How Many Languages Can You Speak?

[Tomeck]

I understand French, German, English and Polish.

 

[kelpmermaid]

In addition to English (New Jersey accent detectable when provoked,) I speak Japanese, French, and some Spanish, and I am still working on the latter. Although I see that we share the same combination, no, Rakkis is not my son.

 

[mdb]

..... the time is fast coming when English is the only language anyone needs to know. This isn't jingoism, just fact.

No doubt true, English is the language of airlines and commerce and the second/third language for many Europeans. It is nice, however; to talk with someone in their native tongue, the reaction is almost always very positive. When I first started working with Apollo I brought tapes, books, etc and practiced Japanese every time I had the chance. Even though many of my Japanese friends speak better English than I do Japanese they still seem to appreciate having a nice dinner and speaking Nihongo.

 

[Tomeck]

Four years of high school Spanish, four years of college Spanish, most of it forgotten. Minimal tourist French...

It's easy to blame Americans for being mono-lingual, but the situation was put into perspective for me by a tour guide in London last month. While driving out to Stonehenge, I asked the guide about her curious accent and she said she was Hungarian but had been in the UK so long she had a British-Hungarian accent. She also spoke Russian.

I lamented that Americans, unlike Europeans, are poor linguists and she said the problem is not with Americans, but the widespread dominance of English. She pointed out that soon, the whole world will know English and so the pressure for native English speakers to learn, or practice, any other language is low. She noted, for example, that since almost no one speaks Hungarian except Hungarians, the pressure on people from that country to learn another language is enormous.

I tried to speak some French while in France, but it's hopeless, particularly in urban centers. The people there want to practice their English, not let you practice your French. Unless you are fluent, they have little patience for half-***** attempts at their language, since most are better at English than we are at French.

One final point: my mother was raised in a Slovak household and didn't speak much English until going to school. She spoke Slovak to her mother until 1967, when my grandmother passed away. In the last thirty years, since she has no reason to use it, her command of the language has atrophied to the point that she is barely conversant in it any longer. Thus, even with one's NATIVE language, unless it is used regularly, the skill will fade.

Thus, Americans who live in areas where Spanish is endemic, acquiring that language is possible. But for most people who live in America and who don't travel internatonally, the time required to acquire a new language isn't worth the effort, and the practical experience needed to maintain that language just is not available. Europeans can travel thirty miles and hear three new languages, we can't.

Bashing Americans for being mono-lingual isn't fair. It's simple jealousy of our dominance. In fact, as my guide pointed out, her friends who speak five languages, but not English, would gladly trade all five for fluency in English alone.

I don't find that Americans are mono-lingual, I met many Americans who speak several languages. I find that Americans are more interested than British for the languages and they like to hear the different accents.

 

[Snappahead]

Does Pirate count?

 

[stevewirl]

i can speak 3 english , german and wait for it i can speak Irish and yes its a reall language

 

[Snappahead]

That would be Gaelic wouldn't it?

 

[TheMotrCty]

That would be Gaelic wouldn't it?

I believe Irish Gaelic an Erse qualify.

Just sayin'...

Ron

 

[Marek K]

English; Polish is a second native language (though my immigrant parents didn't teach me the swearing part ); German, pretty fluently; rusty Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian (does that count as three languages? At least two, because of two alphabets!); and very rusty college Russian.

Lynne-- the thing about German is, it doesn't give you any leeway as far as word order. Say it wrong, and you sound like Yoda to a German...

 

[MeiLing]

English and semi-fluent in French and German, although I am a bit rusty in the latter two. I studied both of them for five years each in high school and college.