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US Americans: How many languages do you speak?
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: FFM
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How many languages do you speak (including your native tongue)?
Only vote if you are a US American.
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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I consider myself fluent in English. For that matter, I consider a whole lot of my contemporaries and others around me NOT fluent in English.
I know a tiny bit of Spanish, and can puzzle out some French, Italian and German, but I can't say I "speak" any of them.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Baltimore, MD
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I've studied and used abroad, and at least at some point been conversational to fluent in: English (native speaker), French (7 years of study, plus 3-4 trips to France), Russian (6 semesters in college), Chinese (lived in China for several months in addition to taking classes while there), and Japanese (2 semesters in college after testing into 102, conversational on this one is a stretch, but certainly decently proficient). I also speak enough Spanish and German to at least be able to make sense of menus and signs, and make basic day to day transactions.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Minnesota
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I was fairly fluent in Spanish -- right up until I spent a year in Bulgaria. Now I'm functionally fluent in Bulgarian but managed to lose most of the Spanish I knew. Ooops.
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Originally Posted by G Barnett
I was fairly fluent in Spanish -- right up until I spent a year in Bulgaria. Now I'm functionally fluent in Bulgarian but managed to lose most of the Spanish I knew. Ooops.
I don't see how you could keep to Indo-European and get two more different languages! Yikes!
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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I know a little Spanish and a little Chinese, but not enough of either to have a real conversation. Also I occasionally pull out a Spanish word when I'm trying to think of what the word is in Chinese.
So I'd only consider myself to be good at English. If I were to have a conversation with someone in Spanish or Chinese, I'd probably spend about 90% of the time staring blankly or trying in vain to remember how to say something, and then saying it wrong.
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"That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario!" *wheeze*
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Mar 2004
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English is my primary language.
Fluent/read/write in Spanish though quite rusty while living in Asia. But I was able to get around Spain last year.
Basic Mandarin though I'm losing a lot of that while back in the US. Knew enough to get around the PRC on holiday.
Know enough German and French to order at a restaurant or get basic directions. For Italian while in Italy, I just spoke Spanish with a Godfather-tinted accent and was able to have rudimentary conversations.
Know a few words/phrases in Malay, Thai and Japanese.
Oh, and I can speak Aussie as well.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Isle of Manhattan
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Originally Posted by Randman
For Italian while in Italy, I just spoke Spanish with a Godfather-tinted accent and was able to have rudimentary conversations.
that's very funny. I hope you also waved your arms and hands around. For any Italian/Sicilian knows that you can't properly and effectively communicate in Italian without the use of hands/arms.
okay, languages...
2) I can speak/write English and Japanese (though I'm still trying to learn 1000s of kanji), and also some very basic Italian, German, Spanish.
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"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Vente: Achat
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I speak English (my mother tongue) and French more or less fluently and interchangeably, and French is the default language at home.
Italian and Spanish are conversational - which means I can get by in most cases. Italian used to be more or less fluent, but I haven't spoken it much lately. Spanish is on the rise.
Other languages I've studied but not enough to hold my own in an actual conversation: Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic and Dutch.
All this came from living ten years abroad.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Southern, NJ (near Philly YO!)
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I am trying to teach myself German...I have been to Germany a few times and it isn't as hard as I thought. good thread. danke
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MacBook Pro 15" i7 ~ Snow Leopard ~ iPhone 4 - 16Gb
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Moderator
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: on the verge of insanity
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I am working on Spanish. Not sure what I will learn after that. I suppose it depends on what is the most useful.
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I like my water with hops, malt, hops, yeast, and hops.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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Thing is, in the U.S., there aren't many useful second languages. Spanish, I guess, but it's nothing like Europe where you've got several widely-spoken languages packed in a tight geographical area. Furthermore, since everyone else in the world seems to speak English, it's hard even to practice when you're overseas because everyone will speak English with you (they'll even prefer to do that because they want to practice their English).
I ran into this while I was in China. Sure, your typical person knew no English, but the people at the university where I worked all spoke it quite well, and they always wanted to speak it rather than speaking Chinese.
Heh. There are perks to being a native English speaker. I'd argue that speaking a second language isn't really necessary in the U.S. (unlike Europe where it's a big help).
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"That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario!" *wheeze*
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno
Thing is, in the U.S., there aren't many useful second languages. Spanish, I guess, but it's nothing like Europe where you've got several widely-spoken languages packed in a tight geographical area. Furthermore, since everyone else in the world seems to speak English, it's hard even to practice when you're overseas because everyone will speak English with you (they'll even prefer to do that because they want to practice their English).
I ran into this while I was in China. Sure, your typical person knew no English, but the people at the university where I worked all spoke it quite well, and they always wanted to speak it rather than speaking Chinese.
Heh. There are perks to being a native English speaker. I'd argue that speaking a second language isn't really necessary in the U.S. (unlike Europe where it's a big help).
I have had the same sorts of experiences. In both Panama and Honduras, people didn't want to help me get better at Spanish, they wanted me to help them get better at English. And I live in San Antonio, Texas, a city that has a strong undercurrent of "if you don't speak Spanish you don't belong here." But I am not exposed to Spanish on a daily basis in such a way that I could really get any better at it...
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Addicted to MacNN
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I bump this to collect a few more votes.
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