Do you speak any other languages?

Aongus Von Bismarck · 25-01-2015 06:16PM

I speak fluent German and it's the language I converse in with my colleagues.
I was good at Irish in school, but it has gone rather rusty at this stage.
Good level of basic conversational Spanish. 8 months in South America was the perfect way to learn.

RobertKK · 25-01-2015 06:18PM

I can speak a little French - not fluent, currently learning Spanish.

Shenshen · 25-01-2015 06:26PM

I can only speak German, English and French.

They insisted on teaching me Latin in school, utter waste of time. I couldn't even order a pizza in Latin these days.

wretcheddomain · 25-01-2015 06:27PM

Body language

Un Croissant · 25-01-2015 06:27PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I can only speak German, English and French.

They insisted on teaching me Latin in school, utter waste of time. I couldn't even order a pizza in Latin these days.

You never know. You could be served by someone with a degree in Latin and ancient greek. Arts, amiright?

(I'm an arts student)

Shenshen · 25-01-2015 06:29PM

Un Croissant wrote: »

You never know. You could be served by someone with a degree in Latin and ancient greek. Arts, amiright?

(I'm an arts student)

Nope, Bavarian school system. No Abitur without Latin!

spurious · 25-01-2015 06:31PM

Shenshen wrote: »

I can only speak German, English and French.

They insisted on teaching me Latin in school, utter waste of time. I couldn't even order a pizza in Latin these days.

But Latin gives you a head start in the grammar of many languages.

Frigating · 25-01-2015 06:32PM

Learning French for the LC, like to think I'm quite good at it. Want to be fluent in it one day. I'm also going to learn Esperanto over the summer, just for the craic. Heard it's supposed to be fairly easy.

Shenshen · 25-01-2015 06:34PM

spurious wrote: »

But Latin gives you a head start in the grammar of many languages.

So, I spend 5 years learning Latin in order to shave a few minutes off learning Spanish grammar?

I'd rather have spent those 5 years learning Spanish. Or a non-European language.

iusedtoknow · 25-01-2015 06:49PM

Shenshen wrote: »

So, I spend 5 years learning Latin in order to shave a few minutes off learning Spanish grammar?

I'd rather have spent those 5 years learning Spanish. Or a non-European language.

Basic spanish grammar is easy, it's when you get into the various past tenses that it gets difficult.

Adamantium · 25-01-2015 06:53PM

Sir Osis of Liver. · 25-01-2015 06:55PM

I can speak Cant.

As in "That geezers a fackin cant".

Villagio · 25-01-2015 06:56PM

Benny Lewis over at "Fluent in 3 months" can speak about 9.

Canard · 25-01-2015 11:10PM

French, Spanish and German.

Still learning them of course but I'd be completely comfortable with the first two, and reasonably so with German. I have a Russian friend who I help with English but I find the Russian alphabet so hard.

I'd like to try it a bit more though, as well as Italian/Romanian/Dutch. My Irish used to be great but now it's pretty bad.

Soft inda Head · 25-01-2015 11:26PM

Swedish. I understand Norwegian by association. When I started learning Swedish I had a habit of inserting Irish words into sentences in error. Which is a little strange as I was hopeless at Irish. :-)

Meangadh · 25-01-2015 11:36PM

Fluent in Irish, used to have fairly good French although it's gone pretty rusty now- I have a pretty good ear for languages though so I might pick it back up again or even try a new one. Spanish would be great to have but I love the sound of Italian.

Yurt2 · 25-01-2015 11:56PM

Villagio wrote: »

Benny Lewis over at "Fluent in 3 months" can speak about 9.

As well as having the most punchable face this side of the Danube, he's also a fraud. Anyone who claims they can learn a language to fluency in 3 months is best ignored as a complete huckster. It's not possible, get up the yard. What he does do is learn a predictable set of responses to predictable questions about his language learning and travels in each of his target languages, and often he's not even very good at that. This is not fluency.

Herb Powell · 25-01-2015 11:57PM

Fluent in Irish and German (i.e have had to explain to people on several occassions that I'm not from Erlangen, sondern IRRRRRLANDDDD) , less so in French, through lack of practice, and I have 'emergency' Spanish. I can swear like mad in Polish, but that's about it.

HalloweenJack · 26-01-2015 12:17AM

Went to all-Irish but finished almost eight years ago now and it's got rusty, which is a shame. Don't spend anywhere near enough time back home to get enough practice of it.

I'm very confident in my Spanish ability. Have lived here for a few years and spend most of my time speaking it. I'd agree it's a fairly easy language to get a decent head start in.

I can hold a conversation in Portuguese but that's rustier than I'd like. Also have a very basic smattering of German and Czech but would not want to have to rely on them.

nervous_twitch · 26-01-2015 12:55AM

English and French. I studied Spanish in university, and Irish for a few years, but have sort of decided that I'd rather speak two languages perfectly then several languages half-assedly.

26-01-2015 01:12AM

I started school in France and lived there during my childhood for a few years. So I was fluent!

Since I left school (leaving cert French) and haven't been speaking it it's not great. I can understand it perfectly but I not really comfortable with speaking it anymore. My Father still lives in France so whenever I go back there it comes back to me after being there for a few days!

stillalive88 · 26-01-2015 01:15AM

Italian, French, Latin, English.
But know some people that know four, five times more languages

Nomis21 · 26-01-2015 01:16AM

Dhivé, It's the language of the Maldive Islands.

I hitched a ride with a fishing boat from Sri Lanka in the 80's. We were shipwrecked in the Addu Atoll on an island called Hithadhoo.

I had to stay there after the boat was repaired as one of the island girls claimed she was pregnant with my child. I taught english in the island school while the Maldive Government decided my case. There was no DNA in those days but the child when born did not have European features and I was allowed to leave, by now fluent in a language which is probably even less useful than Irish.

HughWotMVIII · 26-01-2015 01:25AM

My mother tongue, one Ugandan language, Kiswahili, French, English and a smattering of Swedish.

stillalive88 · 26-01-2015 01:28AM

Nomis21 wrote: »

Dhivé, It's the language of the Maldive Islands.

I hitched a ride with a fishing boat from Sri Lanka in the 80's. We were shipwrecked in the Addu Atoll on an island called Hithadhoo.

I had to stay there after the boat was repaired as one of the island girls claimed she was pregnant with my child. I taught english in the island school while the Maldive Government decided my case. There was no DNA in those days but the child when born did not have European features and I was allowed to leave, by now fluent in a language which is probably even less useful than Irish.

And I thought the plot of Arrow was not believable

Manach · 26-01-2015 01:29AM

duolingo is a handy resource to boost language skills to an intermediate level.

pragmatic1 · 26-01-2015 01:59AM

Irish and English. Spoke Irish exclusively until the age of 8.

AlanS181824 · 26-01-2015 02:01AM

Been learning German for 5 years so I've a fair amount of confidence in that.

However I was in Berlin in November and a few times I had to resort to asking... Sprechen Sie Englisch? (Do ya speak English?)

Seanf999 · 26-01-2015 02:09AM

I speak some Turkish and the usual Irish and French because I do them at school so I don't know if I can really count them..

calanus · 26-01-2015 02:27AM

A couple of Scandanavian languages already popped up here. Just adding Icelandic to the mix. I can get away with general everyday stuff at the moment but I can't go beyond basic conversations... I can read it pretty well though

Do you speak any other languages?

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