What languages do you speak? read? write?

[StevieG]

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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


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No kidding. I probably should know Dutch, having lived there for a while. But the Dutch people I knew would just speak English with me. Even with casual acquaintances, they would just switch. There was no penalty for English, it seemed, so I never really got good at Dutch. I can manage small talk, buy train tickets, food, order in bars and restaurants, pick up some words now and then, but that's it.

Some Croatian, because my wife is from Zagreb. Now that she is teaching our daughter to speak it I am learning more and more.

[JereLock]

English: native language - speak, read, write fluently
Spanish: studied in highschool, college, currently live in ARG. - speak well, read fair, write fair

Portuguese: have a few brazilian friends - reading and understanding poor, unable to write or speak
signing: I know my letters :|


It's unfortunate that america is the probably the most monolingual industrialized country in the world, those native to america anyway...

[Mano]

English - native language.

Greek - speak fluently, read ok, write poorly. Both my parents were born in Greece, I converse exclusively in Greek with my mother, who speaks English poorly, and also spoke only Greek with my grandmother who lived with us until she died when I was 18.

[TheMetetron]

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I used to think learning a new language was pretty dumb when I was in high school and they forced us to pick one and take three years of it, so I took some Spanish and did what I had to do to get through. Now I'm coming around to liking the idea of a new language and recently purchased a subscription to RosettaStone Online to learn German (I just randomly picked a language on the last, German sounded in the middle of the pack/maybe a little easier than the rest) and downloaded the whole Pimsleur German set. The RosettaStone subscription is meh, mostly vocab and it's not bad but it would be pretty weak if it's the only thing you are using to learn the language. I really like the Pimsleur audio set I downloaded though and have been doing a lesson per day (although like RosettaStone it wouldn't be adequate on it's own, the two programs are pretty different and work together well imo). After I feel like I get a hang of German I may try to brush up on my Spanish a bit and then maybe learn Arabic since that seems pretty applicable to today's politics/global affairs.

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CTS,

I have both the Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone for every language I know. Completing both of these programs will not get you remotely near being able to actually speak, read, or write these languages. It will give you perhaps the most basic of understandings, but you won't be close to conversational or able to read/write anything more advanced than a child in kindergarten at best.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

English - native speaker

Spanish - 6.5 years of schooling, I could always understand and read it very well but have problems speaking, partially because Jersey accent and Spanish just don't mix.

Latin - I can read it decently, but still need a dictionary to get through some passages. It does make all the other Romance languages easier though so that's a plus.

Ancient Greek - I was mediocre at it since I tried to learn it before Latin and Greek is much harder, but if I picked it up again I'd be much better at it. I can recite both Latin and Greek poetry in meter, always a handy skill. I can also write in either language if I'm forced to.

Can anyone recommend good textbooks for Arabic and Russian?

[theblitz]

Fluent in 2 languages: English and Hebrew.

I also can understand written Aramaic because the Talmud is mostly in Aramaic though there are a couple of different forms of the language. None of them bear any resemblance to the "Aramaic" used in the "Passion of Christ".

[cts]

why ya gotta bust my bubble Metetron pfft

lol, anyways these programs seem like a good start at least and I've been using them/reading 1 German newspaper article and looking up the words each day. Then hopefully a trip to Octoberfest or something. Any other suggestions?

[mikeczyz]

native english speaker...read/write at an acceptable level.

can order food in a mandarin speaking chinese joint. very, very basic command of the language. can't really hold a conversation. also recognize some taiwanese.

can say "i have five milks" in german.

i failed every french, german and italian my first time around in college. mostly, I was a giant slacker who skipped alot of class. i took a year of mandarin the second time around but have forgotten almost all of it. taiwanese was my first language but haven't used it in 20+ years.

[TiK]

English - Speak, read and write excellently (born and raised in the US. Surprisingly, I'm a product of the NYC public education system.)

Japanese - Speak fluently, read meh, write worse than meh; Parents are both Japanese, went to Japanese Saturday school until 8th grade.

Spanish - Used to be conversational, but haven't spoken in a long time, can read a newspaper and understand it, write, meh. Grew up in a predominantly latino neighborhood, took it since I was in Junior High School all through high school and then in college.

Kintamayama,

Lol at your screenname.

[Alexos]

--> CTS, METETRON,

I'm thinking of buying both RosettaStone and Pimsteur for either arabic or mandarin not sure yet. You guys have the online subscriptions or the more expensive package with the books?

Metetron are you saying its not really worth it since you dont learn much from it only the basics?

Thx