English and bad English.
- Spanish (native)
- Portuguese (fluent)
- English (fluent)
- Italian (understand 99% but speak very badly)
- Russian (very basic and haven’t trained in years, but enough that I was able to tourist around Russia a decade ago)
I’ve also studied some German but I don’t think it’s at any level worth mentioning. I can also say the phrase “Sorry I don’t speak X, do you speak English?” In:
- German
- Dutch
- French
- Finnish (I can also say the weather is bad/good and obviously Perkele hahah)
Essentially every country that I’ve visited I can at least ask the person if they speak English, I consider it rude to ask that question in English.
English natively, enough Spanish to make friends, enough French to stay out of trouble, and enough Italian to get into trouble. I also have some transactional German (groceries, tickets, coffee, etc). I’m American.
It would take me a few months of daily practice to prepare and get comfortable with anything but Spanish. I haven’t studied the other languages formally, only independently, for travel.
German, English and enough French to greet someone or order a baguette. I can also understand some Dutch (both written and verbal), but I don’t really speak it.
Igpe atinle
- Danish
- Swedish
- German
- English
- Japanese
- French
Only English fluently.
I can speak a tiny bit of Spanish. Enough to order food, ask for directions etc.
I can also sort of decipher the meaning of sentences in German, but not fast enough to have a conversation.
- Chinese (Mandarin) - native
- English - fluent
- Japanese - still in the very early stages of learning
French (native), English (fluent), Spanish (a bit less than fluent). Started learning Japanese at one point and quit. Can still speak and understand some, but I’ve given up on learning kanjis. Understand a’d speak some Haitian creole (also less than fluent).
Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian all on master level,
English learned in school as secondary language.
Can understand all the other balkan languages to some degree.
Dutch natively
English fluently
German understandably
Toddler level Korean.
English
A very tiny bit of French, I can understand more than I can speak if they talk slowly, my French education was kind of shitty and it’s been well over a decade since high school since I’ve really used it so
I’ve been learning Esperanto on Duolingo, it’s been going pretty well, I’m just about at the point where I can confidently read a book without having too look up too many words. I’m far from fluent, but I getting there.
English (fluent)
Dutch (bad)
French (basics)
Japanese (basics)
Standard German (native)
Lower Austrian German (fluent)
Bavarian German (fluent)
Saxonian German (fluent)
Vienna German (good)
Hamburgian German (OK)
Berlin German (OK)
Northern German (OK)
Swabian German (OK)
Platt German (bad)
Tyrolean German (bad)
Swiss German (worse) - Yes, for me it’s easier to understand Dutch than Swiss German
Are all those Germans really different enough to count separately?
Like, I wouldn’t know how to distinguish my fluency in American English from British English. And that’s not even getting to Canadian, Australian, Irish… the differences are far more cultural than linguistic.
Yes, German dialects can vary greatly for example here’s the same sentence “I have an apple.” in different German dialects:
Standard German:
“Ich habe einen Apfel.”
Northern German / Platt:
“Ik hab en Appel.”
Middle German / Saxonian:
" 'sch’habm Abbl." ( 'sch is pronounced like sh)
Southern German / Bavarian & Austrian:
“I hob an Opfü.” (I is pronounced like the single letter E)
The Southern Germans are the ones with the Schwarzenegger accent.
Danish native
English fluent
I can pronounce German quite well imo
In Finnish i can say “my bunny is cute”what’s the story behind that one finnish sentence? :D terveisiä suomesta
Nothing interesting really, I might get the opportunity to move to Finland for a year, so I’ve practiced Finnish through Duolingo if that becomes a reality :)
English and French fluently. English is my mother tongue. French I learned in an immersion program in primary school. I didn’t study french at all in highschool or postsecondary, and always hated it during primary because my parents put me in immersion to “challenge” me. I started working for the Canadian federal government after uni, and they have pretty robust training programs for getting to full french fluency from any starting skill level. Plus, there’s a bit of a glass ceiling for monolingual public servants in the federal government.
Recently started dating a Chinese girl and so I’m trying to teach myself a bit of Chinese. It’s not as hard as I expected it to be, but it is very hard. In many ways it’s the opposite experience of learning French relative to English. Learning French, the vocabulary is pretty easy and the grammar is very hard. Learning Chinese, the grammar is dead easy but the vocabulary is really hard.
