How many languages do you speak?

[Huntergreed]

Really interested to see how this poll will turn out!

How many languages do you/can you speak? Britain is sadly renowned for being monolingual due to the adoption of English as the standard international language.

Unfortunately, I remain monolingual (unless you count music - it is most certainly an ambition to learn another language)

I find, particularly as someone who travels abroad semi-regularly, it would be really interesting and useful to learn another language, but I’m curious to see the forum’s spread of mono/multi linguists!

Do you speak another language and, if so, what do you speak?

 

[jfollows]

French, German O-level so I can get by, I can talk to people on trains for example
Italian, Spanish a working knowledge but I can’t speak well
Icelandic, a one-week course in Iceland but I’ve forgotten most of it
Greek, pretty rubbish but I go there often now that my sister lives there.

My husband is Mexican, speaks Spanish of course and Italian well, but has dabbled in Greek, Norwegian, Hebrew, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin.

1. I was about 13 and tried to buy a guide book to the Louvre but had to convince the seller that I wasn’t French, I’d been on a three-week exchange and had gone native. She didn’t believe I wasn’t French!
2. In my early 20s I was talking to my “minder” at Brest on the way from Moscow to Ostend (when the wheels were being changed) and she asked if I wouldn’t mind speaking in French to her because her German wasn’t good enough. I didn’t admit to her that it also suited me better.

Yes, learn a language if you can, even if it’s just for fun like my Icelandic week.

 

[75A]

I can get by in French and also did Latin at school which I do find useful because lots of words are derived from it.

 

[Gloster]

For health reasons I have been unable to travel abroad for some years, so this is the situation five years ago:
Fluent in French and pretty well fluent in Danish
Very good, if accented, Swedish
Good German
Workable Norwegian
A smattering of Dutch and Finnish: the latter being mostly obscenities.

I still have a full reading competence in Danish, French, Norwegian and Swedish; my German is pretty good, but not quite to the same standard. I can usually fog my way through Dutch and Finnish texts if need be, but not with ease.

 

[Acfb]

I've continually kept up my German for the past 20 years since learning it at school and have followed German current affairs in detail. I have also flown Lufthansa/Swiss quite a bit and have found it easy to keep up but wouldn't say I'm fluent or anything. French on the other hand I've let drop as I haven't had a use for it and haven't been to France since 1996 (apart from transiting at CDG in 2017) although I hope to visit Toulouse next year.
I also have been to Italy lots of times but I haven't motivated myself to learn Italian.

I have been trying to learn Japanese since 2012 and have been to Japan six times. I can read Hiragana, Katakana and a fair amount of Kanji characters but I find it quite difficult to speak and the whole particle conjugation etc quite tricky.

 

[65477]

I am fluent in US and Australian English if that counts.

I did have a smattering of German after I left school and travelled regularly to Germany in the 1970's but after a couple of visits this century I don't I now have any claim in that area.

 

[Acey]

Two,English and rubbish !

 

[side effect]

English and Scottish Gaelic. Well I wish but I try and learn a little each day. Wished we had the access we have today back in the 80s. I remember travelling to a shop just to look at the language tapes they had. The shop was by Euston station and I never had enough.

 

[Mike99]

Two,English and rubbish !

I was going to say 2 as well, English and South London English

 

[THC]

English, working German and tá cúpla focal agam ("I have a few words") in Irish.

THC

 

[Donny Dave]

I'm surprised no one has said they are fluent in sarcasm yet!

While I only speak English, I know a smattering of French, Spanish, German and Dutch, enough to count upto roughly a 100, and ask for some amenities.

 

[172007]

I'm surprised no one has said they are fluent in sarcasm yet!

While I only speak English, I know a smattering of French, Spanish, German and Dutch, enough to count upto roughly a 100, and ask for some amenities.

English and Black Country.

 

[scarby]

Swedish to be able to get by quite readily and usually hold some sort of conversation but I sometimes struggle to grasp what people are saying.

Very basic French, as in able to greet, order in restaurants, ask some basic rehearsed questions, understand menus, signs, etc.

 

[johnnychips]

French and Dutch good enough to hold a conversation, then tourist German, Spanish and Italian. I also have Level 1 British Sign Language (1=lowest!).

 

[Acey]

I was going to say 2 as well, English and South London English

Yeh,Sarf londen as well innit ,no wot I mean ?

 

[dangie]

Only English fluently, but wherever I've been in Europe I make sure I can order a beer (or two) in the local language. Plus of course 'hello, goodbye, please, thank you' etc....

 

[contrex]

English (native), French (good enough for a lady from Normandy in a TGV to ask if I was Swiss) Spanish (halting) Italian (likewise) Catalan (just starting). Getting very curious about Welsh.

 

[johntea]

English and lots of foreign TV...with English subtitles / dubbing

I was so bad at French / Spanish when it was compulsory to study Modern Languages as a GCSE they offered to put me on a manufacturing design and technology GCSE instead as I had shown great promise in that subject area...the only problem being it was designed as a 4 lesson a week course and my timetable meant I only attended 2 lessons a week (in lieu of the language slots) so in the end I came out with a E/F/G in that (despite a C on the written exam!) meaning I might as well have had a crack at the languages course anyway for a similar outcome!

I'll never get the memory out of my head of our French teacher in Year 8/9 treating us at Christmas by letting us watch an episode of Friends...entirely in French!

 

[BeijingDave]

English and Chinese (including written). I am not Chinese ethnicity btw, I am white British.

Plus tourist Spanish and GCSE German. So I put 3 (2 and 2 'halves')

 

[Furryanimal]

W’in siarad Cymraeg a Saesneg.
That’s Welsh and English.
I find it odd when I’m on an English railway station and only hear announcements in English!
And I have a smattering of French from schooldays.

 

[NorthOxonian]

I'm sort of monolingual and sort of trilingual - I have fairly strong GCSEs in German and French (particularly the former) and found it very easy particularly to read written text when I was on school trips to the continent. I very rarely travel abroad (in fact never have since childhood, almost a decade ago), but occasionally will set ticket machines or self service kiosks to one of the two just to keep me on my toes. Context makes this fairly easy but I still normally manage fairly well. I have (but would not count) extremely basic and rudimentary knowledge of Italian and Welsh too, and there are some languages (for instance Gaelic) which I can't speak but have learned the pronunciation to help me with place names native to that language.

Also while it would be a stretch (obviously) to say I was fluent in speaking it, I can generally read Latin without too much trouble - a mixture of knowing a lot of etymology, and then just some additional study over the years. I do trip up with some of the more exotic cases but the more basic side of the grammar is fairly logical.

I have a real respect and awe for people with proper linguistic abilities. Owing to an extremely international upbringing (split between Japan and California with a fair amount of time in parts of Western Europe also), my old university ex girlfriend spoke an absurd number of languages to some extent - depending on how you count fluency and where you draw boundary between language and dialect, somewhere between four and seven. These weren't even necessary related languages so she had no shortcuts - Japanese, German, English, and Spanish all being from totally separate families... last I knew she was still trying to learn more!

 

[PlatformEdgeVT]

English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese (albeit at a lower level than the other two).

 

[Thomas_TankR]

I'm not surprised that 1 fluent, 1 partial is most voted option. We all I think learned a language at school but then after that probably didn't really use it much and we maybe assume we still could, what I mean is 'partial' is probably being generous description in some cases especially in mine !

 

[oldman]

English, German, Polish, Russian with reasonable fluency. I've taught myself bits of Romance and other Slav languages in the past, but nowadays it's just reading knowledge.

Unlike most educated British people I never studied French and my pronunciation is exécrable (which I can't say) - Rennes for example and the young lady from Armentières. On tbe other hand I have been sneered at by British people for pronouncing German place names Germanly - Hamburg and Frankfurt. I always say Škoda with a Š, which may be a shame.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

English and Welsh - "O" level French and a smidgeon of German .......

Also speak "railway operational jargon"

 

[MasterSpenny]

I only really speak English. I did have to learn Spanish in secondary school at KS3, but I knew that I would not be doing a GCSE in any foreign language, and that is because I was never good at Spanish. Either way, the only thing that I can say easily in another language is ‘hello’ in French and Spanish.

 

[4COR]

Likewise I have GCSEs in French and Spanish, though longer ago than I care to admit. I can get by in French, I can just about understand transactional Spanish, but like all languages, if you don't use them, they drop out of the brain.

I always argue maths is like a language too - i did a lot of fairly hardcore maths right through to 3rd year degree level (physics based degree), but I struggle to remember it now - the questions look familiar, but no idea where to start!

 

[Spamcan81]

English (native tongue), O level French - good enough to see me through a 36 hour stay in a French hospital without too much linguistic difficulty - and O level German - been travelling there regularly for forty years now so it is much improved on O level but I’m not fluent.

 

[alex397]

Only one sadly. I really wish there was more effort to teach language (and more effort from me to learn it) when I was younger.

Though I have become fairly confident with German, Czech and Slovak, and maybe Polish but only brief pleasantries or ordering drinks and food. Occasionally I’ve been able to understand the replies, and in recent times people have replied in full in that language, which presumably may mean they thought I was a confident speaker. Though most of the time the reply in English as I guess they can tell I’m terrible at their language. Though I do hope my efforts are appreciated. So many times I overhear typical English tourists just not even bothering to say hello/please/thank you in the native language which I actually think is a bit rude.

I’ve been able to order in French too on my visits to French-speaking areas of Belgium (haven’t been to much of France myself) though I find German and Czech slightly easier

 

[adc82140]

English and French- enough French to be able to argue the point and win at a Paris metro ticket barrier. My vocab is fine, but my accent is terrible.