Current Events > How many languages do you speak? How'd you learn your additional languages?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Always think it's cool that people know and can switch between multiple languages. Learning a language is so hard so it's inspiring to see people who have done it.

3 - Polish (my first language even though I was born in the US), English and Spanish. But my Spanish is pretty bad from not practicing.

I'm getting decent enough at Italian that I don't need to reread sentences constantly, but it's a lot harder to pick up on the spoken language. Learning via fiance, and her mom, and the books her mom buys me, and duolingo. I really do not have talent for it, but I do have a lot of support.

1.5

English and sort of french. i'm really out of practice on french though, to the point where i can read it and partially understand but can't speak it.

3.

English
Welsh (grandparents were keen on making sure their kids and grandkids knew it)
Spanish (6 years between HS and Uni and worked a year on the border near Del Rio)

I'm OK in ASL. I can hold my own in a conversation but I'm nowhere near fluent.

Just one. I am bad with languages but I want to learn Tagalog.

English, Japanese, German

Made the mistake of learning German in HS because for some dumb reason I thought I'd have a use for it, but so far never used it once. Should've learned Spanish instead.

A_Good_Boy posted...

I'm OK in ASL. I can hold my own in a conversation but I'm nowhere near fluent.

ASL's always one that I thought was really cool. Being able to have a silent conversation across a room always seemed really neat. But I've never known anyone who knew it so I never really put an effort to learn it.

2, French 1st, English 2nd

1 1/2

I took German in high school and college and was pretty good at it but never kept up. It's like to go back to it.

TheGreatEscape posted...

English 2nd

How'd you learn English if you don't mind me asking?

I had a Swedish friend that said he learned a lot of English just from video games. Since a lot of games didn't have Swedish as an option and online communities tended to be more English. Though I imagine companies put a bit more effort into translating to French.

English. Wasn't able to learn Spanish as a kid because of racial tensions. Took French for 4 years in school and I still remember some of it, but I don't have any use for it. Learning Japanese mainly to be able to read and type in Japanese.

english: fluent

tagalog: fluent

japanese: only weeb level :(

spanish: only dora the explorer level :(

english is my first language, tagalog I really had to force myself to learn (read: a lot of tutoring). japanese, a year of duolingo and then bunpro ever since. spanish, I learned as an elective in college.

this topic reminded me that I really need to get back to my bunpro lessons...

AndyReklaw posted...

How'd you learn English if you don't mind me asking?

I had a Swedish friend that said he learned a lot of English just from video games. Since a lot of games didn't have Swedish as an option and online communities tended to be more English. Though I imagine companies put a bit more effort into translating to French.

I'm in Canada, so even in Quebec you're exposed to a lot of English and it's taught at a pretty young age (though a bit less so for people my age). Video games did help learning a lot of vocabulary from a fairly young age. I would force myself to try to read and translate game manuals for myself on NES and SNES games.

Also grew up watching X-Files in English, that helped a ton for spoken english lmao

We did have some games in French, but usually from large companies, both on console and PCs, but for the most part we played them in English.

Does knowing different dialects of Chinese like cantonese and mandarin count as two?

1 - my native language
2 - english tho i still struggle with grammar
3 - arabic same issue with above
4 - urdu
so that is four i speak

English - Fluent
French - Conversational, used to be better but not many opportunities to use it now
Vietnamese - Conversational

Odd phrases and stuff in other languages.

Also have some experience of reading Latin and Ancient Greek, but not for a long time.

crayola555 posted...

Does knowing different dialects of Chinese like cantonese and mandarin count as two?

I genuinely don't know how different they are. It's it like American vs British? Latin American Spanish vs Spain Spanish? Spanish vs Italian/Portuguese?

AndyReklaw posted...

I genuinely don't know how different they are. It's it like American vs British? Latin American Spanish vs Spain Spanish? Spanish vs Italian/Portuguese?

I don't really know that much about those two but it's maybe the same situation with Spanish and Portuguese speakers. Canto and Mando are the same language with same vocabularies (mostly?), but the tones and sounds are so different that someone from the different regions won't really understand each other.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I think this is a problem for many native English speakers too. I know I sometimes can't tell if I'm overusing or under using 'em.

Four total.

English, native language.

Spanish, grandma's native language and took classes. I use it so little know that I basically just know how to read and listen.

Japanese, taught myself. My most used language now. I teach classes in Japanese, speak to my wife primarily in Japanese and work in a Japanese language environment.

Chinese (Mandarin), combination of self-taught and my wife and her parents native language. Since my wife's parents live with us this is used quite a bit (their Japanese is not good). I can read it no problem, but I have a terrible accent and wouldn't call myself fluent at speaking.