What languages do you speak?

mike4ca · 2011-11-10 12:25:42

I have noticed a pretty good representation around the globe exist in ArchBang. I responded to the where are you thread. I thought I would start another about the languages everyone speaks. Please list your first language followed by others you know!

Unfortunately I only know one, English.

pablokal · 2011-11-10 16:43:46

Dutch,
German,
English,
French,
some Italian and Spanish I can understand without being able to speak it.

ArchVortex · 2011-11-10 20:00:00

English (fluent)
French (was fluent)
some Italian, Spanish and Portuguese

Japanese (as fluent as English)
Cantonese (fluent)
Mandarin
Korean (fluent)
Thai
Tagalog
Indonesian (fluent)
Manadonese
Javanese (fluent)
Balinese

My daily languages are English, Indonesian and Javanese. I speak a bunch of other languages not listed with enough for a decent basic conversation. I grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood of first generation immigrants and all the kids in the neighbourhood spoke several languages from hanging out at each other's houses.

I've taught in English, French, Japanese, Indonesian and Cantonese.

Lately been hanging in Japanese forums answering questions about ArchBang and Arch.

mike4ca · 2011-11-10 21:15:47

Very impressive ArchVortex, hopefully you won't scare off anyone that only speaks a couple languages!

I am also impressed on how often you post here, even more so knowing you are hanging out in other forums from around the world!

Conker1r · 2011-11-11 00:55:13

I'm scared already!
I only know english and spanish!

ArchVortex · 2011-11-11 01:34:22

Hahaha!! I'm looking at doing the Indonesian and Japanese translation for the Wiki in the near future.

I'm here most of the time and only in the Japanese forums when there is a question. Too much of my time here is removing spam and potential spammers

once · 2011-11-11 02:00:11

ha..you forgot Chinese...

pablokal · 2011-11-11 04:36:08

Very enviable this kind of language knowledge, Archvortex!!
As I have never been out of Europe my entire life, I only speak the local languages.

ArchVortex · 2011-11-11 05:29:16

I've lived in Asia most of my adult life. Japan, Hong Kong, Macau and Indonesia. Next March I will move to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I originally come from Vancouver, Canada where Asia meets Europe.

once · 2011-11-11 05:38:28

@ArchVortex
歡迎你明年來高雄訪問。

ArchVortex · 2011-11-11 05:53:58

@ once

謝謝!!

paolo · 2011-11-12 11:07:16

I speak good english (sometimes :-) ) , technic french (for my job, but no so good on conversation), and a little bit of german ...
In my wild days I understand a little bit of holland (is writing right Pablokal ?) and spanish and portoguese.
Now I'm studying chinese For talking with my wife's relatives and friends in China.

Edit: typo (many thanks Pablokal, sorry for the mistake)

Last edited by paolo (2011-11-13 01:58:29)

pablokal · 2011-11-12 14:58:15

hollandese should be "hollands".

scjet · 2011-11-24 13:40:44

- English
- (really bad) English
- (Canadian French) which could also be considered, -really bad canadian english
- some German
- some Polish/Russian I haven't figured out the difference yet
- Caribbean, it's my favourite, 'cause you can't guess which one it is, mahn

in summary, I guess it's like any "living" language, you gotta "LIVE" it culturally, before you can speak it.
ya baby !

Last edited by scjet (2011-11-24 14:10:18)

ArchVortex · 2011-11-24 19:58:09

scjet wrote:

you gotta "LIVE" it culturally, before you can speak it.

True dat, mon!! You can learn a language but you really don't start picking it up quickly and mastering it until you're in a situation where you have to think, speak and especially, listen, in that language only. Being book smart will only carry you so far.

scjet · 2011-11-25 08:40:04

ArchVortex wrote:

English (fluent)
French (was fluent)
some Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
Japanese (as fluent as English)
Cantonese (fluent)
Mandarin
Korean (fluent)
Thai
Tagalog
Indonesian (fluent)
Manadonese
Javanese (fluent)
Balinese
My daily languages are English, Indonesian and Javanese. I speak a bunch of other languages not listed with enough for a decent basic conversation. I grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood of first generation immigrants and all the kids in the neighbourhood spoke several languages from hanging out at each other's houses.
I've taught in English, French, Japanese, Indonesian and Cantonese.
Lately been hanging in Japanese forums answering questions about ArchBang and Arch.

Dude, I gotta admit, my Dad spoke 4 L's fluently,(and none of those were Asian) but THE hardest language to master seems to be asian, obvously because of its more complicated grammar, context, pro-nouns, vowels, ... just to mention some of those hurdles ?
But hey, I dunno, all the more power to you, 'fer sure mon.
And maybe that's why you don't include Chinese in your repertoire ?

Last edited by scjet (2011-11-25 08:42:56)

ArchVortex · 2011-11-25 08:54:46

Cantonese (Hong Kong Chinese) and Mandarin (China and Taiwan) are Chinese. I also speak a bit of Hakka and Hokkien.

jorgkraken · 2012-01-31 19:42:10

Archvortex, that is impresive, I only speak spanish and english, and currently some friend is teaching me portuguese. OTIMO!!

Last edited by jorgkraken (2012-01-31 19:43:13)

mastis · 2012-02-01 01:55:22

Finnish
English

once · 2012-02-01 02:42:46

ArchVortex wrote:

Cantonese (Hong Kong Chinese) and Mandarin (China and Taiwan) are Chinese. I also speak a bit of Hakka and Hokkien.

三月歡迎來台灣玩。

n30phyt3 · 2012-02-12 04:58:33

russian, german, a little bit english

ubuntubang · 2012-03-31 02:18:56

German
English

o_O · 2012-04-01 07:22:41

Just English.

Ped · 2012-04-02 19:29:17

I speak two:

Afrikaans (mother tongue)
English

Afrikaans is South-African and Namibian.

In the 17th century the ancient Dutch people in south Africa spoke a Ducth slang affected by the surrounding African languages and other factors. It grew and developed and became a language in its own right. Today it is a mature and modern language to converse in.

Comparing it with English The vowels are more neutral and the consonants are harder. Rolling R's and a sound resembling the one cowboys make before spitting (gggggg-spit!) characterizes it.

So when we write 'grawe'
We are referring to a word that sounds like 'gggrrawvuh'
(It means "dig")

Last edited by Ped (2012-04-02 19:30:50)

lovebluesky2009 · 2012-04-02 20:49:15

Chinese(mother tongue)，（简体中文，繁体能读不会写，simplified Chinese， can only read traditional Chinese， and do not know how to write most of the traditional Chinese characters）

English（not fluent in speaking）

so many people can speak more than two languages！！！！！

mike4ca · 2012-04-02 21:40:57

Ped. thanks for adding background information about your primary language. I would have had to looked it up. It is nice to share with such a diverse community!

loveblueshy2009, and some of us only speak 1 (me included). Learning English after growing up with Chinese is impressive to me. I can sometimes make out some of the European languages because I can recognize many of the letters. But there is nothing similar between Chinese and English (that I know of, feel free to enlighten me!).

pablokal · 2012-04-03 04:46:02

So when we write 'grawe'
We are referring to a word that sounds like 'gggrrawvuh'
(It means "dig")

Dutch speaking people can mostly understand Afrikaans and can enjoy the feeling and atmosphere of the language very much;
and there is much admiration in Holland for poets like Elisabeth Eybers, Ingrid Jonker ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Jonker ) and Gert Vlok Nel.

Although Afrikaans got very nasty associations during the period of Apartheid, when everyone in Holland was ashamed that a Dutch word was used to designate such a crime against humanity..

Ped · 2012-04-03 17:14:27

@pablokal

Yes you are right. The white Afrikaans speaking Government of that time were overly Capitalistic or racist or in a certain sense comunist. I don't know what it was.

(As I understand my parents: ) In 1955 the law called 'Apartheid', commissioned in 1948 started to be thoroughly enforced. They Divided The country into "Tiny countries" for each Tribe, forced the less fortunate to carry a pass and be back in their "country" at night.

It's just a big long unpleasant story of how people hated each other, protested against each other and, many times, killed each other. We're just so lucky the whole thing didn't break loose into war. I thank God for the restoration and healing taking place these day's. Even Though we can't always see what He is doing, He is there.

People I know (from both sides), have told me horrible stories of what happened with them during those times. I'm just so glad its over.

Myself, however, grew up rather unaffected by the historic events. I went to a bilingual primary school and made great friends with our black nabors. Today I enjoy it when I converge with people from the diverse communities within South-Africa even without keeping the friends I know within them in mind.

Last edited by Ped (2012-04-03 18:06:01)

pablokal · 2012-04-04 04:35:33

@ Ped, that is great to hear; only forgiveness and mercy can heal the wounds of history.
The poverty and lack of perspective for many youngsters still leads to violence and crime, especially the violence against women has taken horrific forms, I have read.
Hopefully South-Africa can develop to a more harmonious society. The nature often looks like paradise what I see from images.

defcon · 2012-04-07 04:53:23

German
English

Keta · 2012-04-30 11:18:31

German
English
Czech (little bit)

sano · 2012-05-02 00:47:45

German
English (as fluent as German)
Spanish (not so fluent..)

also:

Catalan and French, but not enough for proper conversations

And I can, if I have to, read and understand Italian and Portuguese...

Still far from Archvortex' impressive list.

Maybe I should start learning some completely different language, just to see if the brain of someone in his 30s is still adaptable enough. Also, it bothers me when I people tell me that they speak more than 5 languages fluently, makes me feel like I missed out on some great opportunities in my youth

If you don't know it: Catalan is the regional language in the northeast Spanish region of Cataluny, with dialects of it spoken in and around Valencia, in the Baleares (Mallorca etc.) and even in the south of France.

Svante · 2012-05-12 00:38:34

Danish (mother tongue)
English
Swedish (don't speak - but understand)
Norwegian (don't speak - but understand)
and a little German

3picgillftw · 2012-05-12 04:18:18

I feel a little dwarfed by the linguists in this forum haha!

I only know:
American english (my fluent home language)
Japanese (nowhere near fluent)
Spanish (highschool level only)

scjet · 2012-05-12 08:14:50

"bash" -but only on a good day, if I'm lucky, and even then, I don't even understand myself ?

Last edited by scjet (2012-05-12 08:37:07)

lrcaballero · 2012-05-12 11:16:10

Spanish and English (fluent on both / read & write)

marxav · 2012-09-29 14:11:08

ArchVortex wrote:

Cantonese (fluent)
Mandarin

AV, question from my other half. She was wondering if it is true that that there is as much difference between Mandarin and Cantonese as there is in say French and English.

ArchVortex · 2012-10-02 09:28:09

@marxav,

Pronunciation and tones are different, and idiomatic phrases and slang uses different characters quite often to talk about the same thing. Definitely two distinct languages. I can read a Mandarin newspaper but I don't understand it completely.

ratcheer · 2012-10-03 05:15:59

Only English, southeastern US English.

In the past, I have studied Spanish, Latin, and German, but I only learned enough to pass the classes and forgot most of what I learned.

Tim

fiddler · 2012-10-28 09:08:26

Crippled English
Indonesian
Javanese (native tongue)
Melayu ( a little bit)
Norsk (passively)

but my primary language is Foul Language

I'm impressed that there are some guys here who can speak more than 3/4 languages fluently , just what are you guys made of?!

@ArchVortex
Jakarta sebelah ngendi pak?

Last edited by fiddler (2012-10-28 09:12:28)

ArchVortex · 2012-10-30 10:18:35

@fiddler, Di Menteng sekarang. Gue sudah pernah tinggal di Malang (Singo Edan). Tinggal di mana? Some random 3rd world country. Lucu sekali!! Jan%@$ Justin Bieber!!

Mr Green · 2012-10-30 10:45:45

#!/bin/bash

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