Who speaks the most languages here?

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I was wondering which of you are fluent in the most languages.

I personally am only fluent in one,English. But Im learning German and am nowhere near fluent yet. I have been pracitcing for over a year and I know I don't practice enough...
My goal is to be fluent in atleast russian,French,Latin,German,Italian.


What languages do you all speak and are fluent in? List them.

I don't know if this thread has been posted before,If it has let me know..Thanks.

[Tanja]

Whenever someone mentions languages, i think of my late stepather, who died about died two and a half years ago - he was fluent in about 10 languages, he was absolutely amazing. His mother tongue was Dutch, he spoke perfect English, French and German, and very good Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish and Danish. He certainly learned very good Croatian (considering he only met my mother when he was in his late fifties), and I am pretty sure he knew some Indonesian, and certainly Latin and Ancient Greek.
He obviously had an excellent career as an interpreter, and was a walking dictionary.
He was also crazy about sport, and would always know things like who scored the goal in the last minute of a match in the second round of a World Cup some fourty years ago...
I speak Croatian and English, rusty French and very basic Dutch.

[fishbob]

I grew up in Texas. I can almost speak English.

[Zep]

When I'm pissed, I find I can magically speak Swahili fluently. Unfortunately, there are usually no others who speak the same dialect as me nearby. Which is why I have to try and shout from my position lying on the floor...

[Soapy Sam]

Yo, Bwana Zep! Habari gani?

Bits of English, French and German.

[Donks]

I can and do butcher Spanish, English and French, usually at the same time.

[tkingdoll]

I speak Jive.

[Flo]

This book on multilingualism (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140159517/104-4102581-4794330?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance) states that almost nobody on Earth is an absolute monolingual speaker, on account of being in contact with speakers from other languages in all kinds of circumstances. Surprisingly, it appears that people from poor countries are the most "adept" at speaking several languages, due to the fact that they usually learn a mother tongue spoken by a small community, which is rarely the official language or the one that would allow them to communicate with other social or ethnic groups. For example, a Cameroonese's mother tongue might be Douala (a Bantu language), plus French or English (official languages of the country), some other Bantu dialect from a neighbouring town or province, maybe some Peul if he's trading with Nigeria or Chad, and some Arabic. Maybe only 2 of those languages will be mastered at a level surpassing mere functionnal communication.

(I'm fluent in French, English, and German, and can read and speak passable Japanese, Italian and Spanish. Nothing remarquable, growing up and living in a country with 3 official languages and in a city where 160 nationalities coexist - Geneva - help a lot.)

[c4ts]

I took Latin in high school, spent two years learning Ancient Greek (conversational, or whatever form Plato and Aristotle were using), I know a little ancient Hebrew and some Egyptian heiroglyphics, or at least enough to sound out the words. But I don't speak any of them.

[malbui]

I'm fluent in French, English and German, reasonably good in Irish (I spoke it a lot as a child and have retained fair chunks of it), and am decent in Italian. None of this is hugely impressive - it's just a question of what I was surrounded by growing up and following my studies. I was seriously impressed by one of my tutors as an undergrad, though, who had spent his career doing bursts of linguistic research in a number of countries and was happy to switch into any one of ten or eleven languages at a moment's notice. His courses on comparative linguistics were the best part of my studies.

There is, of course, a corollary to language skills, which is that some of us have very little to say. I'm an infrequent poster because although I can express my thoughts in several languages, I rarely have any thoughts worth expressing.

[Ed]

Esperanto.

[headscratcher4]

I speak at least 17 "dead" MezoAmerican languages, and 7 Erdu dialects...though there is usually a large quantity of dark rum involved.

[CFLarsen]

I speak in tongues.

[Chaos]

I can be silent in at least 100 languages. Maybe more, I´m not yet done testing.

[Patricio Elicer]

I speak in tongues.LOL!, :p :p , you beat me to it.

Anyway, I also speak in tongues, but mine is different from yours :D

[Hawk one]

Native language (Norwegian) and English is what I posess. I can also speak Swedish fairly well, and can easily read Danish (nobody can easily listen to Danish, though. At least not until they decide to take out the potato they place under their tongue each morning)

[Marquis de Carabas]

I speak two languages--English and Blasphemy--fluently. I know a smattering of inappropriate words in many more languages, and am fairly well-versed in a number of rude gestures from around the world.

[Kiless]

I can speak teenager. Very useful.

[JLam]

What do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual.

What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual

What do you call a person who only speaks one language? American.

:p

[Hawk one]

I can speak teenager. Very useful.

And Kiless shows her woo side.

No parent has ever been shown to speak Teenager. Plenty of deluded people think it, but it is considered a paranormal event, eligible for the Million Dollar Challenge. :D

[Kiless]

What do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual.

What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual

What do you call a person who only speaks one language? American.

:p

I used a variation of that on an exam once...

[Smike]

I cn tlk txt ;)

[BillHoyt]

LOL!, :p :p , you beat me to it.

Anyway, I also speak in tongues, but mine is different from yours :D
One would hope your tongue is different than Claus', but, hey, that's me.

[Anti_Hypeman]

Tlhlngan Hol Dajatlh'a'

[Jorghnassen]

A mere two. Though I took some latin back in secondary school (I don't remember much), and have watched enough subbed anime to identify a handful of japanese words, and I know maybe 3-4 very short sentences in cantonese...

[Soapy Sam]

Quando si va ad accompagnare al cimitero un povero defunto, non sta bene portare una pistola in tasca.
Capisco, rispose don Camillo. Avrei dovuto infilarla in una manica, più a portata di mano. -Malbui

Let's see:- "When you accompany a poor deceased to the graveyard, it's bad form to carry a handgun"

"I know", answered Don Camillo, "But I'd carry it in my sleeve, not in my hand."

I guess the other speaker would be The Christ?
It's years since I read Guareschi. I must do so again. Great stories. <!-- / sig -->

[SGT]

My native language is Portuguese. I speak quite well French, English, Spanish and Italian.

[malbui]

Quando si va ad accompagnare al cimitero un povero defunto, non sta bene portare una pistola in tasca.
Capisco, rispose don Camillo. Avrei dovuto infilarla in una manica, più a portata di mano. -Malbui

Let's see:- "When you accompany a poor deceased to the graveyard, it's bad form to carry a handgun"

"I know", answered Don Camillo, "But I'd carry it in my sleeve, not in my hand."

I guess the other speaker would be The Christ?
It's years since I read Guareschi. I must do so again. Great stories. <!-- / sig -->Not bad. I think Don Camillo's reply was that he should have put the gun in his sleeve as it would be easier to get to. Wonderful stuff, though, from my favourite writer and the man who inspired me to learn Italian just to read his stuff in the original.

[Ceritus]

01001001011100110111000001100101011000010110101101 1000100110100101101110011000010111001001111001

[malha111]

I speak Swedish, a rather good English, and I can sound like a dane.

[mac]

I speak French and English fluently, butcher Spanish, read Italian, and I can buy tickets and tell time in German. Nobody mentioned signing - anybody do that here?

[Ceritus]

I can sing in binary! In any language, I just need to refresh my knowledge on two words in any language for brief second before I attempt it though.

[cgordon]

Fluent? Barely in one ...

However, I can curse, order food and drink, find the toilet, chat up a pretty woman, obtain shelter and transportation, and complain about the weather in German and Spanish.

To a lesser extent, I can do the same in French, Czech, Polish, Greek and a couple other dialects of the above listed languages.

The downshot to being able to speak those languages badly is that I can get quite confused when groping for the right word ...

[Euromutt]

My native language is Dutch, but I've been effectively bi-lingual in English from the age of five. I also speak French and German well, Russian not very well (I've got a decent grasp of the grammar, but my vocabulary is lacking), and I know phrasebook amounts of Spanish, Italian and Serbo-Croat. I took Latin and (ancient) Greek in secondary school, but those skills have atrophied to the point that I can only dissect familiar phrases.

[Freakshow]

English, C, C++, and a little VBScript and Perl. So I guess that's 5. Although, I am hardly fluent in any of those but English. I'm not a programmer for a living. I'm an IT security guy that understands how to read code and write little apps here and there to help me get the job done. Big difference.

[Jorghnassen]

Programming languages don't count (otherwise I'd have listed the half-dozen I partially remember).

[Freakshow]

Programming languages don't count (otherwise I'd have listed the half-dozen I partially remember).They don't? :eek: I will not tolerate this discrimination against silicon-based life forms. :mad:

[Chaos]

English, C, C++, and a little VBScript and Perl. So I guess that's 5. Although, I am hardly fluent in any of those but English. I'm not a programmer for a living. I'm an IT security guy that understands how to read code and write little apps here and there to help me get the job done. Big difference.

In that case... German, English, Basic (three distinct dialects), Pascal, and some Latin, SQL and Java.

[Jorghnassen]

OK, you made me do it.

C/C++, Pascal, Java, Scheme, Fortran, two assembly languages (can't remember which ones) and some Basic. Oh yeah, Matlab and R as well (though those are specialized).

[Tanja]

and I know phrasebook amounts of Spanish, Italian and Serbo-Croat.

Zdravo, Euromutt. Kako si naucio srpsko-hrvatski?

[Euromutt]

Zdravo, Euromutt. Kako si naucio srpsko-hrvatski?I used to work for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Between handling documents in "B/C/S" ("Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian," as the Tribunal calls it) and hanging with co-workers from the former Yugoslavia, I picked some up. But while I can understand a fair bit of it in writing, I lack the active grammar skills to construct sentences and am pretty much restricted to standard phrases (such as "Gdje kolodvor/stanica?" and "Ja bih kavu, molim.").

Add to that that I've been learning Russian lately, and if I were to get into Serbo-Croat again, I'd just get horribly confused.

[1984]

Can anyone speak Arabic? I'd like to be able to say...

"(I testify) there is no God, and I am my own prophet"

[Tanja]

I used to work for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Check your PMs, Euromutt.

[Soapy Sam]

1984- Kitten speaks Arabic.

[Chaos]

1984- Kitten speaks Arabic.

So do Garrette and (IIRC) Hutch. It´s in one of the recent threads in the TAM subforum.

[kevin]

I speak, and can almost write, english. a handful of programming languages (perl, C, FORTRAN, 6502 Assembler, early versions of x86 assembler, etc...) plus the coolest programming language: FORTH -- you gotta hand it to a language that has no variables.

[geni]

Glad to see no one has listed 133t.

I speak southern english can understand yorksire.

[Ceritus]

l337z0r 15 T3H r0x0rs

[Jorghnassen]

Don't you people mean 1337? N00bs...

[rjh01]

It is my job to read, write and understand COBOL and TELON (I am sure no-one else here even knows what that is) at a professional standard. I can also understand Cool:Gen (another obscure programming language).

I also can just read and write English, Australian, Yorkshire and American.

[billydkid]

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., English is my second language. Unfortunately I don't have a first.

[Freakshow]

OK, you made me do it.

C/C++, Pascal, Java, Scheme, Fortran, two assembly languages (can't remember which ones) and some Basic. Oh yeah, Matlab and R as well (though those are specialized). OK, you can count assembler for me, too. Its something I can read, but wouldn't have to/want to actually write code with it. So I didn't really think of it. But it is important for understanding buffer overflows, doing some debugging, or understanding some reverse-engineering.

[boeingJr]

norwegian, english, and given a few days of practice, I can do a good german as well. swedish and danish are readable and mostly understandable.

also, these incorrectly spelled words of wisdom should be of interest:

ei sa peittaa -- hætta
breidid ekkert a offnin

[stup_id]

Coming from north Mexico, i can speak spanish, mexican and english ( i can even speak texan :P), also french, italian, i'm learning german and i can understand portuguese... I need to live another 20 years at least to complete the list of languages i want to learn :( thanks for the midnight depression :P

[Anti_Hypeman]

I speak Boomhauer

[Hutch]

..and (IIRC) Hutch. It´s in one of the recent threads in the TAM subforum.

I can say "Hello, how are you" and "Fine, how are you", "Thank you" and "As god/Allah wills it" in arabic.

Strangely enough, you can get pretty far with that vocabulary.

But Kitten or Garrette are your better bets.

[Cleon]

Spoken:

English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Yiddish (in descending order of fluency)

Computer:

C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, Basic, Perl, tcl/tk, shell scripting (bash and c-shell), Java, PHP, Forth (though it's been a few years), Progress 4GL, SQL (several flavors), and a number of others I can't think of off the top of my head.

[bruto]

Alas, I'm stuck with English, though I can still read French haltingly and once could read Latin pretty well. This thread reminds me of an old Philosophy professor I knew. He'd grown up in Russia, speaking Russian, French and Yiddish, and of course he learned Latin in school. Later he emigrated to Germany, so of course he picked up German, and being a philosophy student, Greek. I think along the way he picked up a bit of Italian as well, and then came Hitler, so he ended up in the United States, speaking English. I think that's the bulk of the languages, though he might have had a couple more in his quiver. He said it wasn't too hard to keep them straight, but he could always tell when he was getting tired when he started defaulting to Latin.

[PixyMisa]

C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, Basic, Perl, tcl/tk, shell scripting (bash and c-shell), Java, PHP, Forth (though it's been a few years), Progress 4GL, SQL (several flavors), and a number of others I can't think of off the top of my head.

Yay Progress!

All of those (though I haven't used TCL or Forth much), plus Modula 2, Ada, APL, Python, Pike, Postscript, Logo, Assembler (6502, 6809, Z80, x86, 68000), Javascript, and sundry macro languages that I would sooner forget.

And English, some German, and random bits of Japanese.

[mroek]

I am fluent in 10 languages, Norwegian and English. In addition I can do a reasonable Swedish, possibly also Danish. My German is passable on a good day, and given enough time I can read some Dutch, since it resembles Norwegian.

And as a computer programmer I count in binary, in case you hadn't noticed.... :-)

[Cleon]

Yay Progress!


Progress rules. My first job out of college, lo these six years past, was working for PSC as a WebSpeed developer. I also did my share of character, GUI, and SDO development.

I was very impressed with Progress' overall product; I left as business became scarce and it become disappointingly obvious that they had neither the intention nor the ability to really market the product. To this day they seem content with the tiny niche market they've created for themselves. (Which is really unfortunate--they could give Oracle a run for their money if they were at least SOMEWHAT aggressive.)

[Gerard]

My mother language is Dutch. I can speak Gronings, a dialect somewhat related to old English as it is a Saxon dialect. I understand some Frisian. I am fairly fluent in German and English. Then of course there is basic but I never get to use that anymore. Anyone who speaks Dutch and German can also follow Jiddish and Afrikaans fairly well.

Gerard

[PixyMisa]

I was very impressed with Progress' overall product; I left as business became scarce and it become disappointingly obvious that they had neither the intention nor the ability to really market the product. To this day they seem content with the tiny niche market they've created for themselves. (Which is really unfortunate--they could give Oracle a run for their money if they were at least SOMEWHAT aggressive.)

Yep. Brilliant product, but they have absolutely no idea what to do with it. It's gotten to the point where I wish Microsoft would buy them.

[Cleon]

Yep. Brilliant product, but they have absolutely no idea what to do with it. It's gotten to the point where I wish Microsoft would buy them.

Ouch. Let's not be hasty--if Oracle bought them, at least Oracle would try to sell Progress, or integrate it into their product. Microsoft would just kill it.

[EatatJoes]

I am almost fluent in English. I can butcher Spanish quite well and that's with 10 years of classes in both high school and college. Oh and I've improved my ability to understand the growls of death metal.

[Skeptic]

LOL!, :p :p , you beat me to it.

Anyway, I also speak in tongues, but mine is different from yours :D

Must... resist... obvious.... jokes....

[JMA]

My native language is French, I speak English and I'm learning Japanese. But that last one is not so easy. Well, talking is not that difficult. The hard part is learning to read Japanese...

[Wudang]

It is my job to read, write and understand COBOL and TELON (I am sure no-one else here even knows what that is) at a professional standard. I can also understand Cool:Gen (another obscure programming language).

I also can just read and write English, Australian, Yorkshire and American.
You would be wrong. The major application I worked on for a few years was developed in TELON for a while then de-Telonised shortly before I joined the company. I can usually recognize it by the 1 line sections which are perform statements for another 1-line section. For a while I thought it was some form of post-modernist irony thing, then I realised it was what we technical people refer to as crap (or perhaps the way it was used which is a very distinct possibility) as most of the COBOL was crap as well.
I am fluent in english, scots and yorkshire. Passable French though it takes me ages to parse a spoken sentence. Any place I go on holiday I try to learn "please" "thank you" "hello" "another beer" and so on.
Lots of programming languages to various degrees from "manual propped open" to "write it in my sleep".