What languages do you speak? read? write?

[El Diablo]

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.

[haakee]

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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.

[Kirkrrr]

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

[mikech]

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.

[Marnixvdb]

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.

[criminaldave]

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?

[miajag]

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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.

[burningyen]

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.

[Kintamayama]

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.

[Kintamayama]

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.