|
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2010 23:35:08 GMT
Asking people how many languages they can speak often engenders questionable results -- a lot of people are braggarts and others are too modest.
So this is just a simple poll about extremely basic vocabulary. I am assuming that if you know 30 words of a language, you know a few basic numbers...1,2,3, maybe more numbers, yes, no, thank you, please, sleep, eat, where, when, water, chicken, beef.... just really a few things that might help you in the most extreme circumstances. Maybe you even know 40 or 50 words, but you don't speak the language and you can't make a sentence.
But those few words are enough to help you survive, especially when you speak one or two other languages.
Frankly, I am not a champion, because my vocabulary in quite a few languages is more like 10 words than 30.
Try to be honest.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2010 23:37:40 GMT
For me:
French English German Spanish Italian Arabic
If I am honest, I will stop there, although I can understand some Portuguese, Dutch, Vietnamese, Mandarin and mumble a few words. So my answer is 6.
|
|
|
Post by livaco on Feb 2, 2010 0:57:27 GMT
For me:
English French Spanish Swahili
(Maybe Italian, probably not anymore. Also I learned some Hindi but maybe not quite 30 words unless you count food....)
|
|
|
Post by lola on Feb 2, 2010 3:57:52 GMT
in descending order: English Spanish French German Italian Well, Latin I guess
The only one I can carry on any kind of a conversation in these days is English, though, and often not even that.
|
|
|
Post by cristina on Feb 2, 2010 4:42:49 GMT
English French Spanish French and Spanish are tied for vocabulary. French wins for grammar, though. Even if some might question my grammar... I was hoping to include German, until I realized I only knew 28 words. And although I know the proper Italian names for at least 30 food items, that will not help me find a bathroom or hotel room in Italy so I excluded Italian too.
|
|
|
Post by bazfaz on Feb 2, 2010 7:23:04 GMT
I am still struggling with English.
|
|
|
Post by happytraveller on Feb 2, 2010 11:49:29 GMT
Swiss German German English French Italian Spanish (About 50-100 words I can say, a lot more I can understand)
I bet some people will now say that Swiss German and German are the same language. But I can assure you that most germans would not have a clue what I talk about if I spoke Swiss German to them.
I understand a lot of dutch but can't speak any.
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Feb 2, 2010 12:50:02 GMT
Like Baz I am still struggling with the old mother tongue. The lady next to me on the tube this morning was making notes on her CV and as I swivelled my eyes into prime nosing position I saw the following under the languages section: English - Mother Tongue Italian - Fluent French - Fluent Chinese - Fluent Arabic - Fluent German - Beginner Made me feel a bit stupid, which I guess teaches me for snooping
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2010 13:08:46 GMT
I hate people like that!
|
|
|
Post by lola on Feb 2, 2010 15:26:22 GMT
I know lots of words; it's stringing them together that defeats me, esp if you need verbs and tenses and whatnot.
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Feb 2, 2010 15:52:32 GMT
That’s like my Spanish, my vocab is great, I just can’t put the words into any sensible order. That’s why my Spanish improves after a couple of wines; I stop worrying about getting the grammar right. By 3am I am usually fluent.
|
|
|
Post by happytraveller on Feb 2, 2010 16:25:50 GMT
That’s like my Spanish, my vocab is great, I just can’t put the words into any sensible order. That’s why my Spanish improves after a couple of wines; I stop worrying about getting the grammar right. By 3am I am usually fluent. I know that feeling... ;D
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2010 17:44:37 GMT
A lot of my isolated vocabulary is restaurant related. "Chicken?" "More red wine." Things like that.
|
|
|
Post by lola on Feb 2, 2010 18:22:59 GMT
Calvin Trillin wrote that he wanted to learn the Chinese for "I'll have whatever the people at that table are having."
|
|
|
Post by spaceneedle on Feb 2, 2010 19:02:14 GMT
Mine, in order of knowledge English French Spanish German and Latin, if that counts (I went to Catholic school) ;D
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2010 20:54:08 GMT
That's a lot of languages.
I just speak two fluently, and two others in small doses.
spaceneedle, like you my ex-husband was fluent in Latin too, and also because he went to a Catholic school (in Montreal).
So he was fluent in:
Latin French English Portuguese Spanish
and some Italian.
My dad was fluent in six languages, including Chinese (Mandarin), as he was raised in Hong Kong.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2010 21:37:29 GMT
Strange, since they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong...
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Feb 2, 2010 23:50:42 GMT
English Gaelic Latin French Japanese Swahili Spanish German (I forgot about Nepali)
|
|
|
Post by fumobici on Feb 3, 2010 0:36:57 GMT
My Italian has become serviceable, my French is bad but I can usually make it work, my Spanish is weak but I'm good at guessing and I can get by in English. I started German but it makes my brain hurt. Oh, and it turns out I can actually read Sicilian (which any Sicilian will tell you is its own language and not an Italian dialect). My father's wife sent me some wonderful Commissario Montalbano crime novels last week set in Sicilia and written in Sicilian and if I get stuck I can usually say the words aloud and connect them to an Italian equivalent. It seems the spellings are more different than the pronunciations.
I absolutely adore learning languages. At least romance ones that aren't too difficult.
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Feb 3, 2010 9:17:58 GMT
Umm I am not too bright in any language...I picked 1 above as I as thinking of ones in addition to my own language and then I realised that is wrong anyway as I can say French and Spanish. So it should have been 3. I really wanted to add Basque but I think its probably only about 20 words and as for getting by...apart from yes, no, please, thank you, hello, good bye and food items they are lots of random words like darling, butterfly, house, fountain and star which aren't really good for much
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 13:51:21 GMT
Some of the words that I counted are not only not very useful but not very nice at all, like 'zob' in Arabic.
|
|
|
Post by tillystar on Feb 3, 2010 14:47:24 GMT
I had to google zob I don't know if its just me but I find the words I always learn first are food and the not very nice words
|
|
|
Post by lola on Feb 3, 2010 15:07:49 GMT
The only German word my husband knows is "scheise."
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 15:21:05 GMT
That's part of my vocabulary, too.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Feb 3, 2010 16:40:09 GMT
French, English and Italian fluently. half-decent Spanish, still-rather-painful German but vocabulary many times what Kerouac demands. I have the problem of learning German mostly by reading, a bit of listening to websites and recordings, some writing to patient German-speaking friends. Not enough opportunity to practice here, so I can read complex articles on the concept of time and the environmental crisis but hesitate speaking on the phone. A Viennese friend who lived in Toronto for 30 years - interrupted by some forays as an architect at the German Legoland - has moved back "home" and is speaking full-on Viennese now. Unlike Swiss German, it is not considered a separate language, but is rather disconcerting. Especially over the phone.
The other languages I know at least 30 useful daily words in are Dutch and Portuguese.
I took courses in Arabic at university and at community centres. I'm sure I know well over 30 words, from vulgar words like "zob" and far worse to Muslim religious concepts, but I've forgotten too much daily vocabulary. Those kitschy little lessons about "buying fruit at the market" are actually useful. I look back at my lesson books; since I'm a visual artist my calligraphy is beautiful, but I've also forgotten a lot of written words. Would like to have time to get back to Arabic, but I've had to study European languages for more practical reasons. I can't reasonably be able to work in Arabic before I'm too old.
I really urge younger people to learn at least one major language that is not of European origin. Tillystar, which spoken Chinese language do you speak? Yeah, I'm jealous of that and Arabic.
Had just sent an e-mail to a friend in Paris who was born in Brazil to Jewish Viennese exilees; he speaks at least 12 languages with decent fluency but he is rather a phenomenon in that respect, and not just because he grew up speaking German and Portuguese.
happytraveller, it is always controversial whether certain tongues are languages or dialects. Do people also write in Swiss German? (I'm thinking literary works). The Swiss newspapers I've read are in standard German, of course there are some differences such as ss rather than ß and I think there are more loadwords from French, but those don't seen any more different than a French Swiss text would be with regard to one from France (numbers etc).
There is no problem for people from France or other French-speaking countries to understand our TV or radio broadcasts, read books or newspapers or understand educated speakers here, but I could see people from elsewhere in the French-speaking world having considerable problems understanding some rural or less-educated people who speak "joual" (full-on working-class or rural Québécois French).
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 17:37:06 GMT
Strange, since they speak Cantonese in Hong Kong... Ooops, yes, Cantonese, rather. I was always fascinated when he wrote in Chinese.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2010 17:38:47 GMT
Some of the words that I counted are not only not very useful but not very nice at all, like 'zob' in Arabic. The amount of swear words I know in French are quite embarrassing.
|
|
|
Post by happytraveller on Feb 4, 2010 8:05:16 GMT
happytraveller, it is always controversial whether certain tongues are languages or dialects. Do people also write in Swiss German? (I'm thinking literary works). The Swiss newspapers I've read are in standard German, of course there are some differences such as ss rather than ß and I think there are more loadwords from French, but those don't seen any more different than a French Swiss text would be with regard to one from France (numbers etc). Oh no it is much more different than French and Swiss French. Swissgerman is officially not a written language, (even though it exists) you are right, all newspapers are in high german. We've had this discussion on an other forum and I started writing some sentences in swiss german and the germans had no clue what I was talking about. Of course some words are similar, even identical, others are completely different and we structure the sentence a bit different. I have realised that some germans think they can understand swiss german, not realising that they hear swiss germans speaking GERMAN, with a swiss accent though. Quite funny ! ;D
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2010 8:22:02 GMT
I have heard that Swiss-German is quite close to Alsatian, but I don't know how close...
|
|
|
Post by happytraveller on Feb 4, 2010 9:51:21 GMT
It is closer to the dialect they speak in the black forest, they can usually understand us.
|
|