Poll How many languages do you speak?

How many languages do you speak?

  • 1

    Votes: 21 26.3%
  • 2

    Votes: 27 33.8%
  • 3

    Votes: 27 33.8%
  • 4+ (Please, tell how many!)

    Votes: 5 6.3%

  • Total voters
    80

Fabri91

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Interesting! If you don't mind me asking, what made you chose German and English as the other languages you would study? I only ask because Italian is a Romance language while German and English are both Germanic.

Ah, good question. I didn't choose anything: my mother is German, so the language came with that.
I also spent two years, between the age of one and three, in England, so I guess I "absorbed" a bit of English too, which made it much easier to learn.
Orbiter, nasaspaceflight.com and similar websites also helped a bunch. :)
 

Black Phoenix

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1) If you speak more than 1 language, do you find yourself having any advantages over the average monoglot?
Yes, I can travel into many countries and experience no language barriers. I speak Ukrainian, English, Russian (with no issues whatsoever). I can understand Polish, Belarusian well (but not speak them), and I can understand many slavic languages with some trouble.

2) Do you think western languages will remain the 'international' languages, even with Asian countries (such as China) rising in prominence? Keep in mind that their foreign scripts and tonal languages often make it extremely difficult for westerners to attain fluency, while vice versa the skill required for fluency is not quite as much.
Too much stuff already written in English/Russian. There may be a new "scientific" language though (like English and Russian)

3) What is your opinion of conlangs, such as Esperanto and lojban? Could they ever be useful on an international scale, or do you think they will remain an interest only for enthusiasts or learners?
I'm interested in Lojban. A good descriptive and simple language, which would also encode emotions in it, would be pretty popular I think. A language is backed by culture though.
 

fireballs619

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A language is backed by culture though.

Terrific point. This is something I have encountered before when discussing conlangs. Something that gives language power as well as meaning is the culture from which it comes. It has been said that one of the only ways to truly learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. This is not only because you are surrounding yourself with the rules of the language and situation in which they are used, but rather the culture from which the rules come. It is actually extremely interesting to see certain ways in which history or culture have affected a language, but that is a whole other topic :lol: .
 

Rtyh-12

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I speak Romanian (basically useless, apart from speaking to people in the country, of course), English and German. I think it's very useful to know more than my first language. If anything, just so I can come here and annoy you :lol:

I don't think non-Western languages will become 'international' any time soon. As Fabri91 posted on this subject, English speakers are scattered around the world, while Chinese speakers, for example, are much more concentrated.

Conlangs? IMO they're interesting (and fun :)) but not exceedingly useful. Many people thought Esperanto would become the world's language back when it was created (I read this somewhere, but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). It has not. Lojban seems even more interesting, though. I actually starting learning it from an online guide some while ago, but I knew it wasn't going to help me. In informal terms, I did it just because I could ;) I got bored a week or two later though.
 

sitha241

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I speak Croatian- usefull in neighbor countries ( nearly same language ) -Serbia,Bosnia and Hercegovina, and lot of people form Slovenia speak Croatian so when they come here we do not have need for english..Also I can but with difficulty understand some other slavic languages..also I can read and write Cyrillic, and Glagolitic alphabet also..
Oher than that I speak english and bit of french..I can also understand little bit of spanish.. :tiphat:
 

HarvesteR

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I speak Portuguese (natively), English and Spanish here... Although one could argue 'Mexican' is quite a different language from Spanish. ;)

Cheers
 

Codz

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English with some phrases/sentences in German, Russian, and Spanish.
 

Screamer7

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Afrikaans is my native language.
It has it origin from the Dutch language.
Then I speak English fairly well, although I do not speak it every day.
 

Yoda

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Speak Dutch,French,German,English and a bit of russian.
Growing up European has it's advantages :)
 

Scav

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I am fluent in over six million forms of languages and ...

English, enough German to get it wrong, enough Russian to REALLY get it wrong.

I can also pronounce words in Klingon and Sindarin.
 

Cras

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English, Italian, Latin (which helps understanding all the other Romantics)

a little Greek (ancient).
 

Ark

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Just the one. In all likelyhood I'm never going to leave North America and there's really no reason to learn anything else because I'll never have reason to associate with anyone that doesn't speak it.

I get why being multilingual would be a big deal in Europe but it really doesn't mean anything in the US.
 

boogabooga

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Most of my extended relatives came to the U.S. in the 20th century.

My one great grandmother spoke only Polish. They kept her at pretty much locked up at home. My grand parents were bilingual in Polish/Slovak and English, speaking both equally well. Apparently Polish and Slovak are almost the same (does anyone know?) or they were speaking a hybrid of some kind. My grandmother was Polish and my grandfather was from Czechoslovakia, and they understood each other. That's all I know. My mother knows some Polish/Slovak. I know none whatsoever.

Likewise, my other grandfather is bilingual in English and Italian, and his parents were native Italian speakers. I speak none whatsoever, except what we see in stereotypes and Olive Garden commercials.

Back in the day, it was a huge shame in America if you spoke a foreign language and these things were intentionally not passed on :( I have a feeling this is the situation for many Americans.
 

Eli13

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I forgot to mention I speak English and can speak basic school Spanish and very few words in Swedish.
 

Loru

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...My one great grandmother spoke only Polish. They kept her at pretty much locked up at home. My grand parents were bilingual in Polish/Slovak and English, speaking both equally well. Apparently Polish and Slovak are almost the same (does anyone know?) or they were speaking a hybrid of some kind. My grandmother was Polish and my grandfather was from Czechoslovakia, and they understood each other. That's all I know. My mother knows some Polish/Slovak. I know none whatsoever.

Polish and Slovak (and Czech) languages are very similar and you can understand ~50% eachother with no training, if you're paying close attention to what it is said.
 

asbjos

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We in Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) speak almost the same language, so I speak Norwegian, and can read Danish and Swedish without any problems, and can (hopefully) get understood by the people in these countries. Besides that, my father is German, and therefore I can speek German too. Of course, I have learned English, so I can (at some degree) speak that too.
Finally, Norway has two official languages: Bokmål and Nynorsk (which is mostly spoken in West Norway). I learn both languages in school, and both languages are also very similar, it's just a bit dialect in there.

So if you take the Scandinavian languages and the dialect into account, I speak and/or understand 6 languages, but without Scandinavian and dialect (you can speak your own language to them, and they understand you), I speak 3 languages.


I believe that English will be the international language for at least 50 more years, but Chinese may come more and more into the culture, trough "Made in China"s and the fact that there are over 1 billion sitizens in China. So it is possible that in 2050, Chinese will become the new international language...
 
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