What languages do you speak? read? write?

[splashpot]

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Mandarin Chinese: speak, poor; can't read or write.

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Same here. Speaking and reading/writing are COMPLETELY different in this language. But for anyone wanting to learn something, speaking is highly learnable. The grammar is quite simple. No verb tenses. The subtle pronunciation is not easy, but so much is context-based that you will always understand and be understood. One problem is that Chinese people as a whole tend to be very shy about speaking the language with you, don't know why, it's just my experience. Difficult to gain experience with it. But it's exotic, easy, and fun.

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I very much agree. I took 2 years of Mandarin in College. The grammar is very simple. Best part is that you don't have to conjugate verbs. EVER. Much of the time, you can structure the sentence in several different ways and still be correct.

I also think I know why some people (including myself) fear practicing with a new language. For example, I can easily order food in Chinese but if I do so, I'll get a response in Chinese which I may or may not understand. I don't know why, but I find it extremely embarrassing when I have to switch back to English because I didn't understand something simple like "for here or to go?". I guess I just need to get over it and continue practicing anyways.
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Wah shwaw jong wun. Wah she-hwan pai.

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If I remember correctly, the first sentence in Pinyin is "Wo shuo zhong wen" or "I speak Chinese". I can't make out what the second sentence is supposed to be.

[Claunchy]

English: Fluent. I'm American.

Spanish: Can speak, read and write all fairly well. Have a little trouble understanding some native speakers if they speak really quickly. Took 3 semesters of college Spanish and managed at a Mexican restaurant for two years. And I live in Texas so there are a lot of Mexicans everywhere.

German: Can read, speak, write, and understand at all about the same level. It was my minor in college. Used to be semi-fluent when I was an undergrad, but have forgotten a ton in the last few years because I'm never exposed to it.

German (fluent, speak/write)
English (fluent, speak/write)
Spanish (fluent, speak/write)
hungarian (I used to speak it fluent, but haven`t practiced in a long time. I`m sure it would come back if I spent a couple of months there. I have never writen fluent tho)

[Xanta]

English (first language)
French (read with reasonable but not great fluency, speak much less than I read)
German (moderate both spoken and reading, 3 years of high school and my ZDP, pretty rusty though)

Still have no [censored] clue why I took German though, but if you're just arbitrarily looking for a language to learn and speak English as a first language, German is very easy to pick up, moreso than the romance languages.

[phatjeffrey]

English : Fluent , Speak/write

Arabic : Fluent , Speak/write

French : good , Speak/write

[southerndog]

Speak some thai, read some thai.

[NewTeaBag]

'Merican:Born and bred in NYC

English: lived in London for 5 years (trust me they be different)

Spanish: Semi flunt but out of practice (Schooling and lottsa time speking in Spain and France)

French: Tiny bit

Thai: Proficeint conversationally, but still in the "mystification" stage WRT reading and writing

[Christophers]

I can write Java if that counts?

[gholizad]

Farsi (Persian): Fluently (I was born in Iran)

English.

[thehabit 420]

I saw a post that Chinese was easy!?!?! and then the pin yin writing was completely worped.

Anyways, yeah they dont have the ing, ed, plural type [censored] which we have in English.

But they have something called tones...Mandarin has 4, Cantonese [censored] has 8!

Anyways by simply changing the tone of a word, it has a completely different meaning...

For example the word Tang in the first tone means - soup

2nd tone - sugar
3rd tone - relaxing/lying down
4th tone - hot (temperature wise when referring to food)

There are many words like this too, with a simple tone change it becomes a different word..

Yan- depending on tone, means cigarette, salt, eye

Ma- depending on tone means Mom or Hemp.....

Granted when you figure out the language and become good at it, you pay attention to the context and can figure it out.

Also, the word "ta" means, he, her, his, she, him, etc

So within the context you figure out who their talking about. I believe their language is not simplified enough, that is why when I have a chinese speaker translate something to another chinese from english to chinese, it seems their conversation takes 3-4 times the amount of time it took when I explain it in English.

Also for some words they have 3 words which all mean the same thing..

I would say my vocabulary of not speaking mandarin properly consists of about 600 words or so.

I take Mandarin class 3 days a week for 2 hours each lesson. Granted Im in China and you'd think I'd pick it up easier, it isn't necessarily the case, since all my friends are always speaking Cantonese since Im in former Canton.

I hope someday to be fluent in this [censored] up crazy hard language. And no I will not attempt to learn the characters..