What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

I think it would be interesting to know the languages spoken or at least understood by 2p2ers. You can qualify yourself, as in good, pretty good, poor, etc

For me just 2, Spanish and English:

Spanish: Speak, read and write; excellent

English: Read, pretty good; write, good; speak, fair.


Anecdote: I remember while travelling by train between Florence and Rome to have a decent conversation with an Italian guy, I don't speak Italian, he didn't speak Spanish or English, but since Italian and Spanish are alike, we could talk during the trip (of course, mixing some spanish and English word, here and there). I remember also my frustration while in Moscow, to try to get some information from the locals was a real PITA; hell, I couldn't even read the stops on the subway system, since they use a different alphabet.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

Is pretty good better or worse than good? If it's worse, I've never understood how someone could be better at writing than they are at reading.

English: read, excellent; write, mediocre; speak, very good.
Mandarin Chinese: speak, poor; can't read or write.
Cantonese: speak, poor; can't read or write.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English - Read, write, and speak fairly well.

Spanish - speak well, read ok, write very little.

Italian - speak well, don't read or write.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

I don't understand how you can speak a language well and not be able to read or write it. (other than the Asian languages or ones with different alphabets)

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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I don't understand how you can speak a language well and not be able to read or write it. (other than the Asian languages or ones with different alphabets)

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I speak Spanish, but don't write it. I suppose I could write everything phonetically to get my point across, but it would be similar to a smart fourth grader's skills.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: speak read and write very well
Russian: speak read and write very well
Spanish: speak fluent but with mistakes, read ok to not so good, write ok to not so good

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: Native
Japanese: speak - well; read - well; write - fair to poor

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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I don't understand how you can speak a language well and not be able to read or write it. (other than the Asian languages or ones with different alphabets)

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Children know how to speak well before they learn to read or write. An adult learning a new language basically goes through the same process as a child.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

Danish: speak, write and read fluently
English: speak good, write decent, and read excellent
Spanish: speak bad, write ok, understand decent.
Swedish/norwegian: can't speak nor write, but understand it.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: Fluent
Spanish: Can get my point across, but use poor grammar, etc
German: Poor, but get by
Japanese: Barely remember any now (getting crowded out by German), guess I can still order in restaurants and ask directions

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

All,

This will be more interesting if you explain how/why you know these languages.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: Native language
Spanish: Three years of high school classes, can speak, read and write some but far from fluent
French: One semester of community college, can speak read and write some but far from fluent
Finnish: From some books and audio learning programs, can speak and read a little

Living in SoCal gives my Spanish some practice, and regular business trips to Europe do the same for French and Finnish.

I'd like to learn Italian and German and then I'd be done except for attempting to increase fluency.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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All,

This will be more interesting if you explain how/why you know these languages.

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Yes, probably it would be good to know where are you from or where have you lived?

BTW, I'm a native from Mexico, living in the States for many years now.
I have always had a problem with speaking English, since I consider it pretty illogical (with respect to Spanish).

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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English: Native language
Spanish: Three years of high school classes, can speak, read and write some but far from fluent
French: One semester of community college, can speak read and write some but far from fluent
Finnish: From some books and audio learning programs, can speak and read a little

Living in SoCal gives my Spanish some practice, and regular business trips to Europe do the same for French and Finnish.

I'd like to learn Italian and German and then I'd be done except for attempting to increase fluency.

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I would consider this not knowing anything but English. You might be able to say you are a Spanish beginner unless you were some super high school student that learned a ton and practiced a lot.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

I'm a native English speaker. I've lived in Argentina for 8 months now and have studied Spanish for somewhere around 200-250 hours with a private teacher in that time. Also 4 years in school.

I can read Spanish at a very good level, only caught up by new words I haven't encountered yet (maybe 3-5 per newspaper article or similar). I read my daily news in Spanish as often as possible.

I can write Spanish at a good level but not nearly as good as I can read. I can speak at a good level that is far from fluent but allows me to take care of my daily business in Spanish and hold decent conversations in Spanish as long as they don't stray into too complex of topics.

I can read and understand Danish at a beginner level. I can speak like a child who has a small vocabulary. Lived in Sweden for 6 months or so with a Danish girlfriend and some Danish friends.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

speaking italian but not being able to read italian is an absolutely insane idea to me. basically everything is spelled as it is pronounced and vice-versa.. in other words there are rules and every word adheres to them. nothing like the english through, rough, cough etc.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

sirio,

English - fluent

various Hindi dialects - fluent speaker, can't read or write (family is Indian)

Norwegian - lived there for 5th-7th grades, was totally fluent, but don't get to practice much now. I'm sure I could become fluent within a month or two. Can understand other Scandinavian languages based on that.

Spanish - could read/write fluently, and was conversational in speech. Takes me a few days in Mexico/Spain to get back up to speed.

Italian - am able to communicate in Italian, but can't hold a natural flowing conversation. If I try that, half of it becomes me speaking Spanish with an Italian accent.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

i am learning Vietnamese now. depending on whether you are talking to an older man, an older woman, a younger woman, or a younger man, you have to change the word for 'you'. i am hoping that there is actually a word for 'you' and they just want me to learn this way first. When memorizing words, i have found myself associating the Vietnamese word with a Thai word instead of an English word. my difficulty right now is that I keep mixing Thai words with the Vietnamese.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

Swedish(native): fluent

English: fluent - read it since 4th grade in school and also watching alot of TV and of course the internet.

Danish and Norwegian: can understand it in writing and speech like most Swedish people.

German: can get by in germany. - read it in school but I was a filthy slacker back then so most didn't stick with me

oh El D so you and spicyf talking in Swedish then ;D god old frank, I wonder what he's up to these days, haven't spoken to him in a while.

Yay my 1000 post is how poor I am at languages.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English(native) - fluent

French - I could easily survive in any francophone country thanks to ~6 years of schooling . I can speak pretty well, read very well and write pretty well too. Obviously I don't know all of the grammar or vocabulary, but I can get by just fine. I'm starting to do some more stuff with it though so that I can get to being as close to fluent as possible

Spanish - I speak very little and can't write, but can understand a surprising amount of it, similar to sirio's Italian story, but I'm definitely not conversational. I do want to learn this language next though.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

I am fluent in 3 languages: English, Spanish, and Klingon.

Although I have never tried, I understand that Spanish is close enough to Portuguese, and maybe even Italian that I could hold a basic conversation with people in either of those languages, although obviously not as well as if we both knew the same language.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English (native) - fluent

Ancient Greek - Took 7 years from high school into college. Could translate fairly quickly with a lexicon when doing 2 hours a night. You never really learn to speak it conversationally...never understood that...

Latin - Similarly, about 5 years from high school into college. Not as fun as Greek; also, don't speak it much these days. Romans are fairly reclusive.

Spanish, French, Italian - I can often pick out various words and general meaning from the Latin background; Spanish and Italian definitely being easier.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English, Lithuanian, Spanish. Fluent in all three.
Parents Lithuanian, born and raised in US, took 6 years of spanish in school.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

native english speaker.

i am probably fluent in french, but i hardly ever use it anymore so i am not 100% on that. i understand everything i read with no problem, but i have to think about what i'm writing. conversationally i'm pretty good i think. i took seven years of it in school and also lived in paris for a short while.

my spanish is alright. i can have simple conversations with most spanish speakers and can understand most of what i read. writing is a different matter. i learned this mostly from books and from living with a girl from puerto rico and dating a girl from mexico.

i speak a little russian thanks to a russian ex-girlfriend who indulged me when i'd ask her to teach me words. reading/writing is hopeless.

i speak a little gaelige thanks to a grandfather who never learned english.

i know enough cantonese to know when cantonese speakers are talking [censored] about me and to buy/sell things. this is mostly from living in vancouver and eating at a ton of restaurants where no english is spoken.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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English: Native language
Spanish: Three years of high school classes, can speak, read and write some but far from fluent
French: One semester of community college, can speak read and write some but far from fluent
Finnish: From some books and audio learning programs, can speak and read a little

Living in SoCal gives my Spanish some practice, and regular business trips to Europe do the same for French and Finnish.

I'd like to learn Italian and German and then I'd be done except for attempting to increase fluency.

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I would consider this not knowing anything but English. You might be able to say you are a Spanish beginner unless you were some super high school student that learned a ton and practiced a lot.

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It's far, far from fluent but in all three cases it's more than just phrasebook. I think you're greatly underestimating the utility of even minimal levels of education and communication. I also think you're underestimating what can be learned via independent study and some practical usage in-country.

I have numerous colleagues who can't communicate at all in any foreign language and rely completely on English. If we're traveling together they regularly look to me for guidance at airports, hotels, and restaurants and dealing with people like taxi drivers. So can I hold a significant conversation? In general, no. Can I use what I do know to ease my way through a lot of very practical situations? Absolutely.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

used to be decent in german, as my mom is german and i, therefore, grew up with it being spoken almost as much as english. i also took it for a couple of years in highschool. alas, a few years of not using it and i feel like i lost a lot.

i understand a tiny bit of macedonian too

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

4 years of HS Spanish. I just finished up 6 weeks of intense Spanish classes in Mexico (2 semesters worth). My oral skills got to the point that I would converse with people semi-confidently (don't confuse this with conversational ability...).

It was a nice step on my road to fluency.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: native speaker.

Spanish: I read well; write so-so; not fluent, but I wasn't far about 6 years ago. I took it in high school for 4 years.

Latin: I read well, but need a dictionary for most classical texts. I've never done much composition, and never spoken it, but I wish there were more opportunity to do so. Just should have been born 70 years ago, I guess. I'm also learning to do Latin paleography pretty well, where one reads the Latin in the original manuscript. Those can look like this: Latin manuscript. I study Latin because I'm a philosophy grad student, studying medieval philosophy.

Greek, French, German: I've done elementary work in these languages, and will need to have passed reading exams in them some time in the next four years before I finish my dissertation.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: fluent

Norwegian: speak/read/write very well, can maintain a conversation, read newspaper, etc. (lived there for 5 years -- this also means I can understand Swedish and Danish to some extent)

French: speak/read/write moderately well, can converse accomplish what I need to accomplish in French-speaking countries (took 4 years of French, have spent a total of 5 weeks in French-speaking countries)

Spanish: speak/read/write a bit, understand quite a bit (one semester + several years living in highly Latino areas of California)

Vietnamese: speak/read/write very basic (one semester + playing in California casinos + 10 days vacation in Viet Nam)

Indonesian: very basic vocabulary/read/write (self-taught + Indonesian girlfriend + 3 weeks vacation in Indonesia and 10 days in Malaysia (very similar language))

Russian: I can read the Cyrillic alphabet, but only understand very basic things + things that are similar to words in English or Germanic languages

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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am learning Vietnamese now. depending on whether you are talking to an older man, an older woman, a younger woman, or a younger man, you have to change the word for 'you'. i am hoping that there is actually a word for 'you' and they just want me to learn this way first.

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Haha, unfortunately no. But if you're white then they expect you to be stupid. At least you don't have to conjugate anything.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

xx,

"am learning Vietnamese now. depending on whether you are talking to an older man, an older woman, a younger woman, or a younger man, you have to change the word for 'you'."

Haha, Indian languages are the same way. It can be extremely rude and disrespectful if you choose the wrong "you" so maybe just learn the most respectful ones first, then people will just laugh at you but not be offended.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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Haha, Indian languages are the same way. It can be extremely rude and disrespectful if you choose the wrong "you" so maybe just learn the most respectful ones first, then people will just laugh at you but not be offended.

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Unfortunately in Vietnamese this is essentially impossible with women (old women will be offended if you call them "sister" and young women will be offended if you call them "ma'am"), but like I said if you're white they just think you're an idiot incapable of learning their language so it's not a big problem.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

English: fluent, read and write very well.

Russian: fluent speaker, read very well, write a lot worse due to lack of practice.

Seriously dated a mexican chick for 6 months almost and picked up a ton of Spanish. Speak enough to get by, read ok, write not so great.

Kirk

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

mandarin chinese is my first language. i can still speak it pretty much fluently: i have no "american" accent whatsoever, but sometimes i trip up a bit expressing myself cuz i'm not on top of every colloquial or technical term. here's the weird part though: i can also read chinese fine; i can read anything from newspapers and magazines to pulp novels to classics in the literary canon. HOWEVER, i only know how to write at most a couple hundred different words.

i don't think it's possible for an english speaker to be able to read and comprehend and appreciate shakespeare, but not be able to compose even a simple letter.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

Dutch: fluent - native language

English: nearly fluent - got taught English from early on, have always thought of it as easy to understand, and the Enligh language is very present in the Netherlands

French: understanding mediocre, expression very poor, but living there I could pick it up quickly i guess - I've had three years of french in high school but forgot most words when i learned Spanish

Spanish: good understanding, decent expression - I lived in Madrid for half a year and studied / practiced the language intensely

German: very good understanding, decent expression - German is similar to Dutch in many ways, but has very complicated grammar. I've had a few years of German classes but never payed attention. Practiced a lot of German with my German friends in Madrid and that helped a lot. Right now, I understand almost everything of what i read and hear in German, and i can express whatever i want, but grammaticaly very flawed. Therefore i don't write it.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

I don't have a second language. However, I have always wondered about the thought process of people who are fluent in more than one language. Specifically, when you speak a foreign language do you think in your own language and then translate or do you think and speak in that language?

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

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I don't understand how you can speak a language well and not be able to read or write it. (other than the Asian languages or ones with different alphabets)

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I speak Spanish, but don't write it. I suppose I could write everything phonetically to get my point across, but it would be similar to a smart fourth grader's skills.

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Well yeah, I wouldn't expect you to be able to have perfect spelling if you'd never actually seen the written language before, but wouldn't you at least be to recognize the words in print? Maybe I just learn differently - the only language I "know" besides English is Spanish, but I know enough to get by in reading any of the other Romance languages, and German - however, I'd be completely baffled listening to a native speaker talking, and am unable to speak them at all.

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Fluent in English, semi-conversant in French, 4-year-old-level in Korean.

I can say "Where's the restroom?" in 6 different languages.

I can say "My name is ________; I live in the Caucasus Mountains" in Russian.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

People who are fluent in multiple languages will actually think in the language they are using at the time. There are times, though, when you're trying to say something in the language you are using but can only think of how to say it in the other language. Then you may have to go through the internal translation process.

Re: What languages do you speak? read? write?
 

mikech,

That's how I am with Japanese (though Japanese is not my first langauge). I can speak read the language fluently, and even write it using a word processor, but I cannot write the language by hand. I simply never learned how to write more then a handful of characters (well short of the 1,000+ needed to write sentences).

When I tell people this they are often puzzled. They ask, "If you can read it, why can't you write it?" It is the difference between active and passive fluency, or the ability to recognize the language versus the ability to produce it.