorem

Pimpy.

I'm not even sure whether to or ... kids nowadays with their weird slang

[E's Lil Theorem]

Originally Posted by Oisín

I'm not even sure whether to or ... kids nowadays with their weird slang

Hah, you old fogey!

BTW, in this case, pimpy == awesome!

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by E's Lil Theorem

Hah, you old fogey!

Who you callin' old, punk?!?

(I'm 22 )

BTW, in this case, pimpy == awesome!

Well.. thanks, then! Pimpy is sort of one of those words that can be both positive and negative, depending on who says it and stuff, so just wanted to make sure you weren't insulting me

[paul w]

English French Italian and Spanish in descending order. And I'm not talking high school level, or how our president claims he "Speaks Spanish". I'm tired of how people claim they can speak a language, when they really hardly know any of it.

For example, I wouldn't include German, Dutch, Polish, Arabic or Japanese - all of which i have a grasp of, can say a few things, undertsand the gist of a conversation maybe if I know the people.

[SSharon]

English and Hebrew for me. I can read and write both too.

[TETENAL]

I only speak German. So what am I supposed to select in this poll now?

[wdlove]

I only know my native language of English. Probably know three or four words in Spanish.

[Cipher13]

English, of course, and I'm learning Japanese at the moment. Getting there.

[Randman]

Originally Posted by paul w

And I'm not talking high school level, or how our president claims he "Speaks Spanish".

Whatever on the political garbage. Bush does speak Spanish.

[paul w]

Originally Posted by Randman

Whatever on the political garbage. Bush does speak Spanish.

Politics aside, I've seen him stumble through awful Spanish more than once. During a press conference with Aznar he tried valienty to listen without his earpiece and after a few seconds had to put it on.

Someone who speaks a language doesn't need a translator, sorry. There's no shame, IMO, about not speaking a language. Maybe he used to, but he doesn't look good in it now.

[starman]

Originally Posted by paul w

Politics aside, I've seen him stumble through awful Spanish more than once. During a press conference with Aznar he tried valienty to listen without his earpiece and after a few seconds had to put it on.

Someone who speaks a language doesn't need a translator, sorry. There's no shame, IMO, about not speaking a language. Maybe he used to, but he doesn't look good in it now.

There's a distinct difference between SPEAKING it and LISTENING TO it.

I speak Spanish, but for the life of me I can't keep up with some of the Spaniards I hear speaking.

Mike

[paul w]

huh, in my experience with learning languages, at a certain point you tend to understand better than you speak.

In the beginning, sure, one often can say more things than they can undestand, but after a certain amount of timne you nealry always get to that poit where you can fully understand, but are frustrated in not being able to express yourself they way you'd like.

Again, this refers to speaking a language with fluency. Sure, before I lived abroad I "spoke" Spanish. I think it's common for Americans, not really needing a second language, to underestimate its difficulty. But actually living abroad and learning a second language kinda opened my eyes. And I certainly wouldn't have bothered to actually learn another language properly otherwise.

[Randman]

He lived in Texas and speaks Mexican Spanish. Maybe not fluently but he was governor when I worked in San Antonio and I heard a few pieces with him speaking and it wasn't bad. I think his daughter-in-law or niece or someone in the family is Hispanic as well.

That said, Spain Spanish can be difficult to understand for a Mexican (or Spanglish) Spanish speaker as the pronunciation is different. Same with other countries. For instance, I have had the dardnest time understanding Cuban Spanish hailing from New Mexico. That doesn't mean my Spanish is bad (though I am rusty with it working in Asia), it just means that different regions speak differently (as say someone from Glasgow and someone from Arkansas are going to speak English in what that might not easily be understood by the other).

[paul w]

:shrug:

I never heard him do anything other than a prepared speech, which quite frankly ain't saying much. I could do that in German, or Dutch, though I speak neither very much at all. Anyway the point I'm making is it irks me when people claim they can speak a language and then, well they can't. I worked hard on my language skillz, yo!

I wanna learn something HARD. These romance languages are all the same...

[Randman]

Learn Mandarin. Grammatically, it's not that complicated but the pronunciation can be a killer. Or learn Navajo. That'll keep ya busy.

[Xeo]

Language and I don't mix. English is my only language although Japanese is on my list of languages to become fluent in. I actually really enjoy language, I'm just not good at learning them. My motivation is too low and the effort I need to put forth to make stuff stick is very high.

[ghporter]

I didn't need to take a foreign language in college because Computer Science involves so many different languages-I learned C, Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, and got a smattering of SmallTalk, ADA and a couple of others.

I can find the bathroom in several languages, though my greatest exposure has been with Spanish. Otherwise, I have a few phrases in a variety of languages. I like to think I'm fluent in English, though that's debatable.

[Xeo]

Originally Posted by ghporter

I didn't need to take a foreign language in college because Computer Science involves so many different languages-I learned C, Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, and got a smattering of SmallTalk, ADA and a couple of others.

I can find the bathroom in several languages, though my greatest exposure has been with Spanish. Otherwise, I have a few phrases in a variety of languages. I like to think I'm fluent in English, though that's debatable.

Well those languages and I mix just fine.

(actually, none of those particular, but you know what I mean)

[ghporter]

On the subject of my former governor, I can provide some insight. Ralph, a former coworker of mine, grew up in Columbia and is very proud of the fact that the only Spanish Academy outside Spain is in Columbia. He told me that, while learning English, his teacher told him to speak English with an open mouth, and Spanish with a closed mouth. Think about it-English is all about enunciation, because there are so many words that could be messed up badly without a bit of care. On the other hand, Spanish seems to be all about speed-which is facilitated by not opening your mouth too much. Ralph translated for me in Honduras while I was in charge of communication equipment at an air base there, and he laughed at how the differences in dialect and accent make it hard for Spanish speakers from different areas to communicate. Someone fluent in Mexican Spanish may actually only be fluent in speaking with people from around Mexico City and the US border-there are some killer accents in Mexico that give Mexican nationals fits.

On a side note, while stationed in Panama during the end of Noriega's regime, a civilian acquaintance there mentioned that while it looked like Noriega had managed to swell the ranks of his military almost overnight, the extra people were almost all foreign. "That guy is Nicaraguan, those two over there are from Ecuador, and of course the ones with beards are from Cuba." Concita was a wonderful resource about all sorts of things, and Spanish was probably the least of them.

[G Barnett]

Fluent in Bulgarian here. Spent a year over there teaching HS students conversational English, and managed to pick up quite a bit of the language while there. I'm fairly sure my grammar is atrocious, and I make some really goofy mistakes from time to time (once tried to call my ex a 'liar' and instead ended up calling her a 'spoon' -- nothing defuses an argument quite like a bizarre linguistics error). Still, I can hold my own in a conversation for the most part.

The oddest side effect is I can no longer speak Spanish at all. Feels like it got overwritten, as every time I attempt Spanish, the first words that come up are all Bulgarian. Damned annoying at times, really.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Randman

Learn Mandarin. Grammatically, it's not that complicated but the pronunciation can be a killer. Or learn Navajo. That'll keep ya busy.

Or Inuit, with its (in)famous 263 different enclitic personal pronouns and however many cases it is they have (twenty-something, I think).

Or, if you're looking for something slightly less impossible, try Finnish. A vocabulary base completely unrelated to Indo-European languages; 16 cases; and a hopeless verbal system should be enough, wouldn't you think?

And for the record, Randman, I don't find Mandarin pronunciation difficult (once you've gotten used to the tones, of course). The hardest thing about Chinese, in my opinion, is keeping all the characters in your head without forgetting them when you don't see them much.

[Randman]

I don't know the characters, though I can handle hanyu. I tried to learn it on my own so early on I skipped pronunciation and just concentrated on the words and basic grammar, figuring my pronunciation was going to be bad enough. Now I'm working more on the proper way to speak though its harder here in Singapore with the hokkien, cantonese and singlish influences.

It did mess my Spanish up some early on. I once asked a friend: como estas, ma? Soy hen hao hoy.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Randman

It did mess my Spanish up some early on. I once asked a friend: como estas, ma? Soy hen hao hoy.

Yup, know that one... Once asked a (Danish) friend of mine (in English, for some unknown reason), “You give me off lights ma?”. He didn't understand what I meant.

[historylme]

Originally Posted by G Barnett

The oddest side effect is I can no longer speak Spanish at all. Feels like it got overwritten, as every time I attempt Spanish, the first words that come up are all Bulgarian. Damned annoying at times, really.

When I was starting to learn French all this Hungarian would 'pop' up. In my mind, a 'foreign' language would be whatever wasn't English or Spanish. Having study abroad in Budapest, I learned a bit of Hungarian, thus, that was the 'foreign' element.

It was weird, but it felt like my mind was partition into three. It felt like I almost had to partition another section... which after a lot of reading, studying and movie watching, French became fully installed.
However, the allotted Hungarian memory continues to shrink.

[B Gallagher]

English and Japanese. In that order. I know some basic Mandarin (yes, pronunciation is a killer), but not enough to be anywhere close to fluent in it.

[Albert Pujols]

I know English, Gujarati, and some French. I can understand my mom when she speaks French (her first language) and I can get around France fine, but I pretty much suck at it. Both my parents speak 4-5 different languages, I'm not sure if my dad knows Swahili any more.

[MacManMikeOSX]

Hebrew, Arabic, English, Ancient Greek, and Latin

[wataru]

Originally Posted by Oisín

And for the record, Randman, I don't find Mandarin pronunciation difficult (once you've gotten used to the tones, of course). The hardest thing about Chinese, in my opinion, is keeping all the characters in your head without forgetting them when you don't see them much.

I find hanzi easy and pronunciation very, very difficult. Maybe I'm way off on this, but aren't you of Chinese descent? If you are, then I think you might not realize how difficult the tones are for someone whose native language is not tonal.

I speak English, Japanese, and very basic Mandarin.

[Randman]

No, I'm Hispanic. Before moving to Asia, my knowledge of Chinese was limited to old gongfu movies and buffet dinners.

[wataru]

I was talking to Oisín, but ok

[DeathMan]

Seems like Oisín is a dane.

[DeathMan]

Zwei! Ich Heiße Superfantastich!

[Goldfinger]

Dutch, French, English and German (my German isn't fantastic though). I understand Italian most of the time but I don't speak it that well. I have notions of Spanish and Japanese as well.

I have a question regarding Japanese. A lot of Americans on MacNN seem to speak/learn/want to learn Japanese. Why is that ?

[wataru]

Because Japanese is "cool" among geeks. In my experience, very few that start learning ever achieve much proficiency, though.

[Cipher13]

I began learning Japanese because I'm fascinated by Japanese culture (and girls ). I do want to live there one day. As for becoming proficient, well, I intend on it... but it's hard for somebody who does no work whatsoever.

I can read ひらがな fluently, and recognise maybe 10 漢字 (hey, I've only been learning for 8 weeks)... though I'm shocking with かたかな. It'd only take a day or two to be okay with it though.

My main problem is comprehension. While I may be able to speak basic Japanese, I can't readily understand it when spoken to me yet... it's just too fast. I have to formulate sentences in my head before I speak them, and I don't have time to deconstruct them in my head before the puzzled look spreads across my face.

That, and I don't remember the meanings of lots of words. My short-term memory is absolutely terrible. It's why I'm bad at math, chem, and why I find some aspects of languages difficult.

Oh well, all it takes is some time. If only I could get off WoW for a while and work on it. o_O

[wataru]

The horrible truth is that without Kanji, you will never achieve any real measure of proficiency. I'd practice that most of all if you're serious about learning Japanese.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by G Barnett

(once tried to call my ex a 'liar' and instead ended up calling her a 'spoon' -- nothing defuses an argument quite like a bizarre linguistics error).

heh...

Reminds me of one of my old organic chemistry professors... he did a post doctoral position in Sweden and lived there for 5 years.

When he was learning the language, one day in class the teacher asked them to tell everyone what they had for breakfast. He wanted to say "a bowl of flakes" (corn flakes), but what he really said was that he had "a bowl of girls" for breakfast.

Apparently the Swedish words for "flakes" and "girls" are very similar.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Person Man

When he was learning the language, one day in class the teacher asked them to tell everyone what they had for breakfast. He wanted to say "a bowl of flakes" (corn flakes), but what he really said was that he had "a bowl of girls" for breakfast.

Apparently the Swedish words for "flakes" and "girls" are very similar.

Sort of close, yeah. 'Girls' is flickor, and 'flakes' is flagar (had to look that one up; my own guess would have been flakar). Not close enough to ever be confused on pronunciation alone, though. The difference is similar (very similar, actually) to the difference between 'liquor' and 'lager' in English.


wataru (+ DeathMan): I am completely and utterly Danish, not counting my biological paternal grandfather (whom neither I nor my father have ever seen), who was a Dutch sailor. No Chinese roots here.

Wataru, how many characters would you say you know? I'm at a stage now where I feel I'm not really learning any more new characters (also because I'm not exposed to them, not living in China anymore), and I feel like I have to work pretty hard (ie. read a lot) not to forget the ones I do know. I can probably read somewhere between 2000 and 2500 characters, but if I have to write them from memory, I'm pretty sure the number drops to about 1500. How long have you been studying Japanese?

[ghporter]

Oisín, I know this is off topic, but how do you pronounce your name?

And sort of on-topic, I just got a strong reminder that "girls" and "flakes" are not that dissimilar in real life! I was at a McDonalds near a high school when a whole swarm of high school kids decended on the place, occupied most of it, and noisily had their lunches. I did not hear a single conversation between any of the boys, but I heard a lot of girls talking, and about some of the most bizzarre things! The high school girls around here are apparently "flakey" whether the english words are similar or not.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by ghporter

Oisín, I know this is off topic, but how do you pronounce your name?

Like 'machine', but obviously without the M. That simple