How many languages can YOU speak?

pSouper · Post by **pSouper** » Thu 15. Apr 2004, 13:05

no frold - i'm sure a few of us feel stupid - but you have a justification

Moshu · Post by **Moshu** » Thu 15. Apr 2004, 15:58

frold wrote:Is it just me that is feeling stupid?.....

You have no reason to...
Many times it's not that those speaking more languages are more talented or smarter (?)

- just the circumstances forced them!
E.g. I am a Hungarian born in Transylvania (Siebenbürgen), which is in Romania, so the first two languages were given. Have a degree in Russian lang.& lit., later even worked there, so this one also came almost by default LOL. Living now in Canada, English is a must since I am not in Québec.
Also worked as a humanitarian aid worker in former Yugoslavia (Bosnia), then in Caucasus (Chechnya) - you pick up something.
As for the dead languages, I am old enough that I went to that kind of old fashioned schools, where Latin and Old Greek were mandatory, plus for students of Russian the Old Church Slavonic was a must in order to understand better the comparative linguistics of the Slavic languages.
What else? French used to be the second foreign language in the high school, and having friends in Germany, Italy and all over Europe, I traveled a lot... so after a while had to learn the basics. But for example knowing Romanian, Latin and a bit of French - Italian is a piece of cake, after listening for 3 days, you start speaking

Tagalog is a different story: during some studies of applied lingustics, namely techniques of acquiring a second language, I've got to "study" Tagalog. I learned the techniques, but by now completely forgot the language - never really used it.

Believe me, I have never planned to learn a lot of languages. Not to mention that as a linguist I am aware that for most of us it is hard enough to handle correctly our own mother tongue

In exchange I can firmly state that I am totally illiterate in PHP and other programing languages! (I can handle HTML and CSS)

frold · Post by **frold** » Thu 15. Apr 2004, 16:20

gosh man.... You can be anywhere in the world and still talk with the people there - it must give you first class service....

When I travel I try to learn a little of the lang before I go - and when I try to communicate in a the lang I often get a better service just for trying even though I have to switch back to english - do you other forums members know that....

I guess all people - where ever you are in the world - likes when you TRY to speak there lang - and I understand that

But my lang is only talked by 5 mill. people

So I here in denmark we need to talk other langs - and again I try to do my best even though Im not good at lang - not even Danish - Im a slow reader and bad in gramma - but again the point must be do your best and always have the criteria of being better....

I don´t want to make my homework therefor this long post that says nothing....

pSouper · Post by **pSouper** » Thu 15. Apr 2004, 17:01

to think, in a few years this guy will be allowed to cut us into lttle bits and sew us back up in any order that pleases him

good luck with the homework Frold.

Marko · Post by **Marko** » Wed 5. May 2004, 02:36

Well, even though I usually speak nothing but rubbish, I'm still good at it.

-Finnish, rubbish comes out most fluently
-Swedish, speaking rubbish is easy, but... well, you just can't undestand swedish people speaking rubbish
-English, rubbish is rubbish, skills increase as the amount of bears increases

I also studied german for eight years, but I still can't understand a word of it. My vocabulary consists mostly of these widely used frases like "schneller! schneller!", "ich komme, ich komme" and "Ich liebe dich, werden sie meine lederhosen entkleiden?".

And after this its time for me to go to bed.

Denis Parshutin · Post by **Denis Parshutin** » Wed 5. May 2004, 03:57

- russian (native)
- english
- german (a little)

Jérôme · Post by **Jérôme** » Wed 5. May 2004, 09:16

Marko wrote:I also studied german for eight years, but I still can't understand a word of it. My vocabulary consists mostly of these widely used frases like "schneller! schneller!", "ich komme, ich komme" and "Ich liebe dich, werden sie meine lederhosen entkleiden?".

LOOOOOOOL!!!!

cyrano · Post by **cyrano** » Wed 5. May 2004, 09:46

Jo mei

Pappnase · Post by **Pappnase** » Wed 5. May 2004, 09:53

Marko wrote: I also studied german for eight years, but I still can't understand a word of it. My vocabulary consists mostly of these widely used frases like "schneller! schneller!", "ich komme, ich komme" and "Ich liebe dich, werden sie meine lederhosen entkleiden?".

And after this its time for me to go to bed.

brans · Post by **brans** » Wed 5. May 2004, 19:09

I speak:

German (native)
French
( I've been studying it at school for 8 years and have been to France each year at least 2-3 weeks.)
English
( I've been studying it at school for 5.5 years and skills are increasing by using the internet and several forums on it )
Italian
( I've been studying it at school for 4 years and really like the sound of this language

)

I speak English fluently and can express my needs in almost every everyday situation but in French and Italian there still exist many situations in which I have to think about what to say. But I think I can go to every country where those languages are used without being afraid of not finding a place to sleep, not getting smth to eat or not finding any new friends :d

Respect to all of you who have mentioned the many languages they know! I really adore such people and really love travelling around all over the world to get familiar with new languages, cultures and first of all new food! :d

vello · Post by **vello** » Wed 5. May 2004, 20:19

And I:
Estonian
Russian
Finnish
English

Marko · Post by **Marko** » Thu 6. May 2004, 03:09

colech wrote:lol to you all.

Now for those of you who studied english well enough to read this--were you taught USA-style english, or was it more Enland-style english? I notice that phpWCMS uses England's spelling of the word "colour" instead of the USA style, "color". Educate me! Am I speaking a bottom scum-sucking language or is England?

Yep, you're speaking dialect like australians!

Well, at least I was taught to use more british-english, and I quess it's more common to teach british-english in Europe.

I prefer to use colour instead of color, analyse instead of analyze and neighbourg instead of neighbor. I'm also quite familiar with expressions like "cheers", "telly" and "lollipop" and "shit faced" -my favourite. I had a finnish english-teacher who loved british accent, that's why my english sounds more or less like british noble class gibberish. (And actually I'm quite pleased that my english sounds more like John Blair rather than Sylvester Stallone).

In finnish inflections are made by adding suffixes (ssa, lla, kin...) instead of articles (at, on, in) and there can be several suffixes in one word. So "Tottelemattomuus" can became "tottelemattomuudessansakin". Beat that!

sustia · Post by **sustia** » Sun 9. May 2004, 22:45

Uhm, finally I can say that I speak (and write):

-Italian (native)
-Leccese (the dialect of my city

)
-English (as you can read, not too well)
-Spanish (I love that country, saludos para todos los españoles que hay aquí

)

colech · Post by **colech** » Thu 1. Jun 2006, 00:39

Marko wrote:
colech wrote:lol to you all.

Now for those of you who studied english well enough to read this--were you taught USA-style english, or was it more Enland-style english? I notice that phpWCMS uses England's spelling of the word "colour" instead of the USA style, "color". Educate me! Am I speaking a bottom scum-sucking language or is England?
Yep, you're speaking dialect like australians! Well, at least I was taught to use more british-english, and I quess it's more common to teach british-english in Europe.

I prefer to use colour instead of color, analyse instead of analyze and neighbourg instead of neighbor. I'm also quite familiar with expressions like "cheers", "telly" and "lollipop" and "shit faced" -my favourite. I had a finnish english-teacher who loved british accent, that's why my english sounds more or less like british noble class gibberish. (And actually I'm quite pleased that my english sounds more like John Blair rather than Sylvester Stallone).

In finnish inflections are made by adding suffixes (ssa, lla, kin...) instead of articles (at, on, in) and there can be several suffixes in one word. So "Tottelemattomuus" can became "tottelemattomuudessansakin". Beat that!

What does "Tottelemattomuus" mean?

colech · Post by **colech** » Thu 1. Jun 2006, 00:45

Raul wrote:Spanish,
Romanes(Gipsy dialect),
Italian,
French,
German,
English,
Serbocroatian,
Macedonian,
Turkish,
Tagalog(Philipines languages)

Can be calculated in two hands

Saludos
Raul

Did I calculate wrong or is this the winner? 10 Languages!!! Raul, thanks for sharing! Now kindly only use English when speaking to me... unless it's something that would be better for me not to hear. I love working with the people here at phpWCMS because you are all so friendly and willing to help. I am involved in other CMS's too and have not found that to be the case. Keep up the friendly atmosphere and it will keep this CMS growing. Also glad to see that development is finally getting started again. That is why I have had to use other CMS's recently... the promised features were not being delivered. I am sure it will change though because Oliver is from my experience a man of his word.