How many languages do you speak?

[Big J]

I am just curious how multilingual Arbtalkers are. There are plenty of people working all over the world who contribute to the forum, so I feel we're a fairly international bunch. 

 

I'd also be interested to know how people came to learn their additional languages. Is it through school, living in another country, parents or other?

 

Personally, in addition to English I am reasonably fluent in German, and I'm studying Swedish at the moment. According to Duolingo (which I am enjoying using), I have a vocab of about 1450 words. That is to say, I am very, very far from being conversational, but I can read a fair bit of it. Swedish is like the mutant love child of English and German, so it's probably the easiest third language for me. I'm putting an hour or two into it a day at the moment and we're in Sweden next month, so it shouldn't be too long before I'm reasonably fluent.

 

I do know a fair few polyglots. My mum speaks five languages, her fella about the same, a friend up in Scotland at least 9, an uncle who recently passed away 4. I'm envious, even in this age of ever expanding English permeation into other languages.

 

[Rough Hewn]

French, verbally fluent, nearly illiterate though.
I can get by with a smattering of German.
But I can argue with taxi drivers in about 5 more languages.
[emoji106]

[Mike Hill]

Eg anbefaler at du lærer seg Norsk først  ,fordi Svensk blir mer enkelte i mange tilfeller der etter.

 

Norsk er baserte på både Tysk og Engelsk og svensk blir en sidegrein på mange møte. Defor når man har rimelig godt kompetanse på Norsk can du lese og Snakke med denne "grønnsakene" som bør ved Østen.

 

 

[Big J]

2 minutes ago, Mike Hill said:

Eg anbefaler at du lærer seg Norsk først  ,fordi Svensk blir mer enkelte i mange tilfeller der etter.

 

Norsk er baserte på både Tysk og Engelsk og svensk blir en sidegrein på mange møte. Defor når man har rimelig godt kompetanse på Norsk can du lese og Snakke med denne "grønnsakene" som bør ved Østen.

 

 

You make a valid point (and it's funny how much of that I understood without having to Google translate it), but with my mum speaking Swedish and us having family there, it makes sense. We have no conenction to Norway unfortunately.

[Woodworks]

One on a good day.

 

[Big J]

3 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

One on a good day.

 

Devonian doesn't count Beau! ?

[se7enthdevil]

my vocabulary in english has always been remarkably high although i'm never quite sure why that is. at school they could never understand why i knew words that baffled plenty of adults...

 

as far as other languages go i can still count to 20 in french but that's about it.

 

when they tried to teach us french in secondary school my argument for not wanting to learn it was that the history class (and tv) teaches us we kept beating the french so i've no need.

 

is bullshit a language because i'm fairly good at that...

[Mike Hill]

I tillegg til denne Norsk mulighet til førstå "Svedonian" kan Nordem også snakke med Dansk og Islanding som er eigentlig Nordmen som har spist for mange flysopp for et tusen år tilbake og funnet en øy når alle vår tung beruset og  hadde ingen selvtilliten for å reise hjem igen.

[Big J]

33 minutes ago, Mike Hill said:

I tillegg til denne Norsk mulighet til førstå "Svedonian" kan Nordem også snakke med Dansk og Islanding som er eigentlig Nordmen som har spist for mange flysopp for et tusen år tilbake og funnet en øy når alle vår tung beruset og  hadde ingen selvtilliten for å reise hjem igen.

Now you're just showing off! ?

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

I don't have a natural aptitude towards foreign languages - it takes a lot of work so it helps being a stubborn bar steward!

 

I tried Swedish over a couple of years back in the 90's whilst frequently visiting gf.

 

Also tried Dutch whilst working there late 90's.

 

Conversational French comes along nicely when in country but (sadly) that hasn't happened for quite a few years now. 

 

The incentive for both suffered from the reality that each country has relatively small population / global spread, generally exceptional English speakers and very limited practical need or benefit from following up with the effort and commitment required to progress.

 

Developing Korean at the moment - but limited to technical associations with TKD.  A visit to Korea after all this C19 business has settled down (or perhaps equalised) might be a catalyst for boosting that.

 

Can argue with a taxi driver (and order beer) in ANY language!