Languages

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I understand 8 written languages: Spanish, Catalan, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Dutch, and Danish. (I don't understand German, Dutch, and Danish all that well though.)

The funniest thing I can say in a foreign language would be "Tu pierdas sus pelotas?" In Spanish, this means "Lost your balls?" I was in a Spanish class in college when I came up with this phrase and went around asking people this. (We had to come up with a question and go around asking people to see if they understood.)

I studied Spanish for six years in school.

What about you? How many languages do you understand, what's the funniest thing you can say in a foreign language, and how long did you study your foreign language?

I speak English, Polish, French and Russian, although I allowed last two to rust. The fluency would come back to me if I were to go to French or Russian speaking country and had to use the language on a daily basis. I also learned German, but I am not really good at it.

I was learning English nearly uninterruptibly since I was 8 years old until I was 24. I haven't been to any English-speaking country before age 25. I learned French when I was 12-17 years old, and Russian - 11-19. I have never visited any Russian-speaking country. I was learning German when I was 18-21.

I also understand written and spoken Slovakian, to some extent. The language is so similar to Polish that Poles and Slovaks can converse each using their own language, provided that both parties speak slowly.

I would like to learn Spanish which is a very beautiful language. It is also very useful, especially in Texas where I live.

I used to be obsessed with learning languages. I learnt russian, german, french, swedish, latin and some japanese. My problem is that when my obsession changes I forgot so much of them. My german and french are still quite good though.

Im terrible with languages. I was taught French for 7 years and I've already forgotten most of it! I can do the basics but thats about it.

I can say 'Hello, my name is katie' in Hindi and i can write India in Hindi also.

I can count to 4 in Japanese.

I can count to 5 in welsh, and say goodnight, goodbye and F*** off- probably the strangest thing I have learnt to say!

I can understand and talk the following languages :
- French, my native language
- English, fluently. I started to learn English at seven and a half years old, when I was in the third grade, because the teacher wanted me to find something to do when I had finished my work so that I would not disturb the other kids.
- Spanish (a little)
- German (I understand written German a little but I do not speak it).
- Japanese (a little)
- Swedish (I just started it but it is one of the easiest languages I have studied)

Loy

I speak American by birth. I learned German in school, and though I am not fluent in it, I can understand written German fairly well.

Also, I have been told I can imitate any accent once I hear it. Thus I can "read" written Spanish, French, etc. rather well, even though I haven't a clue what I'm saying!

Wow, you polyglots. Apart from English, I used to read/write French fluently. No longer, though. Haven't practiced in ages.

There's only one language that I know and that's English. Tyipcal Anglo Canadian

I speak French and english quite fluently. I am able to speak German, but that's a bit difficult for me. I am learning Japanese and Esperanto, which is an artificial language. I would like to learn Arabic.

I only speak/write English, but I would like to learn French and/or Greek.

I speak english and my talking/reading level does not matched up with writing/spelling skills. College level reading/talking much less spelling/writing. Only use a pen for very short amount of writing. I do know a few words in other speaking modes but not much.

My first language is English, but I am currently in my 4th year of Spanish and have just started taking French and German at school.

i always wanted to speak the way people speak in norway (some of my fav bands are from norway)

I speak English (native) and Polish - I spent just over a year studying Polish in Poland itself.

This is the phrase I use and has featured in a comic I wrote: (not quite funny, merely a non-sequitur when taken out of context)

"Mowia, ze moge [wyjechac do domu], ale nie wiem kiedy. Minely dwa tygodnie odkad opuscilem wiezienie."

I use it in my current work when one character or other is having a delirious dream or speaking in tongues. It means "They said that I could [go home], but I don't know when - it's already been two weeks since I left prison." The character is speaking it in a dream discussion with his deity...a sort of prophetic vision in some respects. (On the day after the dream the character discovers the long wait to go home is over.) In fact it refers in a sense to today for me...and the date on which it was said in the comic seems to have resonance as well. Though I doubt my dream will come true .

Other languages - I am relatively well-read in Czech and Russian, but unfortunately when I try to speak either I lapse into Polish. I can read the Cyrillic alphabet more or less at the same speed I read the Latin alphabet, but have never tried to get by in more than pidgins of either language (off to Ukraine at New Year so maybe will try a little bit but my Russian is the language of Soviet films and "Krokodil" magazine so maybe not). You can get far in any Slavic language if you understand one - Polish and Czech/Slovak are indeed similar, since they are Western Slav languages, though Russian is more complex and the Yugoslav languages are a bit more difficult to fathom - although it may just be that the vocab in each case is always slightly different with the same words attaching themselves to slightly different objects, e.g. the word "godzina/hodina" in Polish/Czech means hour, but in Russian and Croatian "god" means "year"... so a mix-up could be quite entertaining. Similarly in Czech "postel'" means bed, but Polish "posciel" means bedlinen and bed is "lozko" (lit place to put yourself).

I also enjoyed telling my Polish friends what the word "Bog" - God - means in British English...

My native language is English; I studied Spanish for 4 years and can read it fairly well and speak it okay, my listening skills have never been wonderful. And I studied Russian for a year and didn't do so well in the class, but I still know how to read the Cyrillic alphabet and can understand some of it written and spoken. One of my closest friends is Russian and she'll give me Russian 'lessons' at random (meaning: she will start IMing me in Russian and I will muddle through as much as I can, then she gives me a translation).

My first language is English, but I've studied French and Ukrainian for over 10 years. Unfortunately I haven't retained much Ukrainian. I can understand French fairly well, but I'm not comfortable speaking in the language. I've also learned German for about 2.5 years now, I can understand the language fairly well, and have used it in my day-to-day life studying in Austria. I find the largest roadblock for me is that I have a great deal of anxiety for speaking in a different language. (Although I don't speak all that much when speaking English). If I could overcome this anxiety, I know I would have a great deal more success in learning new languages, because I already pick up so much just by being around the language.