Would you rather speak or understand every language in the world?

There are some ground rules that I couldn't fit in the topic title.

Basically, let's say through some magic or whatever, you have the choice of becoming capable of communicating in or understanding (through spoken words and text) every language widely used in the world, but only be able to do the other in only one. So you can have the ability, for example, to speak every language but only understand English, or understand every language but only speak/write in English.

In this case, the one language permitted would be the language you currently are fluent in. If you're multilingual, you'd have to choose one and give up the others.

This effect is explicitly magical, and so are the drawbacks. Even though logically the more you would deal with any language eventually you'd end up learning some of it, with this effect you never be able to speak/understand any other language than your "choice" one. Even if you intentionally tried to study another language you'd be incapable of managing to learn a single word in it.

The languages you'd be able to gain fluency in would be limited to languages that are in use on Earth in current cultures. Dead languages wouldn't count, nor alien languages (you never know what might be out there), or fictional languages. No being clever and including programming languages or "the language of love" or some bullshit like that either.

I can't see a use of being able to speak a language without understanding what anyone says back. If you could understand you could watch literally any movie, read any book, or play any video game from anywhere in the world. Understand by a country mile

What's the point of speaking a language you can't understand?

*Ambassador gets to the podium* Pancakes island for whales on the seventy-third jungle-gym!

I'd rather be able to listen to/read something in another language anyway.

What does it mean to speak a language without understanding it?

foolm0r0n posted...

What does it mean to speak a language without understanding it?

Star Trek universal translator, but only the microphone works

Understanding any language would be an incredibly convenient and practical ability on a day-to-day basis

Speaking any language but only understanding one would only be useful if I was like, giving speeches

The fact that we consume media every day makes this a really easy choice

DeepsPraw posted...

Star Trek universal translator, but only the microphone works

Never watched star trek

So other people speaking a language would just sound like gibberish to you?

In that case, speak all languages is the obvious option. Most people can respond in broken english, or basic body language (unless that becomes unintelligible as well?). But there's soooo many languages that you could not communicate with at all otherwise.

foolm0r0n posted...

DeepsPraw posted...

Star Trek universal translator, but only the microphone works

Never watched star trek

So other people speaking a language would just sound like gibberish to you?

In that case, speak all languages is the obvious option. Most people can respond in broken english, or basic body language (unless that becomes unintelligible as well?). But there's soooo many languages that you could not communicate with at all otherwise.

Most people can speak broken English?
Since when?

Wow these results

5tarscream posted...

Most people can speak broken English?
Since when?

I dunno, mid 20th century?

Paratroopa1 posted...

Speaking any language but only understanding one would only be useful if I was like, giving speeches

Basically this. If you were someone who needed to address people frequently, it could be handy. If you were, say, a stage musician and you were touring overseas, you could say stuff to the crowd. If you were a politician, you could deliver your rhetoric to peoples of various cultures.

I'm an introvert, so my knee-jerk reaction is to say duh, obviously it's to understand...but then I realized, I'm an amateur novelist and I'd love to be able to push my works abroad. It would be useful if I could do the localization myself...too bad I wouldn't be able to understand what I wrote afterwards!

The ability to speak every language isn't really usable if you can't respond to follow-ups. Unless other people have this translator-speech ability sooo a French person speaks to a Chinese person in Chinese and the Chinese person responds to them in French.