How many languages do you understand?

[gael]

Cimbri, I think its a cockney accent, which means east London.

Think of the movies 'Snatch' and 'Lock stock and two smoking barrels'.

 

[Shadylookin]

I understand english to a good degree, but i can't spell any hard words. I can read some spanish, i can't talk to a spanish person because they talk to fast. so 1 1/4 languages

 

[allan2]

English (of course), and Spanish. Although the Spanish has admittedly been slipping, since my days in Guatemala (where I pretty much learned it all over again from scratch, having forgot my four years of high school Spanish). I'm the kind of language learner that can't retain much without complete immersion. Which is why I don't remember a damned bit of the Russian and French I took in college, or the German way back in seventh and eighth grades.

 

[Bifrost]

All slavic languages - some I understand well, some - barely, but usually catch the essence of what a person is talking about. You can't even imagine how it's convinient to speak well a couple of slavic languages - there will be little problems to understand the rest (or the majority), for example I can understand west- and east-slavic languages (Polish, Chech, Ukrainian, Russian, Byelorussian), but south-slavic languages (Bulgarian, etc) are quite tough.
Also English, French and Italian.

allan, I'll be glad to test your skills in Russian.
For all the rest who'd like to know how to say "I love you" in Russian - just pronounce "yellow blue bus" - it sounds quite similar.

 

[AVN]

Two. Dutch and English.
I have had lessons in German and French, but I have forgotten almost all of them.

 

[highflyin213]

I voted 1, as i only know English, but i know some Italian, though not much.

 

[Wolfe Tone]

I'd say 2. English Fluently, my Irish is ok but it's a long time since I've had to use it so it's a little rusty.

 

[puglover]

1. English.

 

[Johan Lackland]

Being a Norwegian, I automatically understand Swedish and Danish. I've learned English and German at school, so summa summarum (if it's possible to say that in English) I understand 5 languages. I voted at the poll before I read through the thread, so I didn't know that Norwegian, Swedish and Danish counted as one language for this purpose. So I'm the one who voted 5.

 

[Inter4]

Italian, Spanish and English
I don't only understand them..I speak them

 

[sysyphus]

Fully fluent in two, English and French, know little btis and pieces of a number of others.

 

[Japher]

I speak American (no not English), and I don't even speak that one good, but I guess I can understand it, and English.. so 2!!!!... naw 1.

Does Klingon count?

 

[sysyphus]

Agh, "American" is a dialect, not a language.

 

[allan2]

Originally posted by sysyphus
Agh, "American" is a dialect, not a language.

Actually, at what point does linguistic divergence cease to be "dialect" and become "another language"? One could say, for instance, that Spanish and French are "dialects" of Latin, depending on where they draw that line. Same for Russian/Ukranian/Belorussian/Polish being "dialects" of each other, or the Scandinavian languages (of which someone recently said they have an "automatic" understanding of all, due to being a native speaker of one).

Is there a scientifically-defined line? Or is it something more or less subjective? Just curious.

 

[Japher]

No it's not!!! English is a dialect of American! I can tell because all English people have accents, and people with accents speak wrong.

If not, then it's a completely different language, with some similar words

In English there aren't words like:

ungta
cheet
bling-bling
hell'a
jeez
geezer
.
.
.
.
instead they gots (<- another one) words like

bloke
whom
thou
thow
may
.
.
.
.
no American uses words like that!

 

[Immortal]

thou?

 

[Baleog]

thow?

 

[Mojotronica]

Originally posted by Japher
In English there aren't words like:

geezer

I thought the English used geezer all the time -- but they use interchangably w/ "dude" instead of the American use as a description for a wretchedly old person...

 

[sysyphus]

Originally posted by allan2


Actually, at what point does linguistic divergence cease to be "dialect" and become "another language"? One could say, for instance, that Spanish and French are "dialects" of Latin, depending on where they draw that line. Same for Russian/Ukranian/Belorussian/Polish being "dialects" of each other, or the Scandinavian languages (of which someone recently said they have an "automatic" understanding of all, due to being a native speaker of one).

Is there a scientifically-defined line? Or is it something more or less subjective? Just curious.

The use of grammar in the USA and that of Britain is virtually identical. Americans and Brits share well over 90% of their vocabulary. You're going to have to tread well into that before you'll convice me it's a different language.

I also recall someone getting a warning recently for use of French, the reason cited as "this is an English language forum"

I'll assume you consider you posts to be in "American", either dialect or language. If it is a language, then by the rules of the forum, you should be banned.

 

[allan2]

Originally posted by Mojotronica


I thought the English used geezer all the time -- but they use interchangably w/ "dude" instead of the American use as a description for a wretchedly old person...

As in "Geezer" Butler? The Black Sabbath bassist? Probably IS a geezer, in the American sense, now....