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Languages?

Discussion in 'Fun and Games' started by Kabuki Boy, Jul 9, 2011.

  1. ijustdontknow90

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    English (fluent)
    Arabic - Modern Standard, Jordanian dialect, Moroccan dialect (I'm not fluent, but I'm getting there. I can get by in nearly every conversation)
     
  2. IsItSo

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    English - My native language and the only one that I'd judge myself to speak fluently.
    French - I've been learning it for several years, and it's pretty good by this point.
    Mandarin - I've been learning it for two years, but I've been learning quickly.

    I would like to reach the point where I consider myself fluent in French and Mandarin. The next to languages I'd like to learn are Spanish and Arabic. After I've got Modern Standard down, I want to try out the Moroccan dialect. I'd also like to learn a lot more varieties of Chinese, like Sichuanese, Shanghainese, Cantonese, and Hokkien. If I still have the energy, I'd like to learn Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, Zulu, and Tamil as well as some more obscure languages, like Nahuatl, Yucatec Maya, Quechua, and Papiamento.
     
  3. Random Dent

    Random Dent Guest

    Fluent in English.
    Learning German. I don't know enough to hold a conversation...but I do pretty well.
     
  4. steel03

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    Interesting Wikipedia article about language proficiency and how to measure it.
    Using that scale...
    English - level 5 (Native)
    German - level 3 or 4 (Working knowledge, moving toward full proficiency)
    Esperanto - level 1 or 2 (Used to be much better at it, haven't studied for a while)
    French - level 0 or 1 (Elementary)
    Spanish - level 0 or 1 (Elementary)

    Also, I guess it's worth mentioning that the German makes it easy to decipher a lot of written Dutch and Afrikaans.
    And I'm starting Norwegian this semester, so that will hopefully end up taking care of Swedish and Danish as well, with some extra study.
     
  5. Bowie

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    I can write, read, understand and speak Portuguese (as a first language), English and Italian. I can also read and understand Spanish (most Portuguese speakers can). I can read Latin and I've started studying German last semester.
     
  6. thevedman

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    English is my native, but I can speak/read/write/understand Russian as well.
     
  7. solarcat

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    Out of curiosity, is Brazillian portugese particularly different from the sort spoken in Portugal?
     
  8. Kerze

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    I know English and about six German sentences;

    Meines Vaters Freundin kommt aus Frankfurt und so spreche ich ein wenig Deutsch ... Dies ist im grunde alles was ich weiß; ich habe einen schrecklichen akzent :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

    I studied French in school for 5 years but I can only rememeber parts of it

    Pour moi, le francais c'est tres ennuyeux; mon prof c'est plus enthousiastes et ma leçons c'etait fatigant pour moi, meis je obtenus un grade 'A' pour ma GCSE's allores son enseignement a travaillé

    (The German and the french were probably awfull)
     
  9. Ralivar

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    English is my native language so I would say I'm fluent (although at times that could be debatable) and I know a few words in French and Mandarin but I would like to learn them both to a point where I could carry out a conversation.
     
  10. IsItSo

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    The pronunciation is really different - a lot of dipthongs are different, nasalization occurs more frequently in Brazilian Portuguese, and syllable-final "s"s are pronounced like English "sh" in European Portuguese (and in Rio de Janeiro's dialect - sort of like how syllable final "r"s are dropped in a Boston accent as in British English). There are spelling differences as well. Brazilians and Portuguese can still easily understand each other, just like Americans and British can.
     
  11. Bowie

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    Actually, the spelling differences were (theoretically) neutralised across Portuguese-speaking by the orthographic agreement of 1990. It only really started being valid a couple of years ago in Brazil, however.

    Other than that, IsItSo pretty much summed it up. Another notable difference is that, while we theoretically share the same grammar, Brazilian Portuguese carries a few variations, especially regarding pronouns and verbal conjugation in the second person. Finally, there are obviously differences in vocabulary.
     
  12. Mercy

    Mercy Guest

    English And some Italian
     
  13. FJ Cruiser

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    If we're all being honest here, we native English speakers are blowing the stereotype of being monolingual out of the water.

    My mother is a Spanish teacher, so I'm fairly proficient with it. I can understand much better than I speak obviously. My vocabulary tends to be more Castilian influenced, but my pronunciation and grammar are more Mexican.
     
  14. steel03

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    I went to Germany with my school a couple years ago, and as we went through customs, one of the guards said to his coworker, "Dumme Amerikaner kann nur Englisch sprechen" (Stupid Americans can only speak English), and my friend turned around and said, "Und wo haben Sie das gehört?" (And where did you hear that?) and that shut him up pretty fast. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
     
  15. PersonalTaste27

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    English and Bosnian
     
  16. thylvin

    thylvin Guest

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    Fluent:
    English
    Afrikaans (Similar to Dutch with a few differences)

    I know German (Understand it when spoken to, can read it but having difficulty when speaking and writing)
    i know !xosa, Oshiwambo and some damara/nama (These are african languages from southern african regions)
    I am studying Hebrew and latin
     
  17. Jay

    Jay
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    Fluent in Spanish and English. That's it.
     
  18. Portuguese (native)
    English (fluent)
    Spanish (fluent)
    German (very basic knowledge)
     
  19. QuestionMark

    QuestionMark Guest

    English
    American Sign Language
    Mandarin (near fluent)
    French (near fluent)
    Spanish (learning)
    Latin (have a good grasp of it, taking full course in the coming school year)

    I'd also like to learn German and Japanese.
     
  20. bookworm43

    bookworm43 Guest

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    English is my native language, i'm pretty good at french, i can speak a bit of japanese, and a mere tad of spanish :grin: