This may have been posted in threads of the past, but for us newbies, I was just wondering what languages (other than English) other FT'ers speak. Obviously, we are a diverse community; and many Flyertalkers live or work in other countries. We all know Rudi speaks Swiss-German... So, I'm just a little curious... What is your native tongue? How many languages do you speak? At what level? etc.

I'm very curious because as an individual educated in the U.S., I never really had the need to speak another language. Yet, we've seen the Latin community grow tremendously over the last few decades. Clearly, bi-lingual speakers have an advantage.

I studied a semester of grad school in The Netherlands and was amazed at how easily the Dutch spoke English. Furthermore, most of them knew a third language (typically German or French); but some even knew Spanish and/or Italian. It was quite impressive, and clearly due to the pleasant regionality of Europe. In fact, it inspired me to attempt to learn another language!

I suppose I'm also curious because my father speaks English (native tongue), German (fluent), Spanish (fluent), French, and a little Portugese. His ability to get around a country and to converse with others in their native tongue is something I truly envy!

Anyway, I'll start off:

Born: Omaha, Nebraska USA
Raised: Atlanta, Georgia USA
Current Residence: Chicago, Illinois USA
Native Tongue: English (American)
Foreign Language(s): German and a little Spanish.
Note: I have focused on learning German over the last two years. (I figure this means that I can converse well with most 2-year old Germans... ) I've also taken Spanish coursework (2 semesters) in college, but feel my German is much stronger. (Not that two years in any way makes me fluent!)

Anyway, I'm anxious to read your responses, so please chime in if you'd like to share!

P.S. I'm assuming you speak native Australian, right ozstamps?

Besides saying hello and thank you, 5 years of High School Spanish still doesn't get me too far!

American English is my language of choice, but I have been known to have a high fluency in Pig Latin.

ORD ... the native tongue here is STRINE. This is the way we pronounce "anything from this country". Australians abbreviate EVERY possible number of spoken syllables to one, hence strine is short for "Australian" and G'day for "Good Day" and .....

I speak "pidgin-minus" French and Spanish and being a world traveller am always embarrassed to admit that is the extent of it. As native English speakers we are just so fortunate. I have NIL foreign language aptitude, and regret being so hopeless at it.

I agree with you on the Dutch .. FOUR languages is bare bones minimum in my understanding for them to work in tourism/hospitality, and the Scandinavians are right up there too.

I'll bet we have people on this board who are fluent in over 10 languages. A great thread topic and I'll follow with interest, and they have my enormous admiration mastering more than ONE!

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~ Glen ~

Does understanding Arturo count?

RichG: Are you saying you do? Wow!

I've forgotten my Spanish, and everything is now either English or Japanese. -Or the occasional mix, some of which is intentional.

I lived near Osaka for 4-5 years after studying "proper" Japanese in college. Pretty much fluent in both, although it is easier to speak whatever dialect the people around me are speaking.

Mrs. Kid's die-hard Tokyo Japanese, but I'm winning her over to Kansai language/humor (in an effort to avoid forgetting it?)

Oh, and I dabble in English. I think it's cool how thinking in Japanese uses a different side of my brain from English. Freaky.

<dbl posting - for all you Elite members.>
Sorry!

[This message has been edited by kidpachinko (edited 09-01-2000).]

ig-pay atin-lay

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Born: Texas
Current Residence: Switzerland
English - US native, UK only whilst queueing for the lifts
German - fluent
Swiss - e Bitzeli
French - almost

Apart from English - Hindi and Punjabi (studied a little Sanskrit too, but long forgotten).

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 09-01-2000).]

In addition to my native English, I speak Greek reasonably well (some of the less-used tenses trip me up), but have trouble reading or writing it these days.

And a bit of Spanish from high school and bussing dishes with a mostly Mexican/Cuban/Puerto Rican set of co-workers during teenage summer vacations.

Surprise surprise but I speak Swedish and English. I used to study spanish in high school but I have forgot most of it I only remember usefull words like Me Lllamo Kempis or Deme una cerveza por favor

I speak Feline and learned to under Feline...

FEED ME-(N)OW
PLAY ME-(N)OW
CLEAN ME-(N)OW

Feline has different dialects and meanings depending on the MEOW (you learn very quickly which one means what.)

Born in Austria, went to school in Russia, now a US citizen. Speak/understand/write Russian, still working on my American English, and almost forgot all of my German. English is the language of choice for my brain: I think, dream and talk to my dog in English. If I could only get rid of the accent !

I am currently studying (nearly fluent in) one year old:

Nuk nuk: "Nice to see you."

NUK NUK: "I am uncomfortable."

NUK NUK "I am angry."

NUK NUK "I'm mad as he11 and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

KoKo...I heard you say those words in Hawaii last year. You are not going to use them during the Seattle Pub Crawl are you?