How many languages do you speak?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by BotXXX

Nowadays i am following a course to improve my polish-skills to be fluent in speaking and with the pen.

Going to polish your Polish, eh?

I am an American, hence I speak English. I can read French very well, but speak it less so well due to school and my proximity to Canada. I am not much of a linguist myself, outside of computer languages, which I gather are not for this thread. Anyways, here's a French fragment:

On disait "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" pendant la revolution française

[robert44444uk]

I travel to a lot of countries, and I only have time to learn the essentials:

Dos cervesas por favor
Divus alus, ludzu
Deux bieres s'il vous plait
Zwei bieren, bitte
Dwa piwa, prosze bardzo

As you can see, I am probably a little thirstier than most, I can't order one beer in any other language than English!

Ten minutes later, you can say:

Una mas!
Veel vienu alu, mana sirdsmila, es tevi milu!
Encore un fois, ma petite chouxfleur!
Ze Germans are at it again!
Jesze jedna piwa, moj slonecko!

Repeat until prone, or you get pregnant.

However, looking at the following site, also explains why I am poor!

http://figroll.com/twobeers

Regards

Robert Smith

[MrHappy]

Originally Posted by robert44444uk

Zwei bieren, bitte

Should be: Zwei Bier, bitte.

[Guilherme]

My native language is portuguese.

I can read very well in english, and I can understand when I watch TV channels like BBC World. My conversation level in English, however, is not so good.

[garo]

Ze Germans are at it again!

Bier noch einmal, Bitte.

[Mystwalker]

Originally Posted by garo

Bier noch einmal, Bitte.

"Noch ein Bier, bitte."

Well, aside from German as native language, I'm quite good at English - and due to some years French at school, I still have enough knowledge for a tourist.

[tom11784]

i speak conversational English, not pure English (with full proper sentences and crap)
i can count in Spanish

that's about it

[Uncwilly]

If you want counting, I used to be able to do that (to 10) in Japanese (I lost a number someplace above 5). And I know a few choice phrases in Greek and Taglog (Phillipino).

[em99010pepe]

My native language is also portuguese.
I can speak english and spanish. I am better reader than a speaker in both languages because I am a shy guy.
I can understand a little of french and italian.

Carlos

[mfgoode]

Originally Posted by garo

I speak Hindi and English like a native, Italian and French reasonably well and German a little less well. I can also speak Urdu (though I am working on understanding the script) and understand Punjabi but have trouble speaking and reading the script.
In addition I have some Latin and Sanskrit but they are quite rusty. However, I can read and understand them given sufficient time.

Here is a sample of Hindi:

Indore ki khabre'n
Garo, if you have connections with Indore you may be interested to know that I hail from Ratlam 90 km away but settled in Bombay
My mothertongue is English, second language is Hindi and also speak fluently in Hindustani, a mixture of Hindi and Urdu.
I have done full time studies in German for 3 months and reached a good standard for foreigners. 'Deutsh Sprachlere fur die Auslander' (minus the umlauts)
As I had a flying career for 36 yrs. in an airline I have visited most of the major capitals of the different countries except S. America and stayed for two to three days at a time, several times. I picked up a lot of catch phrases of the different languages, sufficient to move around the cities on my own, even by public transport.
My advice to would be globe trotters is that I have found sign language the best and most useful, regardless of proficiency in the language. But one must be careful to whom you signal. For instance if you put up two fingers and point to beer the bar tender will understand, the girls at the bar will take it to be £20/$20, but dont do the same to the Chucker-out as he will take it to be
'up yours' and you may land on your back side out on the road.
Mally