mostly because I was very tired and had a bit of a mushy brain, so it took me a while to make sure I'd said what I meant to say.

It seems ridiculous that the authorities can think it's OK that someone might ring up and be speaking in a language they're unfamiliar with to report an emergency when the country has it as an official language. I think in any country every effort should be made to ensure that big language groups in that country wouldn't always be having to speak in a 2nd language, though that's difficult to organise if there are many languages (ie in the UK I'm sure we have many many people whose first language isn't English, but it might be a nightmare deciding which languages should be prioritised because there are so many different language groups) but when a language is official... that's just ridiculous.

Anyway I'm just reiterating myself here so I'll shut up

I guess you're just very concerned about our language conflict. So thanks for that.
(That makes a nice conclusion to end with... )

*grin*

Having had a fairly poor school education I'm not fluent in any language other than English - speak a very limited bit of French and German (ie did GCSE's in them about 16 years ago!) Can say things like "wo ist die kneipe, bitte, ich mochte eninen bier!" (where is the pub, please I want a beer!")

I did 2 years of Welsh at school which is not a foreign language for me, as I am Welsh. But 2 years of Welsh really is very little and I can barely speak/understand it - I don't come from a very Welsh-speaking part of Wales (Newport) and my family didn't speak it, neither did my school teach much of it, so never really learned it other than the very basic bits and pieces you can cram in in two years, plus a little bit of home study and watching S4C every now and then. At the moment, my lack of Welsh is proving a problem with my getting the kind of work I want - I want to work in the Museum/Heritage sector, but here in Wales, you have to be bilingual to do that. Would be very happy to go to evening classes to improve my welsh if I could find one that either isn't held in the day or held on a night when I have other commitments (dance classes)! Very frustrating. . .

As far as language conflicts go, Wales is a prime example. After the Welsh Language act, every business has to be able to provide information and services in both languages equally. Not saying anything against that at all! But there are so many of us who, despite being Welsh don't come from Welsh speaking families and finished our compulsory schooling before the Welsh Language Act (which also made it compulsory education up to the age of 16) came in who never got the chance to learn it. So we're looking for jobs and being told "sorry, we need Welsh speakers" when we would only be too happy to speak Welsh if we'd ever been taught it!! Plus Welsh speakers have a way of making non Welsh speakers feel that they are "less Welsh" or making assumptions about them - ie you don't speak Welsh so you must be English or have English parents (umm, no, we're Welsh for as far as I can go back, actually. . .)

Kids today are much luckier, so many of them go to Welsh medium schools or at least get taught Welsh properly in schools (at least to GCSE standard). But back in the 1980's it was a different story. Some businesses offer the chance to learn Welsh in the workplace, but not all. And as I've said, evening classes can be hard to fit in when your life is already busy!!! It really gets me down!

Almost correct...

"Wo ist die Kneipe, bitte, ich möchte ein Bier."

Sorry, I know I'm a hair-splitter, I can never resist.

Learning on the job would be such a sensible option for so many people, too it would seem sensible to fund schemes like that, as I'm sure there must be plenty of people in your position.

English (of course) and dog language, plus extremely rusty German and Japanese. Also learnt French and Latin at school but have forgotten most of these...........

Just wondering how many languages people can speak!

I speak Italian and English as well as each other but i also speak French (ok) German (ok) Spanish (Badly)

How about you?!

Umm: well I can speak English English, American English, Australian English...

I know GCSE French quite well too, and would love to learn Italian properly, but we don't have any Italian teachers...

~Wobby~

Fluent English, almost fluent French, bad Hebrew (but improving), truely appauling German.

English and Chinese fluent. GCSE French, then thats about it

English, and a bit of French too.

And of course some Italian words too.

Car Expert

Almost fluent English, almost fluent French and almost fluent Spanish. And one or two phrases in Italian, German, Modern Greek, Portuguese, Latin, Cantonese and Russian.

Fluent in German and English.

Don't you think you'd be over complacent in saying you are almost fluent in French and Spanish? Even A Level standard is hardly fluent if you were to go to the country!

If we want to go for short phrases, I know a bit of Arabic, Greek, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Indian, Japanese, Irish, German, Latin, Dutch, Swedish and Hawaiian... and maybe more!

~Wobby~

Erm... no

I can order food and drink, and ask for and give directions. That's fluent enough for me

First language Japanese, second language English. GCSE level German & Spanish (whatever that level is )

Fluent English, kind of becoming fluent Spanish (my dad's from Peru) and absoloutly appaling at French and German.

English and solfa

Fluent in both English & Rubbish

when do you define fluent? I study french at uni and I can think in french, talk without mentally translating and read without thinking in english in french, but I wouldn't say I'm fluent yet!

I'm fluent in English, not sure what I'd class my french, I have what was pretty reasonable german and is now quite dodgy, and enough spanish and portuguese to survive alone in the country!

I think I would roughly define 'near-fluent' as understanding pretty much everything said to you, except very obscure vocabulary, and being able to converse concisely in a manner particular to the native country.

Fluent would near unattainable for many foreigners, theoretically, but by my ideals, you would have perfected your speaking so much that people would not know you had not learnt the language at birth, and you would be able to understand everything the average native of the same age in the country could...

~Wobby~

I speak English and Cantonese fluently but I'm also learning Mandarin, Italian and French. I'm taking French and Italian for GCSE.

English, Cantonese and French (very badly though).

English, plus Year 9-ish (not even GCSE...) French and German and enough to get by in British Sign Language (well, the alphabet, the rest of it was learnt a long time ago!)

English, Swedish and a bit of French, German & Italian.

English, as well as GCSE French and Spanish.

Define speak


I was wondering the same.

OK, here goes:

English, mostly fluent
Russian: used to be almost fluent, now very rusty.
Croatian: rusty 2nd-year-of-uni level
French: exceedingly rusty 1st year of uni level. (post A Level but I was pretty bad!)
German: did a couple of years at school, can understand a reasonable amount ie directions and stuff but can say very little - can order food and be polite, and introduce myself, that's about it!
Spanish: very bad, again can understand more than I can say.
Japanese: did 6 months of an evening class but have forgotten most - can introduce myself and say hi/bye/how are you? - but have forgotten all the bits about describing stuff/where you come from/telling the time etc
BSL: very tiny amounts and very rusty, can do the alphabet, some random stuff, and some Christian phrases/songs.

I can understand greater or lesser amounts of Slavonic languages most of the time/sometimes make myself understood - I have talked to Ukrainians & Poles who did not speak Rusian and been able to communicate, and can understand some written Czech though have yet to experiment with actually trying to talk to people in it! I can usually scramble together enough to let people know that I understand them but that I don't actually speak their language!!

Random phrases in: Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Estonian, Polish *thinks*

Peobably a few other random bits but that's off the top of my head. Jack of all trades, master of none! Besides English the only one I could say I really knew is Russian, and that is sooooooooo rusty

Theoretically, I speak German and French. In real life, I fail miserably. Though I find French very easy to read.

English, get-by standard of German and I have been teaching myself Arabic since January and can say all sorts of irrelevant things!

That's the most fun bit

Menfadlah artimi mai bered

But that's actually reasonably useful at the mo (apologies if it's a bit dodgily spelled, I learned it aurally!)

Min fadlak = please. No idea about the rest sorry.

artimi (probaby misspelled...) = give
mai = water
bered = cold

My one and only useful phrase in Arabic

edit:

My entire Arabic vocab is here http://www.sarahce.plus.com/arabic.htm btw the links away from the page don't all work, I need to sort that out...

English, French reasonably, German.....well I can order a drink and some food in German!......

I looked down your list and the only ones you have a little wonky are 'please' and 'how are you?' which should be min fadlak and kayfa haal-ak/ik (m & f) respectively. But I can see exactly where you're pronunciation came from.

Btw, I don't know all those words yet, I'm sure they're right though.

Dutch fluent, English reading/understanding fluent and speaking/writing OK, German reading/understanding only.

English, A-level (ish) french, a teeny bit of BSL, and the occasional word or phrase in german. I learnt german in year 8 and 9 but have forgotten most of it! Although I managed to understand a tiny bit when we went through a german train station. The french came in useful in the Czech Republic last summer! The hostel owner wanted to know why we were late for arrival time and couldn't speak any English and we couldn't speak any Czech

Just out of interest: what level of fluency can you achieve with an A level language?

Well, you can talk about world events, racism, immigration, discuss the media etc etc, use more complex grammar structures, vocabularly and the like. It's done pretty well for me

They're all pretty much phonetic from the people who taught us them!

It's a bit of a ragbag selection, I mean, I can say "plaster" (as in wall plaster!) in Ararbic Yolla and Helas were definitely the most useful I can't even say "I can't speak Arabic" - the only bit I can say from that is "Arabiya"!!!

You make an excellent point. Fluency is an overused term. Degree level isn't even fluent in the majority of cases - far from it. Imagine how well you speak your own language - that's fluent. Now can you speak your other languages as well as your native tongue or to a near-native level? If not, then you aren't fluent in them.

I'm a serial language addict (but then it is my job, so I have an excuse!):

Native speaker of French and English
Fluent Spanish
Good level of Japanese (degree level) - I use it daily because of colleagues at the Uni.
Good level of Scots Gaidhlig
Reasonably good level of German (degree level)
Reasonably good level of Italian (perhaps 2nd year of degree level... hard to say exactly, it gets better if I speak it for any length of time)
Reasonable Urdu
Reasonable Hindi
Basic Mandarin
Very basic Welsh
Almost non-existent Romanian (it really is very bad...)

I'm comfortable listening to and reading in Dutch and Portuguese.

Allan

Mandarin- relatively fluent, speaking it at home
English-relatively fluent
Malay- relatively fluent, 12 years' schooling

dialects-
Hokkien- relatively fluent
Cantonese- can understand and speak fairly


wanna learn some European languages some day:)

edited: i took Hakka and Jap out...haha since I can't speak those well:)
reminder to self: learn those too:)

Truly appalling English too ! - Only joking

I wouldn't say it does a lot to be honest. I did german A-level, and I managed to do both german GCSE and A-level without learning to do grammar properly (ie I can just to a present, past and future, and a little bit of subjunctive) but managed to get by. I can understand well, but my talking back is dodgy!

I have a slight feeling that some people are showing off the language that they know( speak a little bit....or can understand but can't speak.) The topic says "How many do you speak?" And so I believe we should realldy stick to the question.
I can only speak Chinese(both) and English. Others all know a little but I guess they don't count.

That's a fair point. Here is my modified list:

French
English
Spanish
Japanese
Scots Gaidhlig
German
Italian
Urdu

Allan

Although I do believe it would be fair to include languages one is actively learning too. I speak German better than Arabic for instance but I am actively learning Arabic whereas I am not still learning German. So my modified list would be:

English
Arabic (learning)

Allan - Wow that's impressive, you seem to be a serial serial-offender!

I was thinking the same I am a serial serial offender too but not to nearly so accomplished a degree

I agree about the speaking thing - which is why I asked what Nicia actually meant by that? As I said in my long post on the subject, the only one of my languages I would class as good (besides English) is Russian, and that is very rusty As Nicia included languages she speaks "OK" and "badly" I presumed she wanted the same from us.

im english...but iv spoken french since i started learning to talk because my dad was an over-enthusiastic french teacher....at the age of 5 i was as good at french as english...but when my brother and sister were born they couldnt catch up as fast as i was going (!) so it all slowed down n now im doing GCSE french, but im the best in my year and live in france all my holidays so im a bit higher than general yr 11 standard, although my spanish is most definitely average gcse lvel... xxx

Wie gut sprichst du denn deutsch? Das sind ja ziemlich viele Sprachen die du fließend sprichst.