How many languages / What languages do you speak?

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Giambattista, Feb 26, 2007.

?

How many languages are you fluent in?

  1. 1

    29.8%
  2. 2

    37.1%
  3. 3

    22.4%
  4. 4 or more.

    10.7%
  1. shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,110
    How many Spanish would you say you live around? Is it more or less than five Spanishes?

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  3. christa Frankly, I don't give a dam! Valued Senior Member

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    lol, like most of my street is spanish, and both neighbors....tho one side is half, and the other side moved in I think after the dad got his greencard....
     
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  5. ya I want to learn Italian because it is my hertiage too.
     
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  7. Darkie Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    17
    Try Navajo! It's a real challenge!
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    In Italian the verb stare is occasionally used where we would use "to be," just like the Spanish cognate estar, although not nearly as often. Come sta? = "How are you?"

    In Spanish estar is used only in certain constructions.
    • Location. Mi padre está en Bolivia. My father is in Bolivia.
    • With a participle. Yo estoy comiendo. I am eating. La tierra está cubierto de nieve. The land is covered with snow.
    • A few idioms. Cómo está usted? Yo estoy bien. How are you? I am well.
    Pretty much everywhere else you use the verb ser for "to be." It's not as difficult as it seems at first glance.
    We call them Latino(s), or Latin-American(s), or Hispanic, or, considering where you live, they're probably all Mexican-American(s). "Chicano" was once coined to mean a person of Mexican ancestry who was born in the USA, but I don't hear that word very often any more. "Spanish" is the language, but when you're talking about people "Spanish" is used exclusively for people from Spain. There was a time when people of the privileged class in Mexico called themselves "Spanish" to distinguish themselves from the mestizos, the working class of mixed European and native ancestry. But DNA analysis showed that they're all of mixed "blood." All of Latin America is a Melting Pot, just like our country, and that's what we should all be proud of.
    Navajo is related to Maya, Quechua, and the other languages of Mexico, Central and South America, rather than to most of the languages north of the Rio Grande. Its structure is very different from the Indo-European, Semitic, Finno-Ugric, Mongolic, Sino-Tibetan, and other language families we're familiar with in Europe and Asia. During WWII the U.S. military used Navajos as radio operators, speaking their own language. The Germans and Japanese had no one who could understand it and it is impossible to "break" like a code or even puzzle out the way we might eventually figure out a language closely related to our own like Dutch. They were called "code talkers" and there are still a few around who talk about their experience.
     
  9. christa Frankly, I don't give a dam! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,905
    man i tried navajo in the 5th grade, talk about a blank look on my face! Its a really complicated language to learn! even the navajos around here have stopped speaking it unless its an elder..

    and umm no Rocker.. lol... there are ALOT of illegals around here... just because we do not border mexico directly up here, doesnt mean we dont have them. You get shocked when you find out people have a green card...
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    They're still not Spanish. Spanish people come from Spain.
     
  11. Grim_Reaper I Am Death Destroyer of Worlds Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,349
    One day I want to learn Klingon and Romulan as well.
     
  12. Darkie Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    17
    Fraggle Rocker, yeah, I've seen the movie. )) Learning difficult and rare languages is fun.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    What movie?
     
  14. Darkie Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    17
    Windtalkers with Nicholas Cage. It's about the Navajo radio operators during WWII. Highly recommended.
     
  15. Vic the Trader straight chillin Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    87
    English and street-Spanish. With all the Mexicans flooding into the good neighborhoods I think it's a necessity to keep up with the times.
     
  16. TFL ʞǝǝƃ ɐ ʇsnɾ Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    128
    I am a native English speaker. Currently learning French in school (which I will likely forget the moment I pass my final year) and self-teaching Japanese as I had heard it was hard. I will self-teach Spanish once I finish my French classes.
     
  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    In real life they were called "code talkers." The program started in WWI. The Germans were, therefore, aware of it and sent agents to study the major Indian languages, so it was difficult to use in the European theater in WWII. But it was highly successful on the Pacific Front. Navajo was the most widely used since it had (and still has) the largest number of speakers. There were about 400 Navajo code-talkers in the Marines in WWII. They could translate a message in 20 seconds that would have taken 30 minutes with a code machine. Basque was also used, but there were several Basque Christian missionaries in Japan so the Marines had to be careful where they were deployed.
    Please be aware of the forum rules against racism. I live in an extremely "good neighborhood" and rent the upper floors of my home to a Mexican family. The mom is a web designer, her son is a developer of video instructional courses, and his wife is a Spanish teacher. They make far more money than I do and are wonderful housemates.
     
  18. eupyongri Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    24
    I'm fluent in Korean and English. And I'm now learning Japanese. My mother tongue is Korean, and I learn English and Japanese in part for my business and in part to expand my knowledge.
     
  19. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    .

    i started to learn japanese, i speak arabic+my arabic dilact, french, english, and i'll learn spanish next year in school, but i'm not starting to learn japanese cause i like the japanese anime, manga.

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    so, now i only speak 3, and i'll be speaking 5 in the next years i hope.

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  20. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    bonjour, comment sava?
    hello, how are you?
    konnichiwa, gainki desu ka?
    مرحباً، كيف حالك marhaban, kaifa halouk?
    أهلا لاباس؟ahla, labes?
     
  21. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    4,878
    Parlezbian vows der Frankenstein, mein Fruit?
     
  22. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    19,252
    Er, that should be
    comment ça va?

    And that should be
    Konnichiwa, o-genki desu ka?.

    I don't know about the others because... Ana la tet kalam al Arabiah.
     
  23. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,160
    lol, yeah, i just used to sya, sava? or cv? as a short way when i talk on FB,

    yeah, but i used to know a japanese woman, she was here, and she learned me a few stuff so i started to learn, and i guess both of geni or o-genki are true, well she told me gainki desu ka? sorry, not gainki, i just used the french alphabet, genki, : ]


    it should be like, "ana(me) la(no) atakallamou(speak) alarabia (al is the, and about arabia, it's actually 3arabia, but you don't have the letter that used "3" to say it, you don't even have it's pronouciation) "


    what you said is like: "ana(me) la(no) tet(means nothing) kalam(talks, speech, or whatever you call it) [or you wanted to say, tetkalam, it means, you speak not me speak, also it's not gramaticly true, cause it's should be tatakallamo, tetkalam, and not tet kalam, is just a faster way to say it in the daily life, it's a part of dilacts, (the same in all dilcats, like most of the other arabic words) ...
     

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