what languages do you speak?

[sovram]

i'm sure this thread has been done a dozen times, but i want to see who speaks what here because i am always eager to bother someone about their native language (which one or two of you might know firsthand).

of secondary interest is what languages you are learning or wish to learn! maybe we could learn from each other or point one another to good resources for your target languages.

i'll go first: my native language/dialect is (american) english. technically i speak a texan dialect, but i spend so much time online that my personal idiolect is probably really wacky! (see: the use of 'wacky')

my second most spoken language is swedish, which i've been learning pretty much passively for maybe a year or two now. my listening comprehension is poor, however. i can sometimes stumble through written norwegian and danish, but not often.

i used to have a somewhat significant mastery over written latin, but that has faded away from disuse.

my particular linguistic interests lie in indo-european languages, especially those of the germanic and romance families. it's a little ridiculous, but i want to partially learn catalan, occitan, sardinian, icelandic, and frisian!

so yes! contribute if you would like!

 

[Tailsy]

(Scottish) English. I have some basic knowledge of French and Spanish from high school but, contrary to popular belief, I can't speak any other languages!

 

[Zero Moment]

Taking French II this year, so hopefully I'll have a bit of knowledge of that

 

[Music Dragon]

Only fluent in Swedish and English. Used to know some basic Mandarin and French, but that's mostly gone now. It's in there somewhere though, and I can coax it out in times of great need; help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.

 

[Light]

Natively American English. I was born and learned to speak in Ohio so technically I have a northern accent, but have lived in Okla freaking homa for the past 12 years, and I have been (sadly) told that my accent has been affected a little bit.

And I've been studying Japanese on and off since 7th grade. I have about 2 years of college credit under my belt, but I'm still pretty uncomfortable actually trying to have a conversation.

 

[Stormecho]

Canadian English, I suppose.

I have great listening comprehension of Polish, but am much slower speaking it, even worse reading it. Good listening comprehension of French, same story otherwise. I'm learning Japanese in university, and can attempt basic reading without kanji and I can carry a polite conversation.

 

[Phantom]

My native language is English (Minnesota accent, I guess), but my family speaks a lot of Polish since that's where my gram is from.

I've studied Spanish most of my life since they started teaching us it in like third grade, and I ended up taking it until my senior year which ended up being A.P. Spanish, where I got a 5. I was part of a student exchange program with my school.

 

[shy ♡]

English (techincally American but since I haven't lived there for most of my life it's probably more British? idek? my accent is slightly brooklyn but barely detectable) and Hebrew. I really wanna learn German but I'm lazy and stuff. 9_9

 

[Tarvos]

I speak fluent Dutch and English. I've studied a fair few other languages, including French, German, Russian, Latin and Swedish.

I would not say I speak any of the latter 5 fluently in terms of the fact that "I speak them like I speak my mother tongue", but I'm confused about my native language anyway (it's technically Dutch, but I'm so comfortable in English and express many things much better in that language that I often think it's a bit awkward to say these things in Dutch...)

As for my levels in the other five. Latin is pretty much all forgotten except for some passive knowledge and grammar. I haven't studied it since high school and can't speak it anyway because that is kinda beside the point with Latin (well, it isn't, but it's not taught that way).

French is a language I've learned the hard way due to living abroad. I speak it very well conversationally (i.e. I can keep a conversation going without problems or much searching for vocabulary/expressions) but I don't have the right way of phrasing things and often have to circumlocute. My passive knowledge is pretty good and I can read most novels, magazines and such in it, given that it's not ancient French or written using obscure jargon, or overly idiomatic. Popular, light novels give me no trouble. I can also be a tourist in a Francophone country and get around without ever using English for anything and manage to solve all the problems I come across (I can use the language independently).

Mind you, I still make plenty of mistakes and they wouldn't consider me for a French office job, no way. I just get by.

My level in German is similar to that of my French. My grammar is bad, my spoken German is good and rapid-fire. I make mistakes in this language too but no German has ever had any trouble understanding me, nor I them. Just don't ask me about the grammar rules because I don't think about grammar when speaking German (obviously my grammar in writing is something terribad).

I speak basic Russian. It's good, polite, keeps a conversation going, I can do FB-style messaging in it without much searching for expressions. I don't have more than a base vocabulary though and more complex texts are beyond my scope (I tried to play Battle for Wesnoth in Russian, but my Russian vocabulary is very limited in that sort of area.)

I understand a whole lot of Swedish but my active vocabulary is quite low. Probably because it's so similar to Dutch/English/German. I've spoken it in public once and I managed to somehow get by.

I've learned phrases of several other languages during travels or for romantic purposes (I learned basic phrases in Romanian, Hebrew, Icelandic, even Greek) but none of that has really stuck to any extent. I plan on learning Hebrew, Breton, Icelandic, and whatever else comes onto my path (Mandarin?) but I have no concrete plans for developing those skills right now.

Most of all I want to get to an intermediate level in Swedish (comparable to my Russian now), speak proper French, and improve my spoken Russian and enhance my vocab in that language.

I'm leaving German for the moment because it's a language I can pretty much practice for free. I don't need to put in effort to speak it.

 

[Jolty]

english and a liiiiittle bit of swedish. i'll be learning it properly in october

i'd be fluent if my mum spoke only swedish to me when i was little :( which was the plan but she ended up not doing it so i'd concentrate on english because we start school at 4 here

 

[blazheirio889]

I speak Canadian English the most fluently, though technically my mother tongue is Cantonese. I've also learned Mandarin since I was a little kid. I don't speak Chinese that much, though, so my skills are pretty rusty; I more or less just think in English and translate it, leading to wonky Chinese grammar. And I suck at reading/writing.

I can sorta read/write French, but I have trouble holding conversations since I always pause to search for the right words, and my ears suck. Hoping to get better.

 

[Momo(th)]

I speak English, Spanish, and for some reason Enochian pretty fluently. I also taught myself Braille.

 

[Autumn]

(Northern American) English pretty fluently. I took two years of French in school but not a whole lot stuck since I had an extremely shitty teacher. I plan to learn Italian during college.

 

[goldenquagsire]

My mother tongue is English, don't really have any problems with that. My dad's family are all German so I've been speaking the language since I was born. Unfortunately the only time I actually use it is when I'm visiting them, so it's atrophied quite a lot. However, I can understand spoken or written German far, far better than I can speak it. I did French at school for a few years, and having been in the country for a few days now I've discovered that I can actually remember a lot more of it than I thought I would. :P

I also studied Portuegese and Spanish for a year each, but I've completely forgotten everything about them apart from como te llama?

If I could learn a new language? The weeaboo in me would say Japanese, since there's so much untranslated stuff that's relevant to my interests out there. The more sensible side of me would say Latin, since it would be extremely useful if I wanted to do a further degree in medieval history. If I wanted to be really pragmatic, I'd just stick with practising my French and German so I don't forget them completely.

 

[Dar]

English.

As for languages I'd like to learn, I've been wanting to take Italian for school. However, the school I'm going to next year doesn't offer it :l

So I guess I'll be learning Spanish.

 

[Worst Username Ever]

Fluent English and Norwegian... I know a few words/sentences in various other languages too, but I wouldn't be able to hold a conversation or anything.

I'd like to learn more languages though.

 

[Datura]

My L1 is American English; it's fairly standard, but I've been told by multiple people that I sound vaguely Canadian at times. Apparently I emphasize certain vowels differently than most Americans (like the o in "Minnesota") and I tend to pronounce my ts [d].

German is my second-language; I chose to learn it in high school because it sounded more interesting than French or Spanish, and I ended up enjoying it so much that German's one of my university majors. I'm really good at reading German and am at an intermediate-to-decent level when it comes to writing. Listening's okay too, but my speaking is awful. Embarassingly bad. I cringe when I think about how not-German I sound. I know how words should sound, but there seems to be a disconnect between that and what actually comes out of my mouth. Luckily I'm taking an advanced conversation course this semester, which should be helpful. I'm also studying abroad in a year, so that should benefit my speaking a lot.

If I get comfortable enough with German and am far enough along credits-wise, I may pursue a Scandinavian Studies certificate which requires four semesters of Swedish. That's a big if, though.

 

[ultraviolet]

I speak australian english and kangaroo reasonably fluently, and I know a handful of Italian, Swedish, Nyoongar (local indigenous dialect) and Indonesian words, but nothing I can actually get by with.

 

[Minish]

Natively English-speaking! I'm learning Japanese; vocabulary and kanji are pretty big failings at the moment, though. I'd like to be pretty fluent in that since I've already been to Japan twice (and am there now), oops.

Languages are super-super-cool things!! I never really cared about only knowing one language, but studying one alongside linguistics makes it all even more fun!

 

[Monoking]

Mother tongue is American English, don't feel like specifying what region.

I used to be quite good with Spanish, but not anymore. I've forgotten because I don't use it.

In a year or so, I will be expanding my (okay) knowledge of Japanese with some Rosetta Stone-type things. My most used Japanese phrase is "Bring it on, fat man". No joke.