MH FEATURED POLL #22: What languages do you speak?

[PsychoΔelica 648]

English is basically an offshoot of an early medieval German dialect (the Angles and Saxons came from northern Germany after all), but later they got screwed over by french-speaking Normans, which is why there are a lot of words from medieval French as well. Also, at some point the English decided that all those declinations are just not cool and dropped most of them. And while they were at it, they also shifted half their vowels... but I digress.

Interesting. I was sure that only English was infulenced by French. That makes sense though. Thanks for the explanation.

 

 

 

In a nutshell: they are related (both are germanic languages) and are somewhat similar, but have developed quite differently since over 1500 years. I'd say they are similar enough to make it easier to learn one language if you speak the other, but it also can be confusing, because some words may sound similar and even have the same origin, but have developed into very different meanings now.

That happens with any language that has borrowed words from another, the cultural baggage attached to them tends to change according to the country/region. I sometimes have to look for substitutes in order to translate English into Hebrew.

[Mabuta 76]

I use Mandarin-Cantonese most,

Japanese because of the hobbies

and some of Malay/Indonesian and Hindi because I've raised in Malaynesian neighborhood.

I speak English [maybe it's more like Singlish?] just at some formal occasions, that's why I'm not good at it

[Lestat 2167]

Fluent in Dutch and English.

 

Other than that, I speak a crippled version of German, but can keep up a conversation. 

I can read (and vaguely understand) Danish, paired with other germanic languages like Swedish and Norwegian.

[Takadanobabaalien 3607]

Swedish (native) English and Japanese from school. 

[shinobu. 252]

English is my native language. I've studied German for almost a decade, and it's my major at the university. I've also studied Japanese for a long time, but I feel like I can write and read it better than I can speak. 

[deathangel 1105]

I speak English mostly (mainly due to work) though Cantonese is my native language. As i from Malaysia, so its natural that I can speak Malay also.Others language/dialect that I speak are Hokkein and Mandarin.

 

Right now I am in the process of learning Korean, probably due to the influence of my Korean friends.

[Purlpi 79]

Spanish is my native language (Mexican dialect, wooho!). I've been studying English since kindergarden, but I suck a lot haha. I can speak, write and understand... but I think I really have A LOT of mistakes.

 

I also studied French at University but it was French for translators, so I can read, hear, understand and translate (from French to Spanish/English), but my French pronunciation is horrible. Le français est très difficile!!!  I also studied Japanese for 4 years, so yeah... I can have a basic conversation and even use some keigo, write and understand, but just a bit.

 

I want to study German!

[diamondAss 114]

i speak Estonian, English and a tad bit of Russian. i´m kinda surprised there´s only 1 Polish speaker tho

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

Bad Finnish and even worse English. Embarrassed of both.

 

I can get the vague gist of fings written in Swedish and German due to the similarity 2 English but fuck if I could speak even a word of either, despite having taken both in school for years and years. 

[Nagisa 131]

I am a native speaker of English and Mandarin Chinese, and I'm fluent in Japanese too (learned at university). Tried learning Portuguese over the summer but back in school now. I hope to pick it up again sometime though. 

[Delkmiroph 1649]

 

I was born and raised here and this thought never crossed my mind lol probably because of german grammer >_> but nice to see you like it (:

 

The problem in german language is the grammer... like same in portuguese that have so much rules. Also, portuguese language have all sounds of german (exception the word "ich"). So, i can speak german like german native.

 

How much is German similar to English? I know that some words in English are borrowed from German.

 

True, my problem sometimes is with prepositon in german because have many meanings in portuguese and makes me crazy to try understand.

[JamesR 119]

Portuguese(my native language) and English - had Spanish classes back in high school, can't say I'm fluent, tho.

[CELESTIAL CIEL 985]

Russian is my native language. Studied English for 2 years in school and now in the uni and feel myself awkwardly trying to enter into dialogue... I can't speak well but understand almost everything.

Also studying Japanese right now, also in the uni.

[blackdoll 907]

sadly only english

[CCXXVIII 30]

english and mandarin, and i'm trying to learn japanese rn (or am i....).

i can write in korean, but i can't speak lmao

[plastic_rainbow 2162]

mainly english and some japanese. i haven't spoken japanese in a while though so i'm not as good as i used to be, but i can still read and write some. i have a native language too but i can rarely speak it anymore...though i can say some things if i have to.

 

i also took two years of french in middle school, but i forgot everything lol.

[shiroikitsune 16]

I'm an Italian native speaker.

I've been studying English for many years, German for about eight years and Spanish for three years. Now maybe I'm not so good at speaking German as I was before, but I can still understand what people tell me and communicate somehow. Spanish is a little bit similar to Italian, so I find easier to remember this Language. 

Now I'm studying Japanese at university. And also a little bit of Mandarin Chinese, but I can't really speak it yet.

[Alin 18]

I can speak Romanian and English. I know a lot of words in Japanese , but I can't speak . I am better at Japanese than Franch and i do Franch at school .

[Tokage 5930]

Fluent in English and Dutch. Also able to understand/speak Estonian andHungarian to some basic degree. I studied French and German in high school so I guess there should still be some latent knowledge floating about

[Devilish_Eye 1168]

English and Dutch. And a bit of German. Can understand a lot of German. 
I also speak a few words of Japanese but I didn't include it in the voting. 

[haido 13]

Native in Finnish, fluent in English. I've been studying Japanese few years and last comes bad German and bad Swedish :'D

[len 67]

I speak Brazilian Portuguese and learned English mostly through TV and internet so my grammar is still bad. Those are the only ones I voted then. I studied Spanish for a while so I can understand a little but not speak, I still mix a lot with Portuguese. Now I'm studying Japanese, German, French, Italian, Swedish and came back with Spanish, I know it's a lot at the same time but I really enjoy it, I'm trying to focus on Japanese and German though. If anyone want help with Portuguese or a partner to study any of these languages I'm up.

 

Edited January 15, 2017 by len

[kiixx 29]

Chinese is my native but English is my main and a little bit of japanese and korean  

[Triangle 345]

Well, Romanian which is my mother language (although I think I'm slowly forgetting words and sentences. It's crazy when foreigners know how to speak better than you. XD But I can rant about vampires better !), English (been studying it since I was probably 4 and learned it quickly so I can understand what was happening in the cartoons I would watch on TV, before they dubbed them all in my mother language XD. I realized English is used everywhere and here I am now, after all these years XD. I even chose it as a minor to study in university, silly me) and then Japanese (since like 4 years ago when I decided it I want to know more of it than subbed anime XD. Now I can prodly say I am able to watch Japanese movies or dramas or TV shows without subtitles and read manga in Japanese. I will probably struggle with kanji forever though). I have been sporting Korean since 7 years ago but I am still at the level of understanding it just a tiny bit. I can read hangul but don't know what the hell I am reading  most of the time unless someone reads it to me out loud. I become fluent in ordering in Korean after 2 bottles of soju :).

Edited January 18, 2018 by Triangle

[Arkady 396]

Italian is my native language, plus I speak english and a tiny bit of french too.