How many languages do you know?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-04-21 07:01pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
The Kernel wrote:English and Spanish fluently, and, believe it or not, I can also understand a great deal of Middle English. Talk about a dead language.
Are we including this as a language?

I can read Chaucer-era English and pronounce it and speak it as fine as any english major at a Ren Faire ever could. Thank you, anal retentive Cal GSI for English 45A!

Can you really? Are you aware that most of Chaucer is translated? Can you read it in its original Middle English form?

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-04-21 07:14pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:Obviously English.

Arabic, Yiddish, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
Yiddish is really hard to learn after Hebrew. It's written in the same alephbet, but every other letter has changed pronunciation! Oy vey iz mir!

Yiddish is sometimes understandable for a mere German. Sounds like a very strange dialect of it...
And some Yiddish words made it even into German.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2004-04-21 07:16pm

I Speak Fluent Deutsch. Though my grammar is HORRIBLE, and EENGLEESH!

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2004-04-21 07:28pm

The Kernel wrote:
Bob the Gunslinger wrote:
The Kernel wrote:English and Spanish fluently, and, believe it or not, I can also understand a great deal of Middle English. Talk about a dead language.
Are we including this as a language?

I can read Chaucer-era English and pronounce it and speak it as fine as any english major at a Ren Faire ever could. Thank you, anal retentive Cal GSI for English 45A!
Can you really? Are you aware that most of Chaucer is translated? Can you read it in its original Middle English form?

I hope it wasn't the translated form...

Anyway, our anal GSI had us each read passages aloud, with pronunciation like "knighte"="k-nikh-tuh" and so forth, and then tell her what had just happened in the segment we read. She freakin' tested us on our pronunciation and speed-of-comprehension, as well as reading something to the class and having us write it "in our own words" to show comprehension.

Post by **Zaia** » 2004-04-21 10:28pm

YT300000 wrote:I asked: But you understand them well? [the three languages you mentioned you sort of knew]

I understand French the best out of the three, since I get to practice every time I go to Quebec. Like I told Spanky, I used to speak conversational Polish when I was in elementary school, but that's almost entirely gone. The Hebrew I rocked out while I was in the class, tried to hang onto it, and now can basically just recognize some words and translate some of those. If I went to synagogue often, I might be better, but I'm only an honourary Jew, so I don't go that often.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-04-21 10:48pm

English, plus some broken French (My grades for French Class in primary and secondary school declined significantly after I discovered that French students in Quebec public schools don't have to learn English

)

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2004-04-22 08:34am

Dahak wrote:Yiddish is sometimes understandable for a mere German. Sounds like a very strange dialect of it...
And some Yiddish words made it even into German.

Isn't Yiddisch just German spoken with a very heavy Hebrew accent, written in Hebrew and with some grammatical structure from Hebrew incorporated as well?

jenat-lai · Post by **jenat-lai** » 2004-04-22 08:58am

This poll has NO options for me! at ALL!

I am AUSTRALIAN and speak only one language. mumble mumble

Thinkmarble · Post by **Thinkmarble** » 2004-04-22 09:27am

Peregrin Toker wrote: Isn't Yiddisch just German spoken with a very heavy Hebrew accent, written in Hebrew and with some grammatical structure from Hebrew incorporated as well?

It's a melting of middle-high-german dialects influenced by hewbrew and slavic languages.
It is partially comprehensible (when read aloud) for a german speaker (moi).
A couple of german words were borrowed from it (e.g. Chuzpe, Stuss, Tinnef, yo)

Oni Koneko Damien · Post by **Oni Koneko Damien** » 2004-04-23 11:01am

I'd say five, but I don't think Engrish, Pig-Latin, and b-language count, so I'll stick with 2.1, english, spanish, and a little bit of japanese.

-Damien

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-04-23 03:44pm

Native English speaker, and I know high school French.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2004-04-24 09:49pm

Well, I speak English, obviously. I also speak one dialect of Chinese fairly well, and another dialect of Chinese slightly less well. So, two languages.

AnimeJet · Post by **AnimeJet** » 2004-04-24 10:11pm

English and Chinese. I can read/write kana, but i'm only first year Japanese, so 2 for me.

Executor32 · Post by **Executor32** » 2004-04-25 04:59am

English, Spanish (and, due to the similarity, I can get along reasonably well in Portuguese), some Japanese, and a few words/phrases each in French, German, and Klingon.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

How many languages do you know?

Well?