Just curious to see the responses from the Mudspike community since it seems to have a pretty good variety of members from different countries. For me I speak English and Spanish fluently. I took several years of German in both high school and college and while I can understand it pretty well when I read it and hear it, I have lost most of my conversational ability. You really have to immerse yourself in the language on a daily basis if you want to be a proficient speaker. Maybe I’ll do that when I retire and can stay in Germany for a few months!
Italian (native speaker), English, and I am halfway through a decent German.
I’m also moving my first tentative steps in Swahili. It’s easy enough but I need time to practice it.
That said I can understand decently trivial arguments in French and Spanish and I can mostly read correctly Ukrainian Cyrillic- not understand it, just enunciate it.
I am fluent in English and German (native).
I can understand written Dutch quite well and catch bits and pieces if it’s spoken even though I never took lessons, the languages are simply very close. I also know a bit of French but despite taking French for over 5 years at school I never learnt anything but the absolute basics, I certainly can’t follow a regular conversation in french. I can also decipher Cyrillic phonetically to some degree even if I don’t know what it means
And as most people (I would guess) I know swear words in a lot of different languages
DAMN, I wanted to write this too, but didn’t want to be the first.
I learned a LOT of new ones especially since I started working with Hungarians.
Cheeky bugger!
Swahili caught my attention. What’s your motive behind learning it?
Hehe, a very very personal reason.
Thanks for reminding me of the utterly brilliant “Hungarian phrase book” Monty Python sketch.
OMFG YES! “My Hovercraft is full of Eels!”
Hahaha yes. Fun fact: Monty Python is very popular in Germany and like everything we dubbed it. It works most of the time and even though the conversations in the sketches can be completely different it’s sometimes even funnier than the original.
I am fluent in English and Dutch (my native tongue). I can survive in Spanish, French and German. I can swear in a couple more languages (ni ssè!)
Native English. Hesitate to say “fluent” in Japanese since “fluent” could mean literally anything, but I got an apartment, socialize (rarely), and have to sit through a bunch of work stuff all in Japanese so I guess it’s good enough to get me into legal and romantic troubles.
You’re right about “fluent” being a relative term. When I started the topic I just had in my mind that fluent meant an ability to read, write and speak the language well enough that a native to the language will understand you.
- German, native
- Swiss german, native (Chuchichäschtli)
- English, quite decent due to work (lacking RL vocabulary)
- French, real bad. Just un tip, tip peu. Was able to get a haircut last week but had to gesture a lot.
- Italian, mute - with hands and eyes only
Italians use their hands a lot when they speak anyway so you were fine.
I am pretty good at speaking Wookiee Shyriiwook…but as no one else is, it’s pretty much wasted.
My Huttese and Klingon are barely passable, but I can swear well in them.
In all others I am but a learner, but in English I am the master.
Ahaha yes. You guys just made me remember this video of Riccardo Patrese driving his wife around a track in a Honda Civic Type R, she gets quite animated and then can’t stop laughing when she realizes she’s on camera
Great video. I was able to understand some of the Italian.
I am fluent in German (native) and English, and I used to be halfway fluent in Spanish but forgot most of it. I can still understand written Spanish decently but that’s it. I can communicate in Norwegian on a good day, but I never learned it properly, sadly.