What other languages do we speak

[赫杰]

ooooo, a fellow Wuhan student!! Hey where you at in Wuhan? Can you tell me?

ahhhh languages...well since we are including languages that are all but forgotten:

American English - Native

Spanish - 4 years high school

Japanese - 2 years

Russian - 2 years

Cantonese - 6 months

Korean - 4 months (recently gave up)

and Chinese for two years three months I think now. I've realised that I am too retarded to study multiple languages at the same time. And IMHO people should be careful using the word "fluent" in describing their level. I know lots and lots of "fluent" english speakers that are anything but...

HJ

[yingguoguy]

English - Native

French - Four years at school all but forgotten

Japanese - maybe 3 years now

Mandarin - 18 months

Actually I'm only really posting this because I wanted to ask 赫杰, how did you find learning Korean after Japanese and Chinese? I've always been thinking of travelling between China - Korea - Japan by ferry, and was half thinking of studying it. I don't get confused between Chinese and Japanese words but learning a third language with the same shared vocab roots (yet another reading of 图书馆) could result in chaos. It also seemed that Korean grammar was harder than Japanese? Will maybe try Russian instead and travel home by the Trans-Siberian railway.

[irishbob]

1. English - first language

2. Irish (Gaelic) - understand but cant speak much

3. French - fluent

4. German - mostly fluent

5. Dutch - conversational

6. Mandarin - basic

7. Breton - basic

i also understand some italian (because of an ex-lover) but i didnt include it cause its close to french.

[-(Shell)-]

English is my first language, so I'm obviously fluent. And I am studying German at school. I wouldn't consider myself anywhere near fluent in German though.......für jetzt..........

[WilsonFong]

1. English - native; born and raised in Toronto

2. French - took 4 years in high school, graduated with "certificate of bilingual studies" along with my diploma, but i've pretty much forgotten all of it

3. Cantonese - my first language until i was 4. can still speak fairly well, though my vocabulary is a bit limited and i have a hard time understanding stuff like the news. also learning to read and write colloquial cantonese right now

4. Mandarin - 1.5 years, can hold basic conversations, hoping to become fluent within two years when i plan on going to china to study

i'm hoping to pick up some korean because i'll probably be moving there sometime soon for a teaching stint. i could also add some taishanese but that's almost the same as standard cantonese.

[Hong Lien]

I can only speak English. ;-; And a tiny bit of Cantonese. >__>

[tongtaitai]

1. Welsh (native)

2. English (native)

3. French (extremely rusty, but was once intermediate)

4. German (advanced - also understand some Swiss-German)

5. Chinese (considering the amount of time spent studying I should be advanced, but alas...)

6. Japanese (very basic - studied a little a long time ago)

[nipponman]

Well, since everybodys doin it:mrgreen:

1.English- native

2.Chinese- 3 years

3.Japanese- 8(?) years (It was a long time ago)

surprisingly enough, even though I have done way more studying in Japanese and probably know more words, I feel more comfortable with chinese nowadays and probably write better in chinese than I do in Japanese. Maybe that's because its so hard to start studying Japanese again, I don't know. But, three languages is pretty crappy, almost too crappy to be postin in this thread.

[Navison]

English (native)

Czech (fluent)

Slovak (Cheating, because its almost Czech)

German (I get by OK).

Polish (Restaurants no problem chat about the weather, buying stuff in shops)

Russian (I can understand them, but they don't understand me)

Hungarian (I managed a big computer translation job, and tried to learn it, but all I remember is nem todom Madgarol)

Danish (It was Dansih software I was translating, and I managed 6 lessons - har du det).

Mandarin (just starting)

PS I saw Madeleine Albright on TV here recently, her Czech Grammar is very good, but her accent is so deep south Texas or that region, it was amazing).and if she was any thing in real life like in the interview, she seems like a very very nice person.

[geraldc]

English: Native

Cantonese: Had it spoken to me since birth, I can understand a romantic comedy on TV, but the news and period dramas confuse me. I need to speak more to improve/stop the decline.

Mandarin: HSK level 6 on a good day

French: GCSE level (and I've got an AO level, an exam no longer recognised by anyone)

Latin: GCSE level, completely forgotten, although I still remember the first lines to all the translations of poems I had to remember.

[zhenhui]

Wow...many multilingual folks in this forum!

English - since I was 5 years old

Mandarin Chinese - since I was 5 years old

Bahasa Indonesia - since birth (but loosing this skill, mom speaks in Bahasa when she's pissed at me as her vulgarities vocab in Mandarin is limited, parents speaks to each other in Bahasa)

Korean - basic

Japanese - basic

And vulgarities in Hokkien and Cantonese

[Language Guy]

English: Native

French: since grade school, stopped at intermediate to advanced in college

Italian: studied a compressed year, would like to continue it later

Spanish: 2 years so far, still going strong

Mandarin: soon to start

In the future: Japanese, Italian(again), Portuguese, maybe even Vietnamese

LG

[cp11141]

Native: greek

Fairly fluent: english

Used to be fluent: french

Beginner: chinese (studying on and off)

Just started: russian, german

Plans to start: spanish (but quite easy to read already)

[DrinkDrankDrunk]

Ningbo hua/Shanghainese: native and fluent(at least I'd like to think so).

Mandarin: native and fluent although I can't read or write.

English: adopted 'native' language.

Spanish: eight years later and I can finally sing Mi Aguita Amarilla.

Russian: Da and Sbaseeba. All you need to order perogies with sour cream!

[runehh]

I'm a native Danish speaker, which also means that I speak/understand Swedish and Norwegian (most Scandinavians will be more than happy to point out the differences between these languages but honestly, it is one of those cases where politics decide that they are independent languages instead of variants of the same language)

Also, German, English, and obviously three or four naughty words of about a million other languages.

[Antares]

- English (duh, lol)

- Cantonese (native)

- Mandarin (since 4)

currently studying:

- japanese (advice:　u would wanna kill urself if u study japanese without a strong interest, ppl in my class r like failing, not me thou)

- french (dun really wanna learn it, but for the following reasons i had to:

- Canadian

- Not really hard once u speak eng

- If i kno this, i can pick up chicks way easier (my goal is oriental girls, dun try on any1 else))

a little bit of korean (dun really study it, currently i just learning it from TV shows n my friends, but if i become fluent in french/japanese i would spend time taking a korean class)

[Lu]

How is French going to help in picking up Oriental girls? I think English is a better language for that, combined with an Asian language of your choosing, in case her English runs out.

[tanhql]

native languages(since young):

1st language: english

mother tongue: mandarin/chinese

foreign languages:

japanese(learning at school)

[Antares]

my friend used it in china n it worked..... since most of them now are like sick of eng

besides, i need french in the place i live in

[doumeizhen]

English

German

Chinese

Learning French

4 Years of Jesuit Latin

Enough Spanish to get into trouble and buy 8 eggs

Enough Farsi to thoroughly confuse people, as I can't keep the things I know straight

Enough of a Chinese dialect used near Shanghai to serve tea

Enough Cantonese to make people groan and tell me that they speak Mandarin

Enough of a German dialect to understand people in Holland when they tell me that it's not cute that they sound like a funny version my relatives in the ol' German village

What a mess...