What Languages do you know?

[Raghu Rajamarian]

Hi Folks,

I am not referring to Programming languages..

I speak Tamil,English and a litle bit of Hindi...

[Svend Rost]

Danish (native tongue)
English (written/spoken)
German (written/spoken)
Swedish (understands, speaks a bit)
Norwegian (understands, speaks a bit)

[Bear Bibeault]

English, a bit of ASL, and I can swear like a drunken sailor in French.

[Dani Atrei]

Spanish
French
English
German
Italian

[Roger Johnson]

learning languages is a waste of time and effort. God should have created human with only one language.

image all the wonderful things you can do with the time wasted on learning foreign languages. well, you may end up just sleeping, even that is good, you will live healthier and longer

[John Smith]

learning languages is a waste of time and effort. God should have created human with only one language.

From Genesis 11: "Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words."

You may want to read Genesis further to see what happened after that.

[Dani Atrei]

Life wouldnt be so much fun without languages.

[Bear Bibeault]

Without "foreign" languages, how would I go about swearing like a drunken sailor?

[Dani Atrei]

I'm curious, what do you say when you swear like a Drunker Sailor? And in French? Why French? I have a friend who when he swears alsways asks us to forgive his French. Why is that?

[Ulf Dittmer]

As (almost) always, Google:"Pardon My French" can help out.
[ February 08, 2006: Message edited by: Ulf Dittmer ]

[Dani Atrei]

Ah google, what would we do without it? Thanks for the article, very informative, oui oui!

[Dave Lenton]

Now I feel like a typically English language moron. There's so many polyglots here!

I know:

* English (I've almost got the hang of it)
* Greek (basic only, despite going to evening classes for several years)
* French (...nah, forget that, because I have)


----
I'm sure I've only got one spare "slot" in my brain for a foreign language. I've found that since starting learning Greek, I've forgotten all my French. Whenever I try to think of a French word for something, the Greek pops up instead. Yesterday I realised that I can't even remember enough to ask "how old are you". It made me think - at what point does a lack of knowledge of a language decrease to the point where you can no longer say you "know" the language?

---
The really sad thing is that I had to edit this post to correct some spelling mistakes. Now I'm beginning to wonder if I even know English!
[ February 09, 2006: Message edited by: Dave Lenton ]

[Jesus Angeles]

..i speak the language of music, and love (ok this one i am lying)

[Dani Atrei]

Originally posted by Dave Lenton:

I'm sure I've only got one spare "slot" in my brain for a foreign language. I've found that since starting learning Greek, I've forgotten all my French. Whenever I try to think of a French word for something, the Greek pops up instead. Yesterday I realised that I can't even remember enough to ask "how old are you". It made me think - at what point does a lack of knowledge of a language decrease to the point where you can no longer say you "know" the language?

It's normal, if you don't practise a language, you forget it. I studied German for 4 years, and i can t remember how to say how old are you, wie alt bist du?, i can remember aproximately . However, because you ve already learned it, next time it will take you 2 times less effort to relearn it. Especially if you go to that country, it will just pop back in after a few weeks. And anyway, the other important thing is that people appreciate the effort of you learning their language, and this is specially true for some eu countries.

[Jessica Sant]

English and ASL (American Sign Language) - not really fluent -- but enough to hold a conversation.

[Bert Bates]

I'm still waiting for my mail-order babel fish to arrive

[agrah upadhyay]

Hindi and English well

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Jessica Sant:
English and ASL (American Sign Language) - not really fluent -- but enough to hold a conversation.

I'm not sure if I'm still fluent enough for extended conversation. It's been years since I've used it -- I learned ASL so I could converse with a deaf friend in the mid to late 80's.

My finger spelling is still fine though.

[Gerald Davis]

I understand Jordies, cockney and chav

[Sameer Jamal]

Languages
Hindi
Urdu
English

Dialect
Kumaoni

[Sania Marsh]

English
Russian
Turkish

and few more languages of turcic origin

[Sania Marsh]

Originally posted by Roger Johnson:
learning languages is a waste of time and effort. God should have created human with only one language.

image all the wonderful things you can do with the time wasted on learning foreign languages. well, you may end up just sleeping, even that is good, you will live healthier and longer

You should work as God's consultant..
[ February 13, 2006: Message edited by: Sania Marsh ]

[Frank Silbermann]

Roger Johnson: Learning languages is a waste of time and effort. God should have created human with only one language. Imagine all the wonderful things you can do with the time wasted on learning foreign languages.

Originally posted by John Smith:
From Genesis 11: "Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words."

You may want to read Genesis further to see what happened after that.

In other words, if you didn't have to waste time learning foreign languages, you could build a tower to heaven to wage war on God!

Now, if you also avoid wasting the time some people spend learning geography, you could use that time to watch baseball on TV, spend hours in a car driving to and from work, take a second job to pay for a newer car, eat at MacDonalds, etc. Maybe even invade Iraq! :-)

As for me, I can: (1) read simple Dutch; (2) make out many newspaper headlines in Scandinavian languages; (3) speak German; (4) read simple Yiddish; (5) translate Biblical Hebrew a little bit.

I spent a bit of time studying Spanish, back when I had the idea of moving to South Florida; but I didn't get very far. I still think I ought to put some more effort into it, if only so that I'll be able to get around in America when I get old. :-)

[Ramaswamy Srinivasan]

Dear Ranchers,

Nice thing on languages. So, I can

Read/Speak/Write fluently : Tamil
Read/Speak/Write fluently : English
Read/Speak/Write : Hindi
Read/Speak/Write fluently : Sanskrit

Understand little bit of French :

Oh my God, the list ends here.....

Cheers,
Ram.

[Raghavendra nandavar]

Konkani, Kannada, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, can understand little bit of Tamil....
[ February 14, 2006: Message edited by: Raghavendra nandavar ]

[Frank Silbermann]

Originally posted by Raghavendra nandavar:
Konkani, Kannada, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, can understand little bit of Tamil....

Speaking Kannada is easy -- you just pronounce the `O' funny, and end most sentences with "Ay?"

[Vinny Menon]

Hey fellow ranchers,
I can read/write/speak the following languages:
english,hindi,marathi,malayalam,sanskrit

i can understand the following languages:
gujrathi/tamil.

cheers
vinny m

[Lukas Alamar]

english .. it serves all of my needs
little german ..
and italian of course

Originally posted by Roger Johnson:
learning languages is a waste of time and effort. God should have created human with only one language.

image all the wonderful things you can do with the time wasted on learning foreign languages. well, you may end up just sleeping, even that is good, you will live healthier and longer

that makes sense ..
[ February 15, 2006: Message edited by: Lukas Alamar ]

[Mahesh Rana]

Ahirani

Bhilori


Yes, they are language names.
[ February 15, 2006: Message edited by: Deep Narsay ]

[Rajeev Ravindran]

Originally posted by Jessica Sant:
English and ASL (American Sign Language) - not really fluent -- but enough to hold a conversation.

what is ASL (American Sign Language) ? i first thought Age, Sex n Location. hope this is not a stupid post
[ February 15, 2006: Message edited by: Rajeev Ravindran ]

[Jessica Sant]

Originally posted by Rajeev Ravindran:
what is ASL (American Sign Language) ? i first thought Age, Sex n Location. hope this is not a stupid post

Not a stupid question at all. ASL (American Sign Language) is used by the deaf and hard-of-hearing to communicate.

Here is the ASL alphabet -- which you use to spell words (its called finger spelling).
Many words also have their own signs this website demonstrates a lot of different signs.

Every language has its own sign language, and in fact British Sign Language is different than American Sign language (for example the BSL alphabet is done on two hands and is very different than ASL).

Originally posted by Bear Bibeault:
I'm not sure if I'm still fluent enough for extended conversation. It's been years since I've used it -- I learned ASL so I could converse with a deaf friend in the mid to late 80's.

My finger spelling is still fine though.

My cousin is deaf, and recently I've started talking with her in sign over our webcams -- its great. Check out the website I linked to above www.aslpro.com, its got tons of videos of different signs, and even a sign and fingerspelling quiz.
[ February 15, 2006: Message edited by: Jessica Sant ]

[Reid M. Pinchback]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
Speaking Kannada is easy -- you just pronounce the `O' funny, and end most sentences with "Ay?"

That is a common misconception, not specific to the whole country. The real thing to listen for is how we all say "about".

[Jessica Sant]

"sorry" is also a good indicator.... eh?

[Reid M. Pinchback]

God, it must be - because I have no idea what you are talking about.

Hey, now I have an excuse to never apologize. Bonus!

[Mohammad Ibrahim]

English
Hindi
Urdu
Telugu
Marathi
Bengali
Punjabi

[weiking sun]

only CHINA ！

[Anand Prabhu]

English
Hindi
Konkani
Marathi
Kannada
French

[ankur rathi]

<h3>Hinglish</h3>
[ February 18, 2006: Message edited by: rathi ji ]