Language Diversity

[Bacardi 9,132]

Morning friends!

I woke up in quite the mood today and felt like I had to make this post. To keep it in compliance with the rules make sure your post is written in English pls. Don't wanna get myself or anyone else banned lol. 

But what languages does everyone speak? What is your first language and why have you chosen to take up a new language or two, or three, or what have you? 

I have lived my whole life in America, land of the "wE lIvE iN aN eNgLiSh CoUnTrY sO sPeAk EnGlISh!!!" And yes, I have heard people say that several times 🙄 so all I have spoken all my life is English. I tried to learn a little French in high school but my family convinced me it was futile cause we live in America so I gave up. It was a little too difficult for me at the time anyway.

But fast forward to today, and you guys know me. I have a voice and language kink now that I've joined the community (someone once said "It must be hard knowing one of your kinks is banned here, Bacardi" 🤣). Started with wanting to be able to have conversations with my Italian peefans friends so I learned Italian with the help of a few of my IRL friends and I feel I could probably string together a few broken sentences to get by if I had to lol. 

Where I live there is a heavy Russian population. In fact that majority of people in my neighborhood are Russian, including one of my really hot old man neighbors 🤤 They're all so kind to us so I decided to take up that language too. The look on my daughter's little friend's face when I told her hi in her language was priceless lol. Her dad was impressed too; said I got the accent down perfectly for the greeting and her name! I just wish the Russian alphabet were a little easier to learn 😬

So, does anyone else speak different languages? I'm curious ☺️

 

[George_1981 139]

Well I am speaking English

Also I speak Greek as ethnically I belong there.

I speak French as well (although my French became a little rusty the last few years)

And finally I can understand Italian or Spanish but I cannot speak any of these.

[Adyguy6970 813]

My main language is English but I know enough Latin to get by. 

[Kupar 12,419]

1 minute ago, Adyguy6970 said:

but I know enough Latin to get by

!!! Get by in the Vatican?! (Only teasing - Latin is useful for the basic vocabulary of many European languages I guess.)

Edited September 25, 2023 by Kupar
Typo

[Kupar 12,419]

My non-English language skills are woeful. As in the US, having English as a mother tongue does mean it's easy to be lazy. I remember some French from school and have picked up a little German (being married to a fluent speaker of that language). That's it. I couldn't readily converse in German though.

[likesToLick 9,782]

14 minutes ago, Bacardi said:

So, does anyone else speak different languages? I'm curious ☺️

I'm not conversationally fluent in any other language,   but I can speak a little bit of French,  a bit more German,  and some Thai.   I can also read and write Thai,  but only very slowly.  (I'm too slow to read road signs from a moving car.)

The French and German I learned in high school,  fifty years ago.   I learned Thai more recently, about seven years ago, because it's my favorite local holiday destination.

I also did a short course in Latin a few years ago,  but I can only remember a few words from that.

Oh,  I have also written code in about 30 different computer languages,  but I guess that doesn't count here. 😄

Edited September 25, 2023 by likesToLick

[AWN_84 1,382]

As a Brazillian i speak portuguese as native language, i learned english by myself, as i played lots of games, mmos mostly and needed to speak with teammates, so i took upon myself to learn it. I also trying to learn japanese, i know a few words and sentences but still learning, again, mainly because i love animes

[Bacardi 9,132]

1 minute ago, AWN_84 said:

As a Brazillian

👀 you had me at Brazillian lol.

[likesToLick 9,782]

10 minutes ago, Kupar said:

!!! Get by in the Vatican?! (Only teasing - Latin is useful for the basic vocabulary of many European languages I guess.)

My German teacher always used to say that we would be better at German grammar if we would go and learn some Latin first.  As far as I know no-one took him up on that. 😄

[colette888 6,917]

From most fluent downwards, this is my list:

ITALIAN . ENGLISH . PORTUGUESE . FRENCH . SPANISH, 

Basic Japanese doesn't count so far, the same applies to my German.

[Adyguy6970 813]

1 hour ago, Kupar said:

!!! Get by in the Vatican?! (Only teasing - Latin is useful for the basic vocabulary of many European languages I guess.)

Actually ecclesiastical Latin, the type used by the RC church prior to the silliness unleashed following Vatican II, but never mandated by that council, is what I'm mainly familiar with.  Classical Latin is a little different.  Both play a part in underpinning modern European languages though.  

[kinkyplaypal 109]

Irish, French and bits and pieces of Italian, German, Portuguese and Russian.
 

And if Latin counts, I’ll add that but would be quite rusty. Sic transit gloria mundi 😀

[kinkyplaypal 109]

1 hour ago, Kupar said:

!!! Get by in the Vatican?! (Only teasing - Latin is useful for the basic vocabulary of many European languages I guess.)

My guess is to say the Latin mass. You never know when it might come in handy 😀

[WantonLee 823]

I only have two languages to offer:
- German because native tongue,
and
- English because computer games.

My first English teacher was very old school; that learning should be fun was not on his agenda.
I write/type English better then I speak it, and even that only because I can always spell check. Thank you, internet! 😄


My French is practically non-existent at this point.
Apart from a few "merci", "de rien" and "merde" here and there. ^^

[Sophie 23,063]

I am fluent in English and gobbledygook.

I speak a tiny amount of French and very little Polish but I aim to learn more Polish in the future. I have always wanted to learn another language and Polish seems to be the one that has actually stuck.

[mickymoist 3,336]

English, and enough greek, spanish and french to say please, thank you, could I have the bill, and more beer 🙂

[Fanny 761]

Living in Belgium has one advantage. We learn a lot of different languages at school. My native language is Dutch, but I’m very good at English and French too. German I can understand, but I definitely can’t write or speak it. 

[WateryMoose 269]

5 minutes ago, Fanny said:

Living in Belgium has one advantage. We learn a lot of different languages at school. My native language is Dutch, but I’m very good at English and French too. German I can understand, but I definitely can’t write or speak it. 

So far this is what all Belgian people I know told me XD tho most actually come from Wallonia so their situation is reversed compared to yours

[Maclir 941]

I can speak Australian English, American English, and UkK English. 

[Scot_Lover 1,786]

Also Australian English, lol. Trying to learn Gaelic, it’s fairly impossible, I know.

A bit of Russian, not much though. I did try Spanish for a while, but the people I tried to learn it from weren’t interested. I think they wanted to keep us in the dark about what they were thinking.

Is Python a language? Or does that fall under the @Sophie gobbledygook umbrella?

[Alfresco 11,002]

I'm very impressed by the range of languages that some of you have!

Apart from my native English, I learned French to O level in school and a little German.   I helped my daughter with her German GCSE, so that refreshed it a bit, but I've never really used either in a useful sense.   However just recently I spent two weeks in France and I was pleased to be able to order things sort out bills etc in French as well as I had a short conversation with someone who wanted me to take their photo.  It kind of rekindled my thoughts on languages and so I would like to develop my French.

I would also like to learn Spanish as it seems to be another language that is used extensively and I'd be able to understand what was being said on the Galician videos!!

I was born in Wales and have learned a little Welsh, but it is not enough to be of any use.

I spent three years in the North East of England so I'm OK on Geordie - which is supposedly English, but when I took a friend there with me for a business meeting I met up with someone I knew from years ago and we had a conversation.  Afterwards my friend said that he didn't have a clue what we'd been talking about for the last five minutes, so obviously the Geordie dialect is sufficiently different to be unintelligible to those who don't know it.

 

Like others, I've also learned several computer programming languages. 

[Kupar 12,419]

I know this is pushing the envelope, but I just realised that I might considered reasonably proficient in the language of business bullshit. 

[kalle2020 886]

My native language is German. My first foreign language at school was Latin, followed by English, Ancient Greek and a little French.

The best way to learn a foreign language, though, is immersion. I spent a year in the US as an exchange student when I was 15/16 years old, so I learned to speak English like an American teenager of the 1970s. I became pretty fluent in French when I had a French girl friend in my early 20s. 

I've also learned some Spanish but not enough for a meaningful conversation. 

I think that having had Latin as my first foreign language has been pretty helpful in learning other languages later on. Through learning Latin grammar you get a good understanding of grammatical categories and structures in general which makes it much easier to understand the grammars of other languages.

[Gotah 2,230]

I grew up learning german, english and italian at school. So I'd say I'm more or less fluent in all of these. Including some of their dialects.

My native language however is a rare romance language spoken in a few areas of central europe.

And for a while I even tried to learn norwegian. I know some words and frases that duolingo taught me but that's pretty much it.

[Daniel_defo 335]

I can fluently speak Russian and Japanese, I studied it at the university and went to both Russia and Japan. Also I`m planning to learn Chinese.