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Languages, How many can you speak? Only include languages where you know say at least 1000 words and basic knowledge of grammar.
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5%
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| Two |
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29%
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| Three |
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41%
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| Four |
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17%
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| Five or More? |
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5%
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Total Votes : 17 |
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| flintandtas |
 Posted: Aug 27, 2009 3:47 am |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 07 Jul 2009
Posts: 8414
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Just interesting to see how many languages people can speak here. I'm quite amazed at how well some of you seem to be able to speak other languages. For me, English is my natural language and I've been trying to learn Japanese now for a few years and while I am now starting to the hang of it now, I would still rate my abilities as extremely poor.
I also learnt French, German and Indonesian in high school, but would now struggle to remember more than ten words in those languages.
So, how about the rest of you? |
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| amouring |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 4:52 am |
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大好きだよ。
Joined: 24 Jun 2009
Posts: 220
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It's pretty cool to meet someone else who enjoys learning languages.  Since I'm studying to earn a major and career in linguistics, I myself can speak five languages including my native English and Spanish. I'm pretty fond of languages that have stemmed from the "Old World" and ancient civilizations, so I picked up Latin and Arabic from my last year of high school up to now (my junior year in college). I'm just now starting to learn Portuguese. I'm really hoping by the time I graduate and move on to graduate school, I'll be able to tackle the Extinct and Dead languages of the past.  |
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| mangomalte |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 5:17 am |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 10 Oct 2006
Posts: 3582
Location: Sweden
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i chose 4: Swedish, English, German and Japanese.
the languages i use the most and is definitely most fluent in is Swedish and English. i use both of them plenty every day, lately i've actually used more English than Swedish. i need to get out more, lol.
my German is pretty poor, although i've studied it for five years, very much of the grammar of that language is totally forgotten. though i do understand a lot, i make plenty of mistakes.
my Japanese is pretty poor, but with it being such a different language than the other ones i know, i feel that the knowledge i hold of it, though way worse than someone speaking it fluently, is sufficient for me to say that i'm able to speak it. which i am, i proved to myself the other week when i had a few Japanese guests over. though i have yet to take any classes in the subject, i have engulfed myself in the language the latest... hmm... 5 years, i think. and i quite enjoy it.  hopefully i'll be going to Japan maybe next year to visit my cousin and my brother who's going there in a couple of weeks to study there for a year.
i did say 4, but i guess i can top it with a few more.
with Norwegian and Danish being so close to Swedish, i understand those languages pretty well. Norwegian more so than Danish, i believe. whenever i speak with someone from either of those countries, i usually end up conversing in Swedish, though, seeing as they ought to understand me as much as i do them.
i've also studied Spanish for a year until i changed school and had to go back to studying German. my Spanish knowledge is therefore very low, and i can't understand much at all of it, especially since they speak so damn fast down there in southern Europe. 
the language that i know least of and still considered to put here is Korean. i know how to write hangul, and i know a few phrases and words, but that's about it. i don't even know how to count, haha. i checked out an article about the likenesses and differences between Japanese and Korean and learned a few grammatical stuff, but i still suck at it.
well, that's me. |
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| Koda |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 6:20 am |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 12318
Location: Still on Mars
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I voted for four: English, French, Tagalog and Japanese.
- Tagalog (a language of the Philippines for those who didn't know  ) is supposed to be my native language, but I moved to Canada at such an early age, I don't even have an accent anymore. I can understand what my parents are saying, except when they say some words that catch me off-guard. I can also speak it pretty well, but I sound weird because I don't have the right inflections anymore... 
- ...and because of that, I have to speak in English almost all of the time. Apparently, I have an accent...I don't think I do...
- I've been learning French for like every year I've gone to school, as it is a requirement in Canada. While I'm not fluent in French, I can still form sentences and understand what (Quebecois) French people are saying (not French-French because their vocabulary is different and they speak damn fast  ).
- I've been learning Japanese for like...a year now, and while I'm nowhere near good, I can pick up what people are saying and reply with some consistency. Although my grammar in Japanese is still pretty shmeh, I can understand like 60% of what people are saying...if only they would slow down when they talk  |
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| Rodri |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 12:12 pm |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 13481
Location: Quito, Ecuador
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I speak 4 languages too: Spanish, English, Italian and Japanese.
Spanish is my native language, and I studied English and Italian at school. I started to learn Japanese like 2 years ago.
I can also understand a lot of portuguese and french, since they're very similar to spanish and italian. |
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| Crystallas |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 12:16 pm |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 29 Apr 2008
Posts: 10763
Location: Germany
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| I can speak german, and I learn english and french at school. I try to teach myself japanese but I think i fail on it ... |
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| hitomi #1 |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 5:58 pm |
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PEACH
Joined: 17 Feb 2009
Posts: 1933
Location: On Ai's speed dial!
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Everyone seems so impressive with their language skills, I myself really just speak English and like a few of you, understand Japanese well, but not well enough,  have to realize only time and effort changes that. Even though I only know 1.6 languages, besides my regular job I work as an English tutor in small classes, my current class has 3 from Nepal, 3 from Burma, 1 from Thailand and 1 from Korea. So even though I can't speak languages all that well, I can communicate and teach others who know very little English, having students with so many backgrounds really prevents me from learning their language. I also can do some German, studied it in High School, can still read some, but forget about speaking. Perhaps we need some sort of learning Japanese thread if anyone knows a good way of setting one up that would help a few of us Bakas. Here's a interesting and helpful link, someone in hitomilove.com showed me this site, type in any English sentence and it will translate it into Japanese!
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/english/
幸運、皆
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| Koda |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 7:40 pm |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 12318
Location: Still on Mars
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| ^ I'm pretty sure there is a thread for learning Japanese somewhere on Ch-Ai... try searching through the older topics |
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| Rodri |
| Posted: Aug 27, 2009 8:01 pm |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 14 Mar 2007
Posts: 13481
Location: Quito, Ecuador
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^There's is a japanese learning thread on the Ai's Tranlation section
@hitomi#1: You should visit this site if you hadn't before :
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ |
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| flintandtas |
| Posted: Aug 28, 2009 4:56 am |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 07 Jul 2009
Posts: 8414
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| One of the best resources for learning Japanese is an old TV series Let's Learn Japanese, you can find most of the episodes on youtube, or you can get them all from this site. Also once you've learnt a bit you can also watch Erin's Challenge. |
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| sljinu |
| Posted: Aug 28, 2009 6:18 am |
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ユメクイ
Joined: 02 Aug 2007
Posts: 1203
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| I'd say I can only speak English though I can speak conversational Japanese and a little German. But since I'm not fluent in those and I don't believe that my ability is adequate enough to be considered as being able to speak, definitely just one language |
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| Yunchen |
| Posted: Sep 03, 2009 7:37 pm |
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恋愛写真
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 1242
Location: Germany
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well well...this is a nice topic
first of all: I LOVE languages! learning languages is one of the very few things which I'd actually call one of my talents... 
however, answering the question as to how many languages I actually speak...that's difficult XD
because the only language most of us can speak really fluently is our mother tongue, right? it's the same for me 
still, I'll just talk a bit about my knowledge of different languages 
first, my mother tongue...it's German and I'm glad it is, because, well...I wouldn't want to learn it...it's crazy! XDD
then there's Italian, because my father's Italian...even though it's one of my favourite languages, unfortunately, I can't talk fluently, but I do understand, like, 90%
I learnt English at school, for about 10 years, and now, I'm studying it at university...I understand quite a lot and rarely encounter problems when communicating (spoken or written, but writing is still a bit easier) 
I also learnt French at school, for 7 years, and am also studying it at university! to be honest, I don't like French all that much but since I'm not that bad at it, I don't want to forget it and my Italian is not good enough to replace French as a subject in my studies...unfortunately
of course, there's also Japanese - maybe even my favourite language - which I've been learning on my own (mostly through listening to spoken Japanese in doramas and music) for about 4 years...since last year, I'm also learning it at university this may sound a little conceited (sorry if it does ><), but my Japanese skills are something in which I really take pride...I often find myself amazed at how much I can already understand, most of it just because of what I've remembered over the years! still, I think that everyone who's really interested in the language and has a good memory can manage what I managed...and I myself still have a loooong way to go!
oh, I almost forgot Latin...I learnt it at school for 3 years and have some sort of certificate for it but yeah...I think I've forgotten a lot of it already...it's been more than 3 years, after all!
anyways...to conclude: German, Italian, English, French, Japanese, Latin XD
and I want to learn more! languages fascinate me 
my next challenge will be Korean! I know some words but I really want to study the writing system (Hangeul), vocabulary and grammar - I guess I'll do it on my own
after that..I'll probably challenge Spain...aaah, there's so many languages I want to learn
oops, this got long...but I just love talking about languages...I'm sorry |
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| tabou |
| Posted: Dec 02, 2009 2:01 pm |
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上塩タン焼680円
Joined: 09 Oct 2009
Posts: 365
Location: Finland
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i can speak three fluntely; finnish which is my native language, swedish and english. i know english better than swedish but if try to get interested i can speak swedish pretty fluently too lol. i've studied english for. hmm.. 13 years and swedish for 11.
i can also speal german remarkably considering i learned all of it from tv. i studied spanish too but i havent used it for some years so i have forgotten some. i also started on japanese but at that time i was too tired to get on the class after a long day at school so i dropped it, unfortunately 8( but in university, once they let me in, i will continue japanese and add chinese and korean in the mix too. oh and russian.
i guess i needa add also french german and spanish since im going to be a translator/interpreter. |
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| sakuraangel |
| Posted: Dec 03, 2009 1:58 am |
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クラゲ, 流れ星
Joined: 10 Feb 2007
Posts: 8011
Location: Canada
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I didn't vote because I know dialects and I don't always consider them different languages. The speaking style and terminology is different but the reading and writing are the exact same.
I speak English, Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. I'm a bit slow with Mandarin since I don't get a chance to speak it often. I can't read and write Chinese that well though. I probably can recognize roughly 1500 hundred characters now but if you told me to write without double checking the words, I could probably write about about 300-500 characters from memory. At the end of the day English is suppose to be my strongest language (though I type too fast and have horrible grammar so it doesn't always seem that way). I know more political and medical terms in English than I do in either Chinese dialects. I know quite a bit herbs terminology compared to the average Chinese-Canadian that pretty much grew up in Canada because of my up-bringing.
I know basic Japanese and French and can have simple conversations. My Japanese understanding is pretty good like most people here (although most people can read and write better than I can). I find myself watching J-dramas and animes raw now and can understand what is being said 70-80% of the time. If I actually had time and sat down a language program like "Rosetta Stone" I could probably pick up these two language along with Spanish pretty quickly. The reading and writing would take a lot longer than the understanding and speaking though. |
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| chokokokoa |
| Posted: Dec 03, 2009 6:04 am |
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恋愛写真
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 1480
Location: Indoneshia
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I can speak Indonesian, Japanese, and English.
My Japanese ability is still in improvement at the moment, but I know the basic well. I already passed 日本語能力試験 （Ｎｉｈｏｎｇｏ Ｎｏｕｒｙｏｋｕ Ｓｈｉｋｅｎ） or Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), but for the lowest level  , level 4, last year. This year, I forgot to register for level 3.  The test will be held next Sunday, 2009.12.6.
I also can speak Indonesian regional language, Javanese.
And I know a little of Southeastern Chinese dialect (not Cantonese), due to ancestry.
But, both language above isn't language of a nation, so I voted only 3.
To flintandtas, インドネシア語習ったことがあるね？１０言葉・・・Ｏ．Ｋ、日本語でもちろん分かるこの言葉、キミ：
Selamat
分かるんでしょう？
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