Foo - Foreign Languages

I just started learning a new language, and was wondering what language do people on the forums know? What is your extent of use? Do you speak, read, or just study the language?

I studied 3 years of Spanish in High School, only remember some vocab
Studied Abroad in France, can speak way better then I can read
Have started studying Portuguese.

Don't be shy.

I only speak two languages. English, and bad English

Welcome, Smiziley! Haven't seen you in these here Foo parts before. Been lurkin' long? Glad to have you on board Foo. :D

English - native
French - read, write, speak near-fluently when in francophone country for a few days
German - read, write, speak on a rudimentary level (never studied it formally, but picked up some from many years of listening and trying to read it)
Dutch - a very small bit, mostly can read labels, and get the gist of an article.
Italian and Russian - some self study years ago. Can't really communicate, but can make out the gist of something written in Italian, and read out loud the phonetic Russian, though I don't always know what I'm saying!

Are you learning Continental Portuguese, or Brazilian? Portuguese can really mess with your head if you alread know some Spanish. :eek:

I think that learning languages is fascinating. Every one you learn makes the next one a bit easier!

I took three years of spanish in high school and learned one phrase:

"Puedo ir al bano por favor?"

Donde esta mi cerveza? <looking around for a Modelo Negro>

Pendejitos... :D

I speak bad English, some Engrish (http://www.engrish.com/), and crappy Japanese.

Welcome, Smiziley! Haven't seen you in these here Foo parts before. Been lurkin' long? Glad to have you on board Foo. :D
French - read, write, speak near-fluently when in francophone country for a few days

Thanks, I'm new to this specific forum, I sually just hang out in the Singlespeed/Fixed Forum. It takes about 4 days of being in a francophone area before I feel truly comfortable speaking french... hello Quebec!


Are you learning Continental Portuguese, or Brazilian? Portuguese can really mess with your head if you already know some Spanish. :eek:
Brazilian. I know a few people who are from Sao Paulo.

Tengo sueno.

I speak Jive. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=vDWB7ndMCJE) :D

Thanks, I'm new to this specific forum, I sually just hang out in the Singlespeed/Fixed Forum. It takes about 4 days of being in a francophone area before I feel truly comfortable speaking french... hello Quebec!


Brazilian. I know a few people who are from Sao Paulo.
Are you learning Portuguese for business?

I speak Jive. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=vDWB7ndMCJE) :D

Even before I clicked on that link I knew it had to be that scene from Airplane....:D

I know English, COBOL, Assembler & know some words in French and Spanish.

WHEN BIKE-FORUMS-STATUS-DOWN
SET ZORRO-BAD-MOOD TO TRUE

ZAP JOESACCT,P25DOLS

Usted no habla Espanol.

Je mange le petite chien.

:eek: You eat Explody?! Ewwwwwww! <running from this thread in disgust>

Flemish (Vlaams), Dutch (Nederlands), French (Francais), German (Deutsch). . . and English was my 5th language.
Also can do some SouthAf (SuidAfrikaans), Spanish (Espanol) and various nasty words in a few other tongues.

I speak the tool command language, seriously, been using tcl for so long I can speak it ;)
English of course, can speak it but my writing is a bit lackluster
a bit of German I picked up from an ex girlfriend
and enough ancient sumerian to summon Azkak, Namtaru, and Asaku to do my bidding!!!
oh, and I know enough ancient Egyptian to perform the Opening Of The Mouth ritual and know that what was spoken in "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns" was pure hogwash banter.

:eek: You eat Explody?! Ewwwwwww! <running from this thread in disgust>
I only said I knew a little. Did I say something bad? :o

aimez-vous me rencontrer dans les bois après école ? ;)

English.
French.
Spanish.
Bits of Italian - enough to understand and to be understood.

native in vietnamese
fluent in english
3 high school years of spanish that amounts to nothing
3 college years of german and some practical exercise that can get me by
one day i'd like to pick up russian, arabic, and turkish. shouldve done them in school!

I know english and a little ASL.

:eek: You eat Explody?! Ewwwwwww! <running from this thread in disgust>

Do you mean to imply Explody is a *****? (Not that I have personal knowledge to the contrary.)

apart from the obvious:

functionally fluent in dutch/flemish (imo they're are as similar/different as american english and the queen's english), but i can get stumped by an antwerp accent mixed with local slang.

have a very limited understanding of german, italian, and spanish

can order off a menu, or at the bar, with some additional catch phrases in turkish.

C/C++, Java, Perl, Ada, C#, Assembler (IBM and PC), Visual Basic and a little PHP.

On occasion some think I mimic English slightly.

Native English.
Je parle bien francais. Peut-être.
Parlo un poco italiano. Lentamente, per favore.
Jeg kan ikke tale dansk ret godt, men jeg prøver. Danskere taler engelsk med mig, for det meste.

Someday I'd like to learn Swedish (shouldn't be too hard if I ever get good at Danish) and Spanish, although the latter might actually be useful so I'm not so sure. German or Dutch would be interesting.

Six years of Castilian Spanish in school, 20 years of Español at work.

je parle en englais des fois, quant je suis fache je parle en francais.
Quant j'ecris je fais tellement de fautes que je ne sais meme pas quelle langague que c'est!

I spent 10 years in the Air Force as an Arabic linguist. Haven't used the language in 4 years now, but can still understand most of it.

My mother is the one that loves languages
I took spanish for 3 years and did very well
but I don't speak it. No desire to speak other languages.
I can understand it quite well and write
I'm just not a talker

I spent 10 years in the Air Force as an Arabic linguist. Haven't used the language in 4 years now, but can still understand most of it.

one would think that you would have been in demand over the past four years?

Well, sort of speak English (it is my native language), Spanish (big surprise, right, since I live in a Spanish speaking country) - pretty well. I can understand just about 100% at whatever speed and I can carry on a conversation, even on the phone. A lot of time I don't know if I am speaking Spanish or English.

ASL and just about every form of sign language. I was involved in the hear-impaired community for about 7 years - I am pretty fluent. Sign language is universal, there are local differences, but I can communicate just fine here in Sign Language too. In fact, it is easier for me to sign ASL and speak Spanish than English since the word order is more similar.

And more than 20 different computer languages. (More than 25 years as a developer)

BDG, you know very well when you use French it causes undue excitement among some of the youngsters...

Doctor... ¿Por qué mi pene lastima?

Erm, try "me duele el pene." :)

I've been a spanish teacher for 4 years. Spoken the language for 20 years. As an adjunct, I had to learn a 3rd language and so I can speak passable french and can read very well. Through the last 25 years of martial arts I have learned a lot of japanese, though I am illiterate in it. With my lingustics background I can get by on pretty much any germanic or romantic language, though I wouldn't say I *know* them per se.

Guess I'm just exceptional with my tongue!

English native language (translation: I butcher it)
French innumerable years in school and actually got to use it.
Afrikaans can understand it better than read or speak (lived there for 5 years).
German like above understand more than read and speak.
Dutch Know alot of cycling terms, plan on taking a dutch class.
ASL understand if signed slowly, and I can get my ideas accross, I'm better
with signed english
IBM z/OS assembler language fluent I code in it.
Rexx (and clist) Passable, can code and understand but not fluent
Cobol meh an application language that I know
C+, Pascal, Modula-A, PL1, PC assembler I can code in them if
I need to with decent documentation.

je parle en englais des fois, quant je suis fache je parle en francais.
Quant j'ecris je fais tellement de fautes que je ne sais meme pas quelle langague que c'est!

Trop paresseux pour écrire tes accents? ;)

BDG, you know very well when you use French it causes undue excitement among some of the youngsters...

The middle-aged as well. I'll have to look up fache: I'm hoping it means 'hot and bothered' like in the scenes from "A Fish Called Wanda".

English, both American and British. Some Gaelic (Scots Gaelic), a tiny amt of Russian, some French, More Spanish, I can work my way through reading Classical Latin and some Attic Greek, but no speech in the Greek. I can also say hello friend in Turkish!;) (Merhaba Arkadasim!)

Trop paresseux pour écrire tes accents? ;)
Quelle bétise, Santiago! Quand elle devient fâché elle a dit qu'elle parle en français, mais pas nécessairement écrit en français. :p <Vega baisse la tête et court>

Native English.

Enough German to get by.

Enough Spanish to get into trouble, not enough to get out of trouble. But Hey, I live in So Cal, I have to read the billboards!

d03$ 1337 c0u/\/7? i m f1u3/\/70rz i/\/ 1337 2!

I speak precise English without an accent.

Je parle un petit peut de francais aussi.
(TRANSLATION: I also speak a little bit of French)

If you read this and laugh, BDG, I'm not surprised. I haven't used the conversational french I learned for some time).

Trop paresseux pour écrire tes accents? ;)
j'ai meme pas d'accent sur mon ordinateur!!
ca fais tellement longtemp que j'ai ecris en francais! ca fait bizarre!

The middle-aged as well. I'll have to look up fache: I'm hoping it means 'hot and bothered' like in the scenes from "A Fish Called Wanda".
:lol: actually not quite as sexy.. I said that I speak french when Im mad!:p

:lol: actually not quite as sexy.. I said that I speak french when Im mad!:p

Ha! My original post was going to claim that French is much easier to speak when drunk or irritated ... which is probably why the French are so good at it.

Only English. I took the required semester of Spanish in highschool but that was 30 years ago. I remember zip. I might start trying to learn Spanish though. The company I work for occasionally has lateral or better openings in Florida but you have to speak Spanish to be considered.

Ha! My original post was going to claim that French is much easier to speak when drunk or irritated ... which is probably why the French are so good at it.
:lol:agreed!!!!!!!!!!

Ha! My original post was going to claim that French is much easier to speak when drunk or irritated ... which is probably why the French are so good at it.
It sure worked for me when I was learning! That's where I met Stella, among many others. :D

I speak English (obviously) and fluent Spanish. I spent two years in Argentina and I still have a bit of an accent when I speak, but am fluent on a basically native level (reading, writing as well).

English (1st Language), Spanish (semi-fluent), German (small amounts), Vietnamese (small amounts)

English
Enough Spanish to make a good guess at things I read.
I really want to learn German, but can't fit it into my stupid engineering course schedule.

English
Enough Spanish to make a good guess at things I read.
I really want to learn German, but can't fit it into my stupid engineering course schedule.
See if there is an exchange program with your COE and some school in a Germanophone country, if only for a few weeks. You might be suprised. Also, check with your International Office (or whatever it's called by your school).