What Foreign Languages Do You Speak?

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So, which ones and at what level of proficiency? I think there are a few non-Anglophones on ILE/ILM, though native English speakers should feel free to contribute as well.

No ulterior motives, not trying to be elitist or a braggart or encourage elitism or braggadocio, I'm just geniunely curious.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'll get the ball rolling. I'm pretty proficient in German -- took it from junior high and straight through college, better at reading and speaking than oral comprehension. I'm OK in French -- used to be proficient, gotta practice. Strangely enough, my knowledge of Polish is elementary -- though my grandmother was an immigrant and my grandfather (though American-born) learned Polish before English, both were "old school" and should integrate and never bothered to teach my father. Took Spanish in high school, and promptly forgot just about all of it (except some of the cuss words, of course).

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Art Phag

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I learnt Italian for about 4 years at school, and only ended up getting an E in my GCSE. The teachers never really bothered teaching us any Italian grammer, so I now have very basic tourist Italian...Vorrei un kilo di pomodori per favore, quanta costa?, D'ove il castello?...When I have more time I will try and learn a new language!

― jel, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Russian, three years worth in college. I never studied that hard so my spoken Russian isn't as good as my written Russian, which has always been easier for me. I don't have time to take any more courses during graduate school, but I want to keep working on it. I have a big stack of Russian books to read; the biggest thing facing me now is vocabulary, since otherwise my skills should be able to get me through OK.

Luckily I picked a school that doesn't require its philosophy phd students to pass a language test, because I probably would've had to learn a new language (Greek, Latin, French, or German). I do have tiny scraps of those just from existing in academia and reading things, but the only things those scraps are good for are: being pretentious, and figuring out what other people mean when they're being pretentious.

― Josh, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Je parle français rudimentaire.

― Melissa W, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You are right Josh . I have scraps of most of the Romance langauges, German and Japanese from being an Art History student . It is a lingua franca though, designed to communicate among Artists, Curators and the like.
I know some Hebrew and Latin as well. But like my knowledge of the other langauges it is in a very specfic context. That is they are both Temple Langages. I could not find my around Tel Aviv but i do know my Shabbat.

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I speak Hebrew, though not fluently, despite years of education (a number of them unwilling). I was also taught Afrikaans at school, which is one of our national languages, though, as someone said to me recently, it's less of a language than a throat disease.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So you are Jewish Mitch ?
Do you know street Hebrew as well as Temple Hebrew
I knew somone who was fluent in Afrikanaas , it was ugly but not the ugliest.

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, I'm Jewish. The Hebrew I learned was both Biblically and and 'street'-derived. Though most of the 'street' portion came from literature that was itself fairly archaic and newspaper articles. So I learned how to say "wagon" and "police road block" before, say, "nightclub".

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So what is the ugliest, Anthony?

I am hot for Dutch of every kind (High AND Low), and so Afrikaans is a sexy language to me. But I understand nothing of it, and have heard no evil spoken in in (indeed, barely anything at all).

"Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio"

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

English.

My first language: French.

― Patrick, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sinker, waarom is Nederlands heet? :) As I stated on some Carl Craig thread on ILM Dutch is the most earth-bound language on the planet, it's rather clumsy. But okay besides Dutch, I speak Spanish (which is a bit rusty but after a week in Spain it gets pretty good). Some German and French. Better at reading than actaul speaking.

― Omar, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

air sign >>> earth sound?

My Heet Nederlands friend V corrects my pronunciation of Breughel [mine = Broy-gul, being Brit]. "No Mark," says V (who lives in Peckham),"it's Brchchchchchl..."

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also solitary Dutch astronaut has GRATEST name of all who have entered space: WUBBO OCKELS!!

― mark s, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hahaha, so very true about Wubbo, even a strange name in Holland.

It's amazing how difficult it is for English/American writers to copy a Dutch term/name, "Ahw fuck it it can't really be Scheveningse Bospad!!" (Pynchon actually one of the few who is faultless in this regard)...also see constant fumbling on 'gabber' ;)

― Omar, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mucho espa~nol, un petit peu de francais, an strayn

― Geoff, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Omar, is it true that the Dutch - when having to pick a last name - decided to go for some crazy ones, because they thought it was a ridiculous idea?
First language is Dutch (or Flemish). Other languages I speak and/or understand: English, French, German and Japanese.

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I dunno Nathalie, could be. But I doubt it with all the boring Van Dijks, Jansens. Although I had a laugh recently when I read a games review by one Bert de Dood = Bert the Death. Coolness to the max. :)

― Omar, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But Omar, wasn't Van Dijk from Belgium? I am pretty sure he was originally from my country. Anyhow, Klaarwater? Brood? You can't really say those names were *normal*.

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But, but Nathalie where are all the dikes? ;) Must say your examples are pretty convincing, they are so...i dunno...figurative?

― Omar, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nope, the word you are looking for is STUPID. ;-)

― nathalie (nathalie), Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

enuff dutch. back to russian. cos i speak that, like josh. well, that is, i speak it more than write it.

spoken russian you can get away with saying the same 3 phrases over nad over again, and making a conversation. as long as youi sound pissed off enuff.......

"yeVO?????????????"

etc.

i learnt latin, french, spanish and german but cant remember them. as they really as hip as russian?

think not.....

― ambrose, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I can read Dutch (maybe Afrikaans, too) and I think I know what's going on (knowing German and since English is my native language). I couldn't understand a thing if it's spoken, though -- to my American ears, it sounds like someone with a speech impediment trying to speak German.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to be able to speak French and Spanish...not now though.

― DG, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Ruud Luubers" (sp?) - always made me chuckle when mentioned on Radio 4 news ...

Spoke excellent French at school and did pretty well in German. But I couldn't say how good I'd be *now*. My French pronounciations certainly aren't as "Francophone" as they were, say, 8 years ago.

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh yeah, that reminds me, the other day I found this Hungarian page that links to lots of FT-related web sites. I found I could make out a LOT of the small words, grammar, and of course loan words. Because of their being like Russian. Unfortunately after that I couldn't really make anything out.

― Josh, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

David grew up in SE Sask. He had to go 2 hours to attend services. So he never learnt Street Hebrew, though he speaks Yiddish. The ugliest langauge either Tinglit or German

― anthony, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually, Josh, that page you linked to is written in Slovak. That's why you could understand so much of it. Hungarian isn't a Slavic language; if that page was written in Hungarian you wouldn't have been able to understand any of it.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aaaahhhh. Thank you. That didn't quite jibe with the language-family junk I learned in my linguistics class.

― Josh, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I speak my own language. It's the only one I speak. It resembles English but not entirely, unfortunately.

The closest I come to speaking real other languages is my boyfriend speaks 4 pretty proficiently and a few others sort of, and a good friend of mine speaks Hebrew.

― Ally, Sunday, 29 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

English (mother tongue), Italian (completely fluent), French (used to be completely fluent, but it's nothing that a couple of weeks in France can't fix), German ('A' Level but rusty), Latin (GCSE - Caecilius est in horto, Coquus vituperat, Pestis! Furcifer!) and a few sentences, mostly rude, in various other European languages. I'm thinking about doing an evening class in another language starting in September - any suggestions?

― Madchen, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I want to speak Spanish, and my work has just very kindly set me up with a learning account which puts 150 quid toward the evening class of my choice. So hopefully I'll be speaking Spanish soon.

― cabbage, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Good one Cabbage, but they never teach you the important stuff at those classes like "Barça cabron, saluda al campeon". Very important stuff! ;)

― Omar, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Omar, I have a feeling that you're being rather rude about the mighty Barca?!?

― cabbage, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Now I wouldn't call them mighty ;) But yeah this was the rather rude chant with which Barça was received this year in our temple Santiago Bernabeu.

― Omar, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I heard about this, rude people, I mean it's not as if the denizens of the camp nou threw a kings ransom of pesetas and a few mobile phones at Luis Figo is it? oh errrr........

and no they're not that mighty any more really, but I still think they're great.

― cabbage, Monday, 30 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Russian. I was born in Russia and came to the US when I was nine. I speak Russian fluently, read easily, although slower than in English, but my writing is on a third-grade level (the last grade I attended in a Russian school, incidentally).

I've also studied French for four years, but as I learned from my recent vacation in France, I don't even quite parle un peu.

― Julia, Wednesday, 1 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven months pass...

ich knein wie zwei languages das ist deutsch und englisch im aus michigan und ich wie to sprisch deutsch im lernen oter deutsch too auf wiedersehen und lats und tchuss oh ja ich bin funfzehn jaher alt

― E.michel Gasspeer, Monday, 11 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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