How many languages do you speak?

I only speak English, although I have taken French, Spanish and Latin at different times. I can make out alot of Spanish when I read it, and I can understand a small amount of spoken French, but not vice versa. I am trying to teach myself all the lyrics to Shakira's songs in Spanish and next semester hopefully I'll get to start taking Spanish. Curious how many multi-lingual DUers there are (...just realized this might be a better question for GD but oh well).

no fair teasing...

enough to hitchhike through the regions :thumbsup:

I like to switch between the two to mess with people every now and then.

whatever the hell that means....:eyes:

I can hold my own in French, and my menu Italian and German is pretty good.

I took Spanish for seven school years (junior high through freshman year of college), and could do fine reading Spanish, but it would take a while to pick up understanding someone speaking it.

I dabble in some passable knowledge of French, Italian, and Latin.

In order of fluency, English then canine then French.

I'm elated. He's a real attention-hog, and if you aren't directly talking to him he whines and vocalizes. It's really cute. I know what you mean about speaking canine/feline, etc, those languages are alot easier to understand for me than human.

and two passably (Irish Gaelic and Norwegian).

rock on. how did that come about?

I have a friend who has sung in gaelic for years and she says she does it totally phonetically and would be really embarassed if someone who knew the actual pronunciations was in the audience.

which piqued my interest because the writing system was so unusual (that was about 9 years ago), so I decided to try and learn some of the language. I have a pretty good head for foreign grammar (and Gaelic is one of the more outlandish Indo-European languages) and I've been dabbling in it ever since. Irish and Celtic stuff in general just interests me. :)

I am always pronouncing the Boston Celtics with a hard 'c', lol. I'm rurnt.

English...and a whole lotta French :)

I've heard they get pissed if people, especially Americans, try to speak French over there...

Especially in Paris. Blunder your way through the language for as long as you can stand, but you must at least try to speak it.

:shrug:

but I've heard from two friends that they just kind of sneer and ignore you sometimes. I've never been out of Murika so I don't know.

They very much appreciate it when you speak their language, even if you mangle it somewhat. They like to see you make the effort, at least. I had no problems, and in fact, many French people and tourists mistook me for another Frenchwoman :)

I'm glad because I've heard they can be rude if you screw up.

I can poke along with a text in French and Latin. Just don't ask me to speak either of them. ;)

my Latin teacher had a nervous breakdown and so they hired this priest who had learned Latin at the Vatican. The story was that he learned Latin in Greek, or Greek in Latin, one or the other. It was wild, because we actually got to speak it, which up til that point we had never done. And I guess if that oral tradition had been handed down that long, then there is a pretty good chance that the pronunciations he was teaching us were somewhere in the neighborhood of right, right? I want to learn Greek so bad, that is the language that most of english is based on and if you know Greek I think you'd have Spanish and French in the bag by rights as well.

I have eaten entirely too much sugar today...this is my brain on M&Ms.

english...limited spainish, and limited tagalog...:)

Do you have Vietnamese heritage?

the filipino's I use to work with, called their language...:)

I've heard it before, something tells me it was on Secret Asian Man. One of those dusty mental associations that gets mushed back there in with everthing else...

Glad I could clear that up for you...:) :hi:

I wish I did. Very limited Blackfeet. Limited Spanish. Pretty solid at english though. :)

my wife can sing quite a few cherokee songs, and the national anthem in cherokee...she probably has a working knowledge of 200 cherokee words. Her mother is bilingual, her first lang was cherokee, and then english...:)

I began speaking back to Yogi and Domino when they would meow as kittens. I noticed they each have certain types of meows for when they are calling each other in the house. One day, I wanted to see Yogi. I up and decided to try it and lo and behold, he came to it. He now answers to his "cat" name and he answers to "Yogi." I have since noticed that Domino does the same. Also, they have other general greeting that they meow and I have copied those before too. They tend to come to me when I meow certain ways and look puzzled when I copy some of their other meows. I think they understand that I am trying to communicate with them in their own language and they in turn try to teach me. Sunday Girl speaks English and well, Sunday Girl. She doesn't see herself as a cat and she communicates with me in her own way. She also reads my mind when I think about getting her medicine out of the bottle to air out. I wish I had time to document this little informal study on cat language in a journal format, but I do not know how to spell their meows. To be honest, I'd love to get a grant to actually study it for real.

And for the naysayers who inevitably exist, please tell me this: Why is it that when I use certain cat "words" with total strangers (cats) they respond in similar ways to Yogi and Domino?

I really do believe I am making progress. I'd love to start a little side project with no real time limitations (no hurry) with other DU'ers who have communicated with their cats like this. I know someone else has thought of this. It would be interesting if we could compare notes.