Poll: Language

[Broady Brio]

English being my native tongue.

I can also butcher German.

 

[Agow95]

I only speak English, ironically enough I think you probably speak more Welsh than I do, I just struggle with it, most sentences are backwards, there are mutations, and, my welsh teachers can't speak fluent welsh themselves.

 

[MrShowerHead]

Finnish (Native)
English (Fluent-ish)

I would call my English average. Everyone from my family to my teachers keep saying I have "special English skills" but..Meh, I think they're simply easily impressed

 

[TheMann]

I'm from the UK, we don't speak other languages and prefer to make everyone else learn english.

I would have loved to learn a new language but they start them too late in the UK so most people are shit at them.

Yeah, same here is the US. By the time I got any sort of comprehensive course work in another language (Spanish) I was 14, which sets obne back a bit. Still, I live in California, so I've soaked up a bit of Spanish just from being here, though I'm very far from fluent, or feeling comfortable holding a conversation in it. I also taught myself a little Russian because I was bored, but that's even less accessible here.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Dutch - native
English - fluent (or so I'd like to think)
French and German - I can make myself understood without too much trouble
Frisian, Italian and Spanish - I can understand the general gist of what someone is saying.
(Ancient Greek and Latin - Some proficiency in translating texts )

 

[Patrick Buck]

I am from england, speak poor german, but enough to get by, and and doing french now.
So not so bad.
I also intend to learn welsh at some point, being half welsh.

 

[SodaDew]

I speak English, and a basic understanding of German.

 

[aden01]

German (native)
English (good enough i guess)
And some really unfriendly words in other languages.

 

[Xenowolf]

I'm from the UK, we don't speak other languages and prefer to make everyone else learn english.

I would have loved to learn a new language but they start them too late in the UK so most people are shit at them.

Yeah, same here is the US. By the time I got any sort of comprehensive course work in another language (Spanish) I was 14, which sets obne back a bit. Still, I live in California, so I've soaked up a bit of Spanish just from being here, though I'm very far from fluent, or feeling comfortable holding a conversation in it. I also taught myself a little Russian because I was bored, but that's even less accessible here.

14? Wow that's even worse than the UK. We normally begin learning a foreign language at about 9, usually French, (and at my school at least, either German or Spanish from 11), but until Key Stage 4/GCSE level (which begins at 14 and is when you choose which subjects to take until the end of compulsory education at 16, when you receive an overall grade for each subject based on all the exams and coursework you do until then), it's all just basic nouns and phrases based on certain subjects, you don't really learn much grammar or tenses or anything.

 

[Jonluw]

Swedish.

English, Finnish, Swedish and some French.

Tough question to answer.
I speak Norwegian, English and a little bit French.
However, since I speak Norwegian, I understand and speak both Danish and Swedish fairly well.

Swedish (I'm from Sweden)

When I saw your post, I thought of this....

Spoiler: Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian sound similar

And this:
Danish. Bah!

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

Being a Canadian citizen living in the capital city and so close the french speaking province I speak English and a fairly large amount of French. I wouldn't call myself fluent in French because since the mandatory classes stopped in my first year of High-school I haven't really needed to use the language and it's gotten worse over time. However, if I were to start learning it again I could easily be fluent within a short period.

 

[necromanzer52]

I've voted 4, but that really breaks down as:
Fluent - english.
Enough to get by - spanish & irish.
Can understand fairly well, but terrible at speaking - japanese.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Apart from a few phrases from other languages it shames me to say i can only speak English =[

If they let us choose what language we learn here in Scotland i'd probably have enjoyed it but as it was i got stuck learning French and i couldn't stand it. It seemed like all the most evil and sadistic teachers congregated towards French and so desired to make my life a living hell =[

 

[Carbonyl]

I can speak English, and a decent amount of Italian.
My grandfather is 101 years old, and he speaks 7 languages fluently: Yiddish, Polish, Russian, German, Spanish, English, Hebrew
Three languages enough to have full conversations: Italian, Latin, French
One language he knows enough to get around the country of: Greek
His job? Dressmaker.
I feel so inadequate next to him.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Wow, just 1.4% can match my five?
Guess it really does pay to have a huge knack for languages!

Good for you. How exactly does it "pay"? The languages I know are useless for all but bragging rights, and I don't tend to brag.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Wow, just 1.4% can match my five?
Guess it really does pay to have a huge knack for languages!

Good for you. How exactly does it "pay"? The languages I know are useless for all but bragging rights, and I don't tend to brag.

It pays to have the knack because that made it easy for me to learn several different languages.
Not all languages are useful all the time, but since I'm Dutch I *am* surrounded by the French, Germans and English speaking folk. Very nice to shop on eBay and communicate with the sellers abroad, if you want an example. Interviewing people for my job is another.

Japanese is just great since I love anime and manga, but not very useful in my daily life I admit

 

[Richardplex]

I can only speak english, but I can mostly/sort of understand/get the gist of french writing. Broken would be an underestimate of me trying to speak/type in it. I put down just one though, maintaining a conversation for up to 5 sentences doesn't really count.

 

[Guffe]

I speak Swedish, Finnish and English fluently
Living in Finland and having a Swedish-speaking Finn as a mother and a Finnish dad.
English comes from school, movies, books, tv, internet etc.
Speaking Swedish means I understand people from Norway and Denmark also.
I wish I hadn't been lazy during my age between 14-16 because I had the opportunity to start studying French and German at that age but homework wasn't too appealing so never got into it. (free choice to study it)

 

[Harkonnen64]

I'm from the UK, we don't speak other languages and prefer to make everyone else learn english.

I would have loved to learn a new language but they start them too late in the UK so most people are shit at them.

Sounds like good old 'Merica.

I know a few phrases of Spanish and can get the gist of a sentence if I have enough time to read it (from my time living along the Mexico border), but cannot hold a conversation in Spanish. That's why I'm majoring in English; because if I'm only going to speak one language, I figure I should speak it well.

 

[Puddleknock]

I really struggle with languages (dyslexia), so I can only just about manage English and that's it.

I've lived aboard twice and didn't pick up the local language either time. My time in China means I have a very basic grasp of the language and can say a little, but I wouldn't class myself as a speaker of Chinese. And during my time in the Netherlands I learnt exactly zero Dutch, there was little point as the the Netherlands is effectively an English speaking country!

I also had enough Japanese to get myself around Japan when travelling, but again like my Chinese it is very basic and I wouldn't really consider it speaking the language.