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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Ninjabait on October 13, 2019, 09:29:52 AM
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I tried to be as inclusive as possible with the languages in the poll, but there are so many languages out there that out of necessity I had to group a lot of them. Apologies in advance if anyone is offended.
As the title suggests, what languages can you speak, read/write in, or understand? How proficient are you in those language (if you know/have an estimate of a CEFR level (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Common_reference_levels) or something similar, feel free to list that)? Furthermore, what's your native language?
Bonus questions:
Where did you learn these languages?
If your native tongue isn't the language you use in your day to day life, what is?
What languages would you like to learn?
As for me, my native tongue is American English. I can also speak French well enough that I could reasonably live in most French-speaking countries (I'm around a high B1 level), but I still tend to hesitate a lot when I speak and I have some holes in my vocabulary. I also sometimes misgender nouns. I can read, write, and understand spoken French at a higher level than I can speak it (solidly in B2), but some thick regional accents are difficult for me to parse. I can also speak a little Russian (around A2), and can reasonably understand some spoken Russian. Again, reading and writing are at a bit of a higher level for me. I've been studying both of these in university, which is where 90% of my knowledge in both comes from.
Because of what I know between French and English, I've also found that I can reasonably read a little Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. I can also understand some of the languages when spoken, if the other person speaks super slowly. Italian tends to be the hardest of the three for me to understand, with Spanish being the easiest. At some point I'd like to learn Italian and Spanish, and maybe German as well. I've also picked up some VERY basic Japanese through osmosis and I tried to learn it back in middle school, but eventually gave it up because the grammar and writing systems were a nightmare for me.
What about you all? What languages can you speak?
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Russian and English. Russian is my native, and my English is around B1, but whenever I'm talking to anybody I don't know in person it quickly drops to A2 I think. :lol Never took the actual test so I don't know.
I've been toying with the idea of learning another language, but honestly I'm not sure if it's worth it. The only scenario I can see where it would be useful is if I decide to move to another country.
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I have a halfway decent grasp of English. I'm incapable of learning any other language, though. I took years of French in highschool, and I think once in college. Didn't take. Took Spanish in college assuming my daily exposure to Mexicans would help. Nope. I can learn the vocabulary, so if you put French or Spanish in front of me I can read enough to catch the gist of it. If somebody starts speaking it though I'm lost. It just comes too fast for my brain to process.
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Italian is my mothertongue.
I know english pretty well - at least I hope so, any native speaker that knows me around the forums feel free to destroy my certainties about my language skills and tell me I actually suck :lol - , thanks to Steve Harris mostly.
No, seriously, until I was attending school lessons, I was barely above the average grades, the bare minium. When I discovered foreign and heavy music, I started to pay attention to the lyrics, trying to translate them and understand them better, and my english skills vastly started to improve. My initiation with foreign music was with Bon Jovi, but Iron Maiden are better to learn the language, that's why I jokingly credited Steve Harris. By the last year of high school I was already known in the classroom as one of the best ones in english and to this day at work I'm the go-to person for english speakers (we are an italian support so people are supposed to speak italian, but once in a big while happens the english speaking customer and if I'm available, they let me talk to him).
I guess that's how you learn a language - with songs and maybe also with movies. Songs are to be credited for the little I know of german - I 've been in Germany many times, and I love the language, and while it's absolutely incorrect to say I know the language, I can recognize some words here and there, and also realize how the composite words are made up (you know how german can create a single, 25 letters single word by patching together three words.... I can recognize where one word ends and the other starts, most of the time). Also there are 2-3 german songs where I know the chorus, in the sense that I could sing along to the lyrics actually knowing what I'm pronouncing.
For other languages, I guess I can vaguely make something out of french and spanish stuff. When I was in Spain I tried to speak english, but when people realized from the accent that I'm italian they tried to speak italian as well, so basically I spoke "fake spanish" with them - I was getting understood better when I was improvizing spanish words than when I was speaking english :lol
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I have a halfway decent grasp of English. I'm incapable of learning any other language, though. I took years of French in highschool, and I think once in college. Didn't take. Took Spanish in college assuming my daily exposure to Mexicans would help. Nope. I can learn the vocabulary, so if you put French or Spanish in front of me I can read enough to catch the gist of it. If somebody starts speaking it though I'm lost. It just comes too fast for my brain to process.
This sums up Spanish for me as well. I had to take three semesters in college and got by (C in I, B in II, A in III - not sure how that happened :lol), but even then I could not have a conversation past a sentence or two. I learned enough to be able to read a little and do what was needed in the courses, but I have lost most of it since. I still remember random words or phrases, but that's it.
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Italian is my mothertongue.
I know english pretty well - at least I hope so, any native speaker that knows me around the forums feel free to destroy my certainties about my language skills and tell me I actually suck :lol - , thanks to Steve Harris mostly.
Actually, your English is very good. There are a few phrases here and there that are rather unidiomatic, but the meaning you intend is pretty clear. But, if you want to improve:
No, seriously, until I was attending school lessons, I was barely above the average grades, the bare minium.
I think "No, seriously, while I was in school, my grades were barely above average. I did the bare minimum." would be a better way to phrase what you intended. "until I was attending school" implies that this happened before you went to school. "school lessons" is a little redundant too, so you would drop the "lessons" here. "my grades were above average" would be better here, as the focus there is more on the grades than it is on you (if that makes sense). You should also avoid translating sopra la media too literally there, as English would render it as "above average" rather than "above the average" (same goes for sotto la media).
When I discovered foreign and heavy music, I started to pay attention to the lyrics, trying to translate them and understand them better, and my english skills vastly started to improve.
I would not use vastly here (in general, English tends to eschew "descriptive" adverbs in favor of more specific verbs and adjectives). You could use:
"and my English was improving by leaps and bounds"
"and my English began/started to improve [by] a lot"
"and I began/started making big strides in my English skills"
etc.
Also, this sentence is a little long by English standards, so I would try to break it up into two sentences.
My initiation with foreign music was with Bon Jovi, but Iron Maiden are better to learn the language, that's why I jokingly credited Steve Harris.
No issues here.
By the last year of high school I was already known in the classroom as one of the best ones in english and to this day at work I'm the go-to person for english speakers (we are an italian support so people are supposed to speak italian, but once in a big while happens the english speaking customer and if I'm available, they let me talk to him).
"By the last year of high school, I was already regarded as one of the best English students." // "By the last year of high school, I was already viewed as one of the better English speakers." Would be better ways to phrase that, I think. "regarded" and "viewed" imply a certain degree of subjectivity here, while "known" sounds more objective to me (like I would use it more for stating facts). "in the classroom" is implied by "high school" here, so it's a bit redundant. "one of the best ones in English" doesn't sound very idiomatic, especially the last three words. Again, this would likely be broken up into several sentences:
"At work, I'm the go-to person for English speakers. We are an Italian support company/department, so people usually speak Italian, but every once in a while we'll have an English-speaking customer. If I'm available, they'll have me talk to them".
Notes on this:
"To this day," sounds a little formal, so I wouldn't really use it here.
Specify that it's a company or a department in a company. "A support" does not work in English.
"supposed to speak Italian" sounds a bit more...I dunno, aggressive? Nationalist? Basically, it sounds more opinionated rather than like a straight fact. "so people usually speak Italian" functions more like giving background information and is a bit softer. You could even cut that clause out, which could be phrased as: "I work [in an Italian support company] // [in a support company here in Italy], but even then we'll get an English-speaking customer every once in a while".
"but once in a big while happens the english speaking customer" has a few problems. "big while" isn't an expression that you would use in English. I guess the equivalent would be "in a long while", but that implies something that hasn't happened for a long time (e.g. "I haven't played Pokemon in a long while"). If you're trying to imply that this is an uncommon but regular occurrence, you would use "every once in a while". "happen" is also typically used more with verbs rather than nouns, so you would use "we have" instead. You can use it with pronouns or proper names sometimes, but it has a negative connotation (e.g. "The house is a mess, what happened?" "The cat happened.", implying that the cat is the cause of the mess). You would also use "an" (the indefinite article) rather than "the" (the definite article), because there's an implication that it's an individual English-speaking customer.
Songs are to be credited for the little I know of german - I 've been in Germany many times, and I love the language, and while it's absolutely incorrect to say I know the language, I can recognize some words here and there, and also realize how the composite words are made up (you know how german can create a single, 25 letters single word by patching together three words.... I can recognize where one word ends and the other starts, most of the time).
Again, this would likely be broken up into multiple sentences:
"Music is to be credited for the little German I know. I've been in Germany times and I love the language, but it would be absolutely incorrect to say I know the language. I can recognize some words here and there, and and I can also figure out how some super words are made up (you know, how German can create a single, 25-letter word by patching [or gluing or sticking] three words together). Most of the time, I can recognize where one word ends and the other starts."
Most of the other issues here are very minor, and a lot of them I've covered before.
Also there are 2-3 german songs where I know the chorus, in the sense that I could sing along to the lyrics actually knowing what I'm pronouncing.
This one is a little less clear. You would either use "and I actually know what I'm saying", which implies you understand the meaning of the words you're saying, or "and I can recognize and pronounce some of the words".
For other languages, I guess I can vaguely make something out of french and spanish stuff. When I was in Spain I tried to speak english, but when people realized from the accent that I'm italian they tried to speak italian as well, so basically I spoke "fake spanish" with them - I was getting understood better when I was improvizing spanish words than when I was speaking english :lol
"For other languages, I can vaguely make something out of French and Spanish. While I was in Spain, I was trying to speak English, but when people realized that I'm Italian from my accent, they tried to speak Italian. So basically, I ended up speaking "fake Spanish" with them. I was better understood when I was improvizing Spanish than when I was speaking English."
In general, I would say work on optimizing sentence length (https://www.enago.com/academy/how-to-optimize-sentence-length-in-academic-writing/) and avoiding run-on sentences (https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammar/runonsentences). Also, remember that in English nationalities and languages are capitalized (I know they aren't in romance languages like French and Italian, so understandable error). In general, your grammar and verb conjugations are good. You have a good use of vocabulary and you correctly used some idioms and set-phrases. Those are probably the hardest things to learn in English, and unfortunately they're also the bread and butter of English lol. Wiktionary has a VERY comprehensive list of idioms and set phrases, but it's almost TOO comprehensive sometimes. Hope this all helps!
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Native tongue is engrish, and I'm sorta semi fluent in Spanish
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Hope this all helps!
Sure it does, thanks a lot! :tup
While I'm not merely translating in English what I would say in Italian, I guess I use the way I speak / write anyway, so that makes sometimes for some akward sentence structuring. You say I correctly use some idioms and set-phrases, probably they're the ones I learnt by reading them multiple times, or hearing them in movies or songs. The grammar rules are always the hardest one to memorize - even back in school, when classmates would ask me "why should I write this sentence this way", I could only reply "ehr, I can't really explain it, I just know this is the right way".
Maybe understanding is easier - I guess I could say I understand anything I read in english (for example I even read Wikipedia exclusively in english, I never check the italian one), so that probably gives me a false sense of security of being able to construct any phrase the way I'm doing it, but of course there's always room for improvement. Thanks again for the quick lesson! :tup
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Fluent in English, Hungarian, Japanese and pretty comfortable with French. Working on German and Russian as time and travels permit. Id also love to try to learn Icelandic fluently because I want to buy a house there someday. I know enough of a few other languages that allows me to at least bumble my way around.
Was born in the US and my extended family is from Hungary, so I picked up the language growing up. I picked up Japanese early on from family and fine tuned it when I lived in Japan for a handful of years. I have some childhood friends from France and figured it would be worthwhile to learn the language some years ago since I had the intention of visiting often, even though Ive only been to France once for about half of a year. German and Russian are great languages and arent too difficult to learn based on the bit Ive picked up so far... Just need to put in the time and effort.
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Native tongue is English. I took classes for Chinese Mandarin for about 4 years and I've been learning German and Spanish on my own time. My wife tries to teach me French when she can, but I just don't get that language.
I suppose my CEFR levels would be as follows:
Chinese Mandarin - B1
German - A2
Spanish - A2
French - A0.5 :biggrin:
Oh does Pig Latin count as a language? I'm fluent in that :corn
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Fluent in English.
At one point in my life, I had a good understanding of Spanish. But sadly with years of not using it, its pretty much gone.
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Mothertongue Spanish, I know English I would say my English level it's intermediate. I learned by myself, by listening to music and translating songs, never took an English course in my life, I think it is pretty decent. I work for a Canadian company here in Lima. My boss speaks to me in English most of the day, some of my coworkers speak Spanish and English too.
I understand Portuguese (reading) listening by 75% but can't speak it, would love to take an English course and be almost as good as a native English speaker.
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I have mad respect for ppl who speak more than one language. I think I'm missing that part of the brain where learning new languages is possible. It's probably close to the math area. :laugh:
I'm working through a Duolingo app on Spanish right now. Hope springs eternal!
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Regrettably, I only speak English. I still remember plenty of words and phrases in French and German from secondary school and the odd word in Spanish - mostly from holidays to Spanish speaking countries as a kid.
I've always had great admiration for people who can speak more than one language, I wish I had the patience and motivation to learn another one myself.
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Grew up speaking English. Took Spanish in school. I understand it a LOT better than I speak it. But I can get by.
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Norwegian (mother tongue)
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Swedish (very similar to Norwegian)
Danish (very similar to Norwegian. This would be read/write/understand only - there's no chance I can speak Danish. But then again I don't need to - Danes and Norwegians usually understand each other)
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English (taught in school since age 10, I think they start even earlier these days. I work for an international company so I get to practice a lot!)
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Part of me also wanted to tick "German" (taught in school since age 14) but it's been too long. I haven't used the language actively since I finished school nearly 20 years ago, so I have no chance really. I can -maybe- understand the gist of a written text if I get unlimited time. I doubt it though.
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My mother tongue is Serbian, so by the nature of things, I also understand Croatian and Bosnian. Basically, these three are considered separate languages because of political/nation-building purposes, but we understand each other perfectly.
I got a degree in English literature, so my English is not too shabby :lol I'd say it's perfect, but I won't, because I mostly write from my phone on the toilet, so my written English on this forum is rated D for... well... you know.
My Norwegian is still only at around B1 and I am still uncomfortable speaking in person to native Norwegians. They are all unfailingly polite about it, it's just a me thing. I read and watch the news just fine and I can find my way around an event/a store, so even if Norwegians suddenly decided not to speak English to me, I'd get by. As JLa explained, these skills also transfer into Swedish and Danish - for me only to an extent, because my Norwegian still isn't very good.
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Native german speaker and I know enough english to get around in this forum. I'm better at reading than at writing, and I'm better at writing than at speaking english.
I learned it primarily at school. Nowadays I like to read books in english to get practice.
I know a little bit of french, but only enough for some really basic communication. I would like to improve it, but I don't have the time right now.
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My mother tongue is Serbian, so by the nature of things, I also understand Croatian and Bosnian. Basically, these three are considered separate languages because of political/nation-building purposes, but we understand each other perfectly.
I got a degree in English literature, so my English is not too shabby :lol I'd say it's perfect, but I won't, because I mostly write from my phone on the toilet, so my written English on this forum is rated D for... well... you know.
My Norwegian is still only at around B1 and I am still uncomfortable speaking in person to native Norwegians. They are all unfailingly polite about it, it's just a me thing. I read and watch the news just fine and I can find my way around an event/a store, so even if Norwegians suddenly decided not to speak English to me, I'd get by. As JLa explained, these skills also transfer into Swedish and Danish - for me only to an extent, because my Norwegian still isn't very good.
I assume you live in Norway? As in, why on earth would anyone want to learn Norwegian unless they lived here! :lol Feel free to drop me a PM if you'd like to ask anything or chat / practice Norwegian! :)
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My Norwegian is still only at around B1 and I am still uncomfortable speaking in person to native Norwegians. They are all unfailingly polite about it, it's just a me thing.
This made me remember how I was a bit apprehensive about going to London. Sure, speaking english abroad is one thing, people in Germany / Netherlands / Denmark speak it as well as a second and foreign language so it's easy as a tourist to understand each other in a "neutral" language, but how would I fare among the "pro"?
Luckily, I had no issues at all and I could understand everyone. My cousin, who's not really great at english, on the other hand had a lot of trouble to understand people, but I got by just fine. One annoying situation to live as a tourist however is being immediately recognized by the accent - I start to speak and they immediately ask "are you italian?", that annoys me very much, but the fault is on me and my pronunciation I guess. At least I wasn't "outed" everywhere, sometimes even actual italian people didn't recognize we were from the same country until they heard me speaking with my cousin.
I guess however that people who work in the tourist business - hotels, bars, restaurants - after a while develop a ear for the accents, so they can easily recognize an italian, a spaniard, a german.... but still, it sucks being recognized because it shows that my pronunciation is far from perfect :D
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I assume you live in Norway? As in, why on earth would anyone want to learn Norwegian unless they lived here! :lol Feel free to drop me a PM if you'd like to ask anything or chat / practice Norwegian! :)
Yes! And actually, you'd be surprised, I know a lot of Scandi freaks learning your languages :yarr thanks for the offer, I'll drop you a line sometimes :)
I guess however that people who work in the tourist business - hotels, bars, restaurants - after a while develop a ear for the accents, so they can easily recognize an italian, a spaniard, a german.... but still, it sucks being recognized because it shows that my pronunciation is far from perfect :D
Sometimes even living in a city with lots of identifiable groups of recent immigrants/tourists can grant you uncanny powers. Just seeing some people out and about sometimes gives me the feeling that when they are within earshot, I'll hear them speaking Spanish. And it never fails. I don't know why - after all, Spanish-speaking people look similar to people who speak Portuguese, and Italian, and a number of other nationalities... and yet. EVERY TIME.
And it's extremely hard to get rid of a strong accent. Just to give you context: in college, we worked on our pronunciation pretty much every day. There were at least ten people in my class who got very close to natives - I count myself among them - and yet, for every minute of their time with the talking stick, something would happen that could "give them away" to someone listening very closely. Not in the sense that they sound bad, but in the sense that a careful listener would go "hm, I wonder where they're from, that's not a native English/American accent". And Italian accents are easily identifiable because they are unique and very fun to listen to :)
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I can speak/read/write in Swedish (Native) and English and I can understand Danish and Norwegian, that's about it though. I did study German in school but yea, that's pretty much wiped from my memory.
I would love to understand and speak more languages.
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Deleting this because I realised I came across like an idiot and I didn't mean it that way at all.
Nothing to see here, move along folks.
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My native language is Spanish, I am almost bilingual in English (currently studying to become a translator) and I've studied German as well, A2 level.
I'd like to keep improving my German and learn one or two other languages like Japanese however I currently don't have enough time to do so.
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I have a halfway decent grasp of English. I'm incapable of learning any other language, though. I took years of French in highschool, and I think once in college. Didn't take. Took Spanish in college assuming my daily exposure to Mexicans would help. Nope. I can learn the vocabulary, so if you put French or Spanish in front of me I can read enough to catch the gist of it. If somebody starts speaking it though I'm lost. It just comes too fast for my brain to process.
This sums up Spanish for me as well. I had to take three semesters in college and got by (C in I, B in II, A in III - not sure how that happened :lol), but even then I could not have a conversation past a sentence or two. I learned enough to be able to read a little and do what was needed in the courses, but I have lost most of it since. I still remember random words or phrases, but that's it.
And me.
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I have a halfway decent grasp of English. I'm incapable of learning any other language, though. I took years of French in highschool, and I think once in college. Didn't take. Took Spanish in college assuming my daily exposure to Mexicans would help. Nope. I can learn the vocabulary, so if you put French or Spanish in front of me I can read enough to catch the gist of it. If somebody starts speaking it though I'm lost. It just comes too fast for my brain to process.
This sums up Spanish for me as well. I had to take three semesters in college and got by (C in I, B in II, A in III - not sure how that happened :lol), but even then I could not have a conversation past a sentence or two. I learned enough to be able to read a little and do what was needed in the courses, but I have lost most of it since. I still remember random words or phrases, but that's it.
Yeah, that's totally normal. Literally ONE person in my Russian III class could reasonably have a conversation in Russian and it was the same for French. From my own personal experience, it took about 2.5 years of study to reach a near conversational level in French. I still make some grammatical errors, but I find that I have to lean on my English less and less when speaking French now (mostly just for really obscure vocabulary and idioms that don't translate well). I'm still not quite there yet with Russian, which I would imagine it would take much longer. Learning a language is a major time investment lol
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Father tongue Italian, mother tongue Geordie (a sort of sheep-fart sounding English no one seems to understand outside Newcastle), Spanish due to extended work sojourning. Some bits and pieces from other languages due to travel/work survival, but I wouldn't call that "knowledge". French, Latin and ancient Greek are distant school memories, so they hardly count.
Generally speaking, books don't work for me, while ear and need are pretty powerful.
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ash nazg thrakatulūk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
I mean in all seriousness I know some Sindarin for giggles but otherwise I just speak English and know just barely enough Spanish to get an idea of what someone is saying
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ash nazg thrakatulūk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
Never before has anyone dared utter words of that tongue here, on DTF.
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ash nazg thrakatulūk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
Never before has anyone dared utter words of that tongue here, on DTF.
My master, Sauron the Great, bids thee welcome.
(https://i.imgur.com/Jr93x4Q.gif)
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Father tongue Italian, mother tongue Geordie (a sort of sheep-fart sounding English no one seems to understand outside Newcastle), Spanish due to extended work sojourning. Some bits and pieces from other languages due to travel/work survival, but I wouldn't call that "knowledge". French, Latin and ancient Greek are distant school memories, so they hardly count.
Generally speaking, books don't work for me, while ear and need are pretty powerful.
I say this with respect, but as an outsider, I'm sort of fascinated by the various regional accents in England, and in particular, I can listen to Brian Johnson (cluelessly) all day long.
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I can speak Finnish (native), English, German and Swedish, of which the latter isn't orally as good as it used to be because it's just hasn't been in much use over the years. I can still read it fine though. German would be somewhere around A2 in CEFR levels. Thanks to Swedish I can read both Norwegian and Danish somewhat decently.
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English and Chinese
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German (natively), English (not natively, but far better than German, I was taken for an Englishman more than once when I was on holiday in the UK and the US actually), French (somewhat)
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upper midwest english.
oh ya, you betcha.
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English and that's it. I struggled big time learning Italian in high school. Did 4 years but only made it to level 3 :lol for some reason, this was something I struggled with and possibly because I didn't care enough but also, it's a lot of memorization and constant usage that I just never did. I've had no interest in learning another language, it just seems so difficult and luckily many people speak english in non english countries so it kind of works out fine for my life.
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Cosa c'č che non va con l'italiano?
;D
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English.
I took several years of Spanish, but I am not conversational, although I still retain some vocabulary.
I took two years of Latin in college (almost minored!), but it's a dead language. No one really speaks Latin. I can still read some, but I'm way out of practice.
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I voted other-Kingshmeglish.
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I voted other-Kingshmeglish.
You are now the official Kingshmeglish translator.
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Stadler trying to interpret Kingshmeglish (sometimes):
(https://i.imgur.com/DfM7pJ4.jpg)
(I'm kidding, bud!)
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Speaking of hungarian:
(https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2F5ddac4e4fbfb496520fa151cf2510b74%2Ftumblr_ml7v65Yqo61s8t3eao8_250.gif&hash=a427e1ebdaaae58fcb131dfb76258a8115a45e5a)
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English and a little bit of Spanish. I learned Spanish in high school and college and I was getting pretty good, but then I stopped using it and forgot most of it. My work has our software available in Spanish and I can sort of understand it based on knowing the English version.
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My mother tongue is Lithuanian. When my parents and I moved over to the states at the age of four I picked English very quickly, especially since I had to become my parents translator. Now I can speak the language fluently by reading/writing skills are poor. I just haven't any practice. When I used to visit the home land yearly I was getting better but the progress was all but lost after I stopped going.
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Gotta say, was expecting more truly trilingual folks to show up! So far only a couple of us. I know Mladen (the only other Serbian native on this forum and so far the only DTFer I met) has a degree in German, and his English is fantastic. Guess he hasn't seen this thread.
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Why don't we all just learn Esperanto anyway?
How cool it would be if everyone could understand each other. Schools around the globe should start teaching Esperanto, give it 20 years and we would see results!
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Fi dorra foot rong make ya wanna horra. :lol
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Okay, so I live in the Netherlands, so I speak Dutch. My mother is English, so I was taught English from a young age. I'm apparently a B1 in Spanish after taking multiple courses and I graduated high school with French as well. I can - sort of - understand German roughly as well, but I think realistically these last two are pretty bad. So; Dutch, Spanish and English for me!
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German and Spanish are probably around B2 level for me (never took a test for Spanish and for German I'm simply comparing to peers). Then English and Dutch fluently (English C1 and Dutch is my mother tongue).
Then there's French, I took French in high school but forgot most of it and always had a hard time speaking and writing, I understand it on a super basic level, I'm probably A1.
Latin and Ancient Greek, as hefdaddy said, don't speak it but have a basic grasp on the vocabulary because of high school, but you don't really 'speak' it.
No one really speaks Latin.
No one..
EXCEPT for this Dutch politician: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnhijtzsuA
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(https://pics.me.me/the-reason-latin-is-a-dead-language-is-because-they-36522090.png)
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No one really speaks Latin.
You'd never know that from reading the American press.
Quid pro quo! ;D
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No one really speaks Latin.
You'd never know that from reading the American press.
Quid pro quo! ;D
Fucking lawyers and their terms.
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Regarding the topic, i've been watching channels like Bald and Bankrupt and Harold Baldr on YT alot lately. It's interesting because Bald and Bankrupt travels alot in rural and known dangerous areas in Russia, Ukraine and other countries. He's a bit nuts I would say but the fact that he can speak the language needed pretty good means he's often welcomed with open arms even in the most remote and rough areas. What i've gathered from his travels are that most people are more friendly than you might think, however speaking the language needed is an important thing of course.
Some good videos:
Return To The Belarus Chernobyl Zone...With Shopping Bags (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISToBIkSNbM)
Nobody Visits This Country...Find Out Why (https://youtu.be/wnDxHTaeNX0)
Chernobyl Village BBQ Gone Wrong! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q37qWA2cL5w)
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I'm terrible at English, I murder French and I know 30 words and phrases in Lebanese.
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Fluent in Swedish, pretty good at English. I grew up with American and British TV/music/movies, so I've always had a knack for it. It was my best subject at school.