Seeing as language has been debated so much the last little while, I was wondering what other tongues my dear fellow forumites speak in?
I can babble in Thai, but cannot read it to save my life (unless I need to read or write my name) I can read French when I concentrate, but have a horrific time speaking it. I've been toying with trying to learn Norwegian... So far I can curse, with an appalling accent.
just wondering, it might be nice to be tentacularly molested in Swahili
I shall keep myself in oysters for the rest of the week, thank you very much.
I can read french if I have too, some spanish, mos latin based languages I can pick out the gist, but not very well
I know some Japanese, I've been toying with the idea of learning it again, I already know I can speak it well enough that locals don't notice I'm a dumb fucking foreigner unless they start talking fast to me
I used to know abou 60 kanji, and the stroke order for 20 of those
as well as all 192 Katakana and Hirigana charactors
Je peux lire et comprendre le Français, mais j'ai beaucoup de problèmes quand il est necessaire de parler ou ecrire la langue. Si tu parles Français avec moi, je peux comprendre, mais je ne peux pas repondre tout le temps.
I am at least conversationally fluent in American English, American Sign Language, and German and can read two of the three as well. I have a spattering of Flemish and Spanish and random bits and pieces of vocabulary of a half dozen other languages but couldn't be trusted to even attempt a conversation in them.
MistressMaggie wrote:Je peux lire et comprendre le Français, mais j'ai beaucoup de problèmes quand il est necessaire de parler ou ecrire la langue. Si tu parles Français avec moi, je peux comprendre, mais je ne peux pas repondre tout le temps.
Just get him to go slowly. Also, I found that having the radio on (even when you're not consciously listening to it) especially helpful.
Learning a language from a lover rocks, you can have some amazing sex when you need to communicate without language.
Enjoy
I shall keep myself in oysters for the rest of the week, thank you very much.
That's about my problem too. It's been too long since I've had to think in french or german. I've mostly lost them by now. Though I've found I can still read german (and occasionally dutch) pretty well. I don't even try at japanese anymore. I at one point had crammed into my head enough so I could get around as a traveller, but that was nearly 15 years ago now and my brain's been essentially shook up and left to settle since then. I occasionally surprise myself with a little bit of ASL. The language has a totally different structure from spoken english. It's just weird to every once in a while realize that I'm actually signing something as I say it.
The Cult of Surf'thulhuIya! Iya! Surf's up, dude! It's been said that in the event of nuclear holocaust, only two things on Earth are likely to survive: cockroaches and Keith Richards. --Frontline News.
I know a smattering of French(I used to be boardering on conversaional, but I've forgotten lot of it since high school) and I know quite a bit of Japanese(though, again, that's slipping since I stopped the college courses).
That's about it, really...
Think the Unthinkable,
Do the Undoable,
"F" the Ineffable,
And Unscrew the Inscrutable.
Now the big question is whether you're using English word order as you sign. One of my many joys, hanging around interpreters, is giggling inside every time I recognize ASL on the lips.
I speak a small smattering of spanish, mostly emergency level stuff like "Where is the bathroom?" "My name is" and "Please pass the nearest firearm" (Its an el-Salvador thing, I think) and I speak English fluently, including quite a few dialects.
I also speak a tiny bit of Latin and Italian, and can curse in quite a few languages.
I'm fluent in English and Bad English. I can read Spanish well enough, and speak it on a minimal basis, as long as I don't have to listen and respond. I want to brush up on the ol' Espanol, and go to Mexico this March.
I know snippets of several other languages, including:
Mandarin (I can tell a girl she's pretty, which always impresses them)
Slovak (which I should be studying much harder, but I can't find any good instructional materials that aren't through mail-order)
Romanian (very very very little)
I used to know a fair amount of Japanese, but have since forgotten it all, except for the word kioku. While I can't speak it, and never would want to, can keep up with Singlish, which is a strange linguistically amalgamated slang which is spoken by kids in Singapore. It makes one's brain bleed if one is exposed to it long enough.
I love language, and wish I knew more.
"Just because we're amateurs, doesn't mean our comics have to be amateurish." -McDuffies
a little bit of French (better with reading than trying to listen or speak it), a tiny amount of Japanese, and a few random words in Chinese and Polish.
I can also make out a small bit of Spanish because it's creeped into the local vernacular and the similarity to other Latin languages.
Also I can mostly pronounce German when reading it (except for those guttural 'R's), but I don't comprehend any other than a handful of words.
I have even been able to decipher a bit of Esperanto from time to time.
I speak English and a little Spanish. That's it. On the plus said, I learned at a young age so at least my pronunciation should be decent. Very poor vocabulary though.
Greek and Latin, though my Latin is probably not in any good shape at this point. It's been over a year since I've done any serious Greek too so that's probably also slipped, but I hold out hope for it.
I took four years of high school Spanish and I think I can remember about 50 words of it but every now and then I surprise myself and can understand more than I believe I really know. I guess it supports my favorite saying a bit: "I know everything. I just can't remember it all at once." ...or on command. Otherwise I think I've picked up a few words of French, Japanese, Russian and Latin just from using the internet and watching foreign films...so who knows how accurate all that is.
I used to be able to speak German but the last time i had any need of it was about 15 years ago. I think i could still ask where the bathroom is, tell them I am a foreigner and to speak slower, or if they could speak english. I can somewhat get the gist when reading German (I will glance at the newspapers in German when in a bookstore selling them). I want to learn Japanese, and possibly Arabic.
nik said @ 6:45pm on 2nd Oct [Score:1 Funny] - moderate/reply
If she's not got an octopus in her cunt, she's not really Japanese.
I've been learning Spanish for some time now, and I can get by when talking to a native speaker.
While I could never speak it or understand someone speaking it...I can sort of read Greek. I didn't even know I could until I went to Greece and I understood signs and menus and that sort of stuff. I know all the roots, and my grandmother taught me how to pronounce all the letters when I was small.
Although I don't know any other languages, I am very good at identifiying the language that someone is trying to speak.
I'm semi-decent at English, but I'm horrible at subtle implications made in conversation. And I only know the proper definitions for 1/4 of the words I know or have read. And I also only know the proper pronunciation for those same 1/4 words. I read *tons* more than actually getting out and talking to people.
I'm also decent at French and still know most of the common words/conjugations, just enough to get by if I'm totally lost. And I can speak it in a pretty good French accent too.
“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, ‘Holy shit! What a ride!’ "
~Mavis Leyrer
Iya! Iya! Surf's up, dude!
I read *tons* more than actually getting out and talking to people.
