What languages do you speak more or less fluently?

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

What languages do you speak more or less fluently?

I won't list Standard English.
If you did not know English, you would not write in this forum here.

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

Before somebody says: "You have forgotten XY ....."

May I say this: Only 10 options are possible in a poll.
So some choice had to be made.
I did not "forget" any language.
They are all there in this option: "another language".

jayem · Feb 13, 2023

Igpay Atinlay

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

jayem said:
Igpay Atinlay

Question:

Is that the only language you speak besides English?

Pig Latin is a language game or argot in which words in English are altered, usually by adding a fabricated suffix or by moving the onset or initial consonant or consonant cluster of a word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable to create such a suffix.[1] For example, Wikipedia would become Ikipediaway (taking the 'W' and 'ay' to create a suffix). The objective is to conceal the words from others not familiar with the rules. The reference to Latin is a deliberate misnomer; Pig Latin is simply a form of argot or jargon unrelated to Latin, and the name is used for its English connotations as a strange and foreign-sounding language. It is most often used by young children as a fun way to confuse people unfamiliar with Pig Latin.

Pig Latin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

Total voters 2

1 x French
1 x Spanish
1 x Standard German

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

Btw: Besides Standard German I also speak Alemannic German.
Alemannic German is spoken in Alsace in France, in Vorarlberg in Austria, in Liechtenstein, in German-speaking Switzerland and in my home region = the Black Forest region in Germany.

jayem · Feb 13, 2023

Red Gold said:
Question:

Is that the only language you speak besides English?

Pig Latin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I took a year of German in college. And I know a smattering of Spanish and French. But, as I’m sure you know, unless you use a language with some regularity, you lose fluency.

BTW, growing up, we lived next door to a Jewish family. Their son was my best friend. His grandmother, who was from the old country, lived with them. While she knew English, she often spoke Yiddish. I had no clue as to what she was saying, but--guttural as it is--I thought it sounded so cool. (That was partly why I took college German.)

There’s a funny saying about languages attributed to one of the old French King Louis’: He said he speaks French in his court, Italian to women, Spanish to his servants, Latin to God, and German to his horse.

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

jayem said:
BTW, growing up, we lived next door to a Jewish family. Their son was my best friend. His grandmother, who was from the old country, lived with them. While she knew English, she often spoke Yiddish. I had no clue as to what she was saying, but--guttural as it is--I thought it sounded so cool. (That was partly why I took college German.)

Yiddish is quite similar to may own variety of German..
Yiddish can be seen as a kind of Southwest-German dialect, sprinkled with Polish and Russian and Hebrew words.
And the German parts of Yiddish I can often understand easily.

MehGuy · Feb 13, 2023

I can't even speak English fluently, thanks to my language disorder.

Took some German classes back in the day. So I can pick up a little German. That's about it though.

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

MehGuy said:
Took some German classes back in the day. So I can pick up a little German. That's about it though.

Gut gewählt! Alles Gute!

Red Gold · Feb 13, 2023

Now 3 out of 5 say: Spanish

jayem · Feb 14, 2023

Some Spanish fluency will be helpful in the years to come.

If I were in college now, I’d take Mandarin Chinese. Like it or not, China will surpass the US in GNP sometime this century. I’m sure most business deals are still transacted in English. But, a business degree and Mandarin fluency, will look great on a resume. You’ll be highly employable.

Chesterton · Feb 14, 2023

I speak a language I made up for myself. I haven't named it. I haven't formulated any rules. It's improvisational. It's heavily based in my native English. I only speak it to myself. It transmits no meaning, except that it entertains me when I'm alone.

Okay, I just named it. I speak Trimecular Vastidian, named for a race of beings that I just made up too.

durangodawood · Feb 14, 2023

Im ok at American English.

My second language is British English which I speak at a tourist level. I could proudly ask a local for directions to the nearest chemist.

JosephZ · Feb 14, 2023

Magbissala ka makahati aku diki diki T'ngnga Sinama.
(I can speak and understand a little Central Sinama)

Yttrium · Feb 15, 2023

I'm not so good with languages. I can read most French, but I have a rough time putting together a spoken sentence, and I have a very hard time following what French speakers say (it usually sounds too mumbly and slurred together to me). I don't know much Japanese, but I can recognize and pronounce all the hiragana and katakana symbols.

dzheremi · Feb 16, 2023

Oh. I think I took 'fluently' to mean something different than you guys did, so I only voted for Spanish, since that's the only other language I was raised with (grandmother came from Mexico and made us learn it as kids). If we're just counting languages that we know in a general sense but might not be able to use with equal facility in all aspects of life, then I can add the other languages I know: Russian (6 years of formal study; used to be pretty good at it, if I may say so myself, but that was literally half my life ago), Arabic (kind of impossible to avoid in the Coptic Orthodox Church, plus I studied it in college), I guess Coptic (I understand it grammatically, but like almost everyone else my vocabulary is limited to what we are exposed to in the liturgy, since it's nobody's native language anymore). I've technically studied a ton more languages and can at least read and more or less pronounce several other languages (anything written in Slavic, Greek, Perso-Arabic, Ge'ez/Amharic/Tigrinya, Estrangelo or Madnhaya Syriac, or other scripts), but they were all more or less related to getting my degree (in Linguistics) or personal interest since, not things I've continued to study vigorously, like I had to when getting my degree. Like I just got a subscription to Duolingo from a family member and I decided to study French, mainly so that I can read the copious amounts of Eastern Christian material published in translation seemingly in French only, but so far...eh...I can say "the cat and the pizza", "Good night, Marie", and some other random nonsense.

Lost4words · Feb 16, 2023

I learnt English from my owner.

Red Gold · Feb 16, 2023

dzheremi said:
Oh. I think I took 'fluently' to mean something different than you guys did, so I only voted for Spanish, since that's the only other language I was raised with (grandmother came from Mexico and made us learn it as kids)

What did you take "fluently" to mean?

With " more or less fluently" I meant that it must not be perfect.

Red Gold · Feb 16, 2023

dzheremi said:
I guess Coptic (I understand it grammatically, but like almost everyone else my vocabulary is limited to what we are exposed to in the liturgy, since it's nobody's native language anymore).

Yes, it is a pity that Coptic has died out.

What languages do you speak more or less fluently?

What languages do you speak more or less fluently?

French

Italian

Spanish

Standard German

Portuguese

a Scandinavian language

Hungarian

Russian

another Slavic language

another language

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Naturalist

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Naturalist

Well-Known Member

A member of the less neotenous sex..

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Naturalist

Whats So Funny bout Peace Love and Understanding

re Member

Well-Known Member

Mad Scientist

Coptic Orthodox non-Egyptian

Jesus I Trust In You

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency