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What foriegn language can you speak?


Spartan

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What language you can speak other than English (unless English is your second language), and to what degree? A few classes in primary/secondary school, some college courses, fluent, or however you care to classify it.

If your language is not listed then let us know!

I realized that some computers might not have the required charaters to display. So for clarification the order is as follows:

  • Italian

  • French

  • German

  • Spansih

  • Portugese

  • Dutch

  • Russian

  • Greek

  • Japanese

  • Other

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I took three years of Spanish in high school. I am somewhat fluent, although I could be much better at it.

I also have a limited ability to speak Dutch. I have picked up quite a bit from my grandparents the last few years. Forget writing it though! I can only speak it, and my grammar is pretty bad - they have a lot of silly irregular grammar rules like english does.

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Spanish is important for everyone to at least get a basic understanding of because of the changing demographics currently beginning. The Latino population has filled in the baby boomer gap from the 70s to the end of the century. Teach your kids if you can... it will make them much more marketable.

Also .. a prominent Chicago politican said that CHinese is another important language that we should be teaching our kids today.

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I have also heard that Mandarin Chinese is a good language to learn. However, that whole style of language can be very difficult to non-native speakers. I had Chinese one the list at first, but I dropped it for "Other."

oh, and i speak french alittle. apparantly i can speak it and write it and hear it and read it with proficiency. I would argue against that, but if it lets me pass, then thats cool.

In retrospect I should have taken Spanish. It would have been much more useful in this country. But if I ever go to Montr

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BTW you should of said Русский, not Русско... Русско isnt a word ;)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Aha! well tell that to the altavista/babelfish translator! I will go back and change that.

Here is what it gave me as a translation for "Russian"

По-русски:

Русско

But if you put your translation in there as russian to english it gives the correct translation. Weird. But like the thing says, its not a substitute for a human translator.

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Here in Miami, I grew up speaking both English and Spanish...

I realized I had a knack for languages, and I started learning French (and by extension I picked up a little Haitian Creole). After I started interacting with Deaf people, I began picking up American Sign Language. Currently I am learning and have become proficient in Portuguese (much easier if you know Spanish), and I can read German. I also have a fascination with Japanese, but I'm not fluent by any means.

Miami's a great place to practice languages! I use English and Spanish on a daily basis, but I also keep up with French with the many Haitians and our French-Canadian seasonal visitors... and the large Brazilian community helps me keep my Portuguese fresh!

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Haitian Creole is an interesting mix of French root words (and some borrowed Spanish and English), with west African grammar and verb structure. If there is a word that does not exist in Creole, the normal convention is to adopt the French word.

You only have to use the definite article (the), which is "-a", and when you do you attach it to the end of a word...

Verb conjugations are extremely simplified and you can change the tense of a verb simply by adding a word that changes the time... sort of like how "will" and "would" make English verbs future and conditional.

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Well....am South American so my native language is Spanish, hoping to learn italian. I know english because now everybody is learning english, for it is becoming the main world language. Seemingly spanish and french are competing for the second place, or later first place.

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Isn't Creole a mix between French and Spanish? I think it is based on French somewhat.

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I think this is an important bit of info that this conversation needs. This is what a creole is.

A creole is a language descended from a pidgin that has become the native language of a group of people. The majority of creole languages are based on English and other Indo-European languages (their superstrate language), with local or immigrant languages as substrate languages. Study of Creole languages around the world (in particular by Derek Bickerton) has suggested that they display remarkable similarities in grammar, lending support to the theory of a Universal Grammar; critics, however, argue that his examples are largely drawn from creoles derived from European languages, and that non-European-based creoles such as Nubi or Sango display fewer similarities.

Pidgins are rudimentary languages improvised by non-native speakers; when pidgins creolize, however, they develop fully-formed and stable grammar structures, usually as a result of the pidgin being natively learned by children. (see Nicaraguan Sign Language.) In some cases the group of people who speak such a language are called Creoles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language

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