How Many Languages do you Speak?

[Egg]

Being a diverse website, with hockey fanatics from everywhere it seems, I am curious as to what languages some of you speak.

Whether fluently, broken or learning, how many languages do you speak?

Click to read more...

 

[HisIceness]

Bonjour, como estas?

 

[Tarantula]

Do languages made up by yourself count? Asking for a imaginary friend...

 

[Egg]

I am actually French Canadian.

 

[Egg]

But also speak Creole, can put sentences together in Tagalog and speak enough Cantonese to get by.

Other than that, just a couple sentences in about 6 other languages.

 

[Egg]

I have always been fascinated by language and customs, along with cultures.

 

[Bones Malone]

All of them

 

[Recipe Unlimited]

I speak hockeynerdese

 

[TheGreenTBer]

But also speak Creole, can put sentences together in Tagalog and speak enough Cantonese to get by.

Other than that, just a couple sentences in about 6 other languages.

I have no idea how people can speak extremely tonal languages like that, it's remarkable to me. My brain and vocal cords just don't work that way.

 

[Egg]

I have no idea how people can speak extremely tonal languages like that, it's remarkable to me. My brain and vocal cords just don't work that way.

It is an incredibly tough language to learn, but I struggled worse with learning some Arabic.

But for me, it was out of necessity. In a city where finding English speaking individuals was hard in some places.

You learn to mime out what you need. Then it really dawns on you, and you grow a deeper respect for newcomers to Canada who struggle with the language.

I became a pro in asking for a bag, pointing at my watch, rubbing my index and thumb or drawing out a rectangle, to pay a bill or so on.

Its when you can't get by, that you realize asking someone where the toilet is without being creepy in mime, is impossible. I had to learn.

I am a sponge for languages though, so that helps as I try to nail the intonation too.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

It is an incredibly tough language to learn, but I struggled worse with learning some Arabic.

But for me, it was out of necessity. In a city where finding English speaking individuals was hard in some places.

You learn to mime out what you need. Then it really dawns on you, and you grow a deeper respect for newcomers to Canada who struggle with the language.

I became a pro in asking for a bag, pointing at my watch, rubbing my index and thumb or drawing out a rectangle, to pay a bill or so on.

Its when you can't get by, that you realize asking someone where the toilet is without being creepy in mime, is impossible. I had to learn.

I am a sponge for languages though, so that helps as I try to nail the intonation too.

I wish I were a sponge for languages. I could learn things like grammar and spelling, but I struggle with tones and sometimes accents (depending on the language.) A monolingual person like myself often has trouble learning languages as an adult because your brain, ears, nose, throat, etc. are used to hearing and forming the sounds required for your single language.

Take something like French; a native French speaker can spot a bad accent from a mile away no matter how hard you work at it. I tried to order something from a bakery in Quebec City in French, gave it my best possible attempt, and they just smiled and responded to me in English. I don't know if they were amused, offended or both. I hope they weren't offended because I was actually trying my best to pay my respects to the local tongue, though clearly I cannot make French sounds no matter how hard I try.

In some ways, I'm envious of children. They can learn languages much more quickly.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

English and profanity.

 

[Egg]

In some ways, I'm envious of children. They can learn languages much more quickly.

How we tend to teach language, is part of the problem. I was trained to teach business English as wanted to travel and get paid.

We often teach grammar first. To me, this flawed.

The letter A, is pronounced differently than if it was in a word.

We taught verbal and phonetically speaking. People catch on way quicker.

If I point to myself and tell you "My name is Egg, whats your name?"

You will pick up lightning quick vs me teaching you this grammatically.

 

[Egg]

English and profanity.

I dated women from various countries. I only would ask them for curse words.

Sad part is when I traveled there. I had nothing but venom for breaking the ice. Makes it awkward.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

How we tend to teach language, is part of the problem. I was trained to teach business English as wanted to travel and get paid.

We often teach grammar first. To me, this flawed.

The letter A, is pronounced differently than if it was in a word.

We taught verbal and phonetically speaking. People catch on way quicker.

If I point to myself and tell you "My name is Egg, whats your name?"

You will pick up lightning quick vs me teaching you this grammatically.

Absolutely, I completely agree with this. We should teach people how to conduct conversations, not how to pass grammar or spelling tests in a language. You can learn that stuff later once you can converse. If I can understand what you're saying and/or trying to say, and vice versa, that is what really matters.

 

[Pip]

Anyone here speak Zaide? No clue wtf he’s ever talking about

 

[Siamese Dream]

English native

I'd consider myself "intermediate" in Welsh and Russian

I only know "basic" French - I actually have a qualification for it from school but it's been a while.

Then just a bunch of useful phrases in Spanish, German and Italian

A tiny bit of Swedish

 

[Bumpus]

I much prefer telepathy.

I find it far superior to the primitive concept of the mere verbalization of spoken words to describe anything.

 

[Kennedys]

French canadian native and i can speak English reasonably well, i think.

 

[sdf]

Russian and bad english. Whish i learned on this site

 

[TheGreenTBer]

French canadian native and i can speak English reasonably well, i think.

Marc Bergevin speaks neither French nor English reasonably well.

Russian and bad english. Whish i learned on this site

Just because you're not fluent doesn't mean I can't understand you, so give yourself some credit.

English is a weird language. There are a lot of unnecessary words and irregular conjugations. You don't need to be perfect in order to be understood.

 

[Tarantula]

I once worked with a fellow from Russia, he could speak a few languages to a degree and pointed out that English has so many different words that are pronounced different and mean different things but spelled the same. Minute was the one example he gave, put the accent on the second syllable and you're referring to time. Put the accent on the first and you're talking about a small amount of something.

" In a minute I will take this out of the oven and add a minute amount of seasoning."

 

[TheGreenTBer]

I once worked with a fellow from Russia, he could speak a few languages to a degree and pointed out that English has so many different words that are pronounced different and mean different things but spelled the same. Minute was the one example he gave, put the accent on the second syllable and you're referring to time. Put the accent on the first and you're talking about a small amount of something.

" In a minute I will take this out of the oven and add a minute amount of seasoning."

I learned Spanish in school, and there is no uncertainty as to what sound a letter makes in that language. The syllable stressing can vary, but generally speaking and ignoring dialect differences, letter sequences make the same sound all the time. There is a thing where the letter "r" is rolled much more strongly when it is the first letter in a word, but Spanish pronunciation is consistent.

English is a clusterf***. Minute/minute, read/read, lead/lead and countless others, irregular tense conjugations like "lose" going to "lost" instead of "losed", weird plurals like fish, moose, etc...it's convoluted. However: it's not a total language, so we have that going for us.

 

[Bumpus]

I once worked with a fellow from Russia, he could speak a few languages to a degree and pointed out that English has so many different words that are pronounced different and mean different things but spelled the same. Minute was the one example he gave, put the accent on the second syllable and you're referring to time. Put the accent on the first and you're talking about a small amount of something.

" In a minute I will take this out of the oven and add a minute amount of seasoning."

The grammar rules are even worse:

Let’s help Uncle Jack off his horse.
- is quite different than -
Let’s help Uncle, jack off his horse.


Just one little, itty-bitty comma and a capital/lower-case letter discrepancy means the difference between a kind act, and the kinda act that gets one sent to prison.

 

[Neil Racki]

I took French I five times in a row.

You need to pass a level II language course to graduate HS.

After my sophmore year, my guidance counselor said lets try Spanish.