Hi all
how many foreign languages can you use?
I see sometime that in the anglosaxon world it is not too common to speak more than 1-2 languages, whereas from not anglosaxon especially living in the EU where you work here and there in the end we end up speaking more than 1-2
I speak fluently Spanish, English, Italian, German and I can use some Dutch, French and Portuguese. I also can read and hear some Latin but since we learnt it as a "dead language" I cannot really talk it.
My wife the same as me and at home we use a kind of funny pidgin language borrowing words and expression from the different ones we know

Unfortunately, I am not fluent in what could be considered a foreign language.

Took a couple years of Latin in high school, but you really need more than that to fully comprehend what is considered a dead language.

I am fluent in Sign Language, however, which helps since I am hard-of-hearing.

The best I can do is order Mexican food. Otherwise, English is it for me though I can unravel a lot of medical terms so I guess there's a little Latin in there too.

(October 18, 2024 at 11:16 am)Silver Wrote: I am fluent in Sign Language, however, which helps since I am hard-of-hearing.

wow, that is cool! It is the same hand sign in every language or you do have a hand sign for example for Chinese, one for English etc?

(October 18, 2024 at 11:19 am)europeanatheist Wrote:

(October 18, 2024 at 11:16 am)Silver Wrote: I am fluent in Sign Language, however, which helps since I am hard-of-hearing.

wow, that is cool! It is the same hand sign in every language or you do have a hand sign for example for Chinese, one for English etc?

The hand signals tend to be different depending on the language associated with the area.

(October 18, 2024 at 11:11 am)europeanatheist Wrote: Hi all
how many foreign languages can you use?
I see sometime that in the anglosaxon world it is not too common to speak more than 1-2 languages, whereas from not anglosaxon especially living in the EU where you work here and there in the end we end up speaking more than 1-2
I speak fluently Spanish, English, Italian, German and I can use some Dutch, French and Portuguese. I also can read and hear some Latin but since we learnt it as a "dead language" I cannot really talk it.
My wife the same as me and at home we use a kind of funny pidgin language borrowing words and expression from the different ones we know

I speak English and Irish. I’m functional in French and Maori (meaning I can order a meal, pay a bill, things like that). I’ve memorized emergency phrases in a half dozen languages, such as:

-Can you direct me to the train station?
-Please get me a policeman.
-Where is the hotel [name]?
-Please let me out of this taxi, you maniac.
-Thank you for stopping the bleeding.

Boru
-

I suck at languages. I took French for two years and still only spoke high school level French. I studied Japanese and Chinese but my progress was poor.

Not having learned my lesson, I'm thinking of starting Hmong next year.

Just enough Spanish to understand rudimentary conversation, not speak, Latin/Greek medical terms. Fluent in pig latin.

pig latin? What that stands for?
P.S. does anybody of you was able to follow the romans in The passion of Mel Gibson?

I'm a native English-speaker, and functional in Spanish.