Do you know someone who is fluent in several different languages?

How many could they speak?

I'll go first... I once met a guy from Morocco who could speak about 5 or 6 languages fluently... English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, and Hebrew, I think...


Peace,

When I was in Spain I met a guy who spoke like 6 or 7 languages...I don't remember them all, but he was Dutch.

... thats where I met the guy I was talking about...

english, korean, turkish, italian, french, swedish.

She actually lived in turkey and sweden for awhile

... using the Pimsleur program... but I would like to learn French in the near Future


Peace,

..

Here is his web site.

Click on Executive Protection Service.


http://www.axissecurity.com/


This man is a real hero.

so few people speak their languages that they begin learning others at an early age. Most Dutch speak English and German, and many I've met speak others too.

Aside from English, I speak French and German and a smattering of Spanish and Italian.

Let's see:
English
Mandarin
Another Chinese language, not sure which
Spanish
French
Vietnamese

She also is able to read Hindi and one other language, not sure which.

BTW, she wasn't educated here, of course. She was educated in China.

i.e. Sasha 10 speaks 5 languages fluiently...Russian, Spanish, French, English, Italian....sigh

my children and grandkids are multi-lingual French, Italian, English

6 languages. Unfortunately, English was her weakest, and when she emigrated to the US after WWII she moved to the south. What little English she knew was proper English spoken like a Brit, yet she was thrust amid people with heavy southern accents. I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been.

there was a flood of Eastern Europeans coming to this country trying to escape oppression from the Soviet Union. Most spoke anywhere from four to six languages and not to get by but fluently. I am bi-lingual myself and I was very impressed with these kids.

On edit: I just remembered that my husband speaks French and Irish Gaelic besides English.

English, Polish, French, German, Yiddish and Italian.

I know a lot of people who know a few words and claim they speak the language...

LOL

ROTFLMAO

ETC

I can read through about six languages and get a good idea of what's being said. As for generating speech or writing, it's really only two fluently (English and the easy-to-learn Esperanto) and two passibly (Spanish and French).

Catalonian is probably next -- I can read it pretty well, about 80% as well as Spanish. Occitan (Provençal) and Italian are next down the list.

I can bluff my way through Latin pretty well; Classical Greek less so.

I took Russian for three years in High School, but after five months of irregular study, I find I can understand written Basque better (and Basque is supposed to be "impossible" to learn).

However, even knowing a little of any language is tremendously helpful to understanding how other people think and how other cultures exist. We should at least encourage dilettantism!

--bkl
Anguages-lay are-yay ool-kay.

Among language teaching professionals, "fluency" refers only to how fast you can speak.

Otherwise, language teachers prefer to talk about "proficiency," i.e. what functions can you perform with the language. The current classification has four levels:

Novice: a few words and memorized phrases
Intermediate: can hold a halting conversation and meet basic tourist needs
Advanced: can narrate and describe and talk in paragraphs instead of disjointed sentences
Superior: can function as an adult in the society and hold down a job

There are three subcategories within Novice and Intermediate and two within Advanced.

By that description, I'm Superior in English and Japanese, Advanced in French and German, Intermediate in Spanish, Chinese, and Norwegian, and Novice in Latvian and Russian.

speaks english, spainish, chechua,(I probably didn't spell that write an indian dialect from bolivia) and amaryn ) another dialect from boliva probably spelled wrong as well) He works for the smithsonian in what do you know South American archeology.

they are real languages, not dialects. I lived in Chile where Aymara was spoken by the native population. I always thought that calling them dialects made them less important, or so it seemed to me. Convince me otherwise if I am wrong.

Used for languages that are significantly related in a linguistic sense such that speakers of either language can almost understand one another in conversation but enough to where the difference is not enough to divide a people. Dialects can become a seperate language like what has happened to Dutch in South Africa, the language known as Afrikaans.

Spanish, I think the two languages are more than sufficiently different, which is why I questioned it.

I said that as being not the first language of the country. I meant no offense or belittling.

A dialect is a variant form of a language, as in American or British English, so while you can have dialects of Spanish and dialects of Quechua, it's not legit to refer to Spanish as a language and Quechua as a dialect.

Hint: she's a DUer

Could she be one and the same, with a terrific avatar?

Luxembourgisch, French, German, English and Italian. Another cousin there -- switch Spanish for Italian.

He knows Latin,Ancient and modern greek,hebrew german spanish french english and probably some more.He knows the most interesting things i actually played dand d with him once (omg how nerdy roleplaying with your old latin teacher as dm)

He was born in Brazil, so Portuguese was his native language...then he got married and moved to Japan. Fluent enough in Japanese to teach it at GA State. He'd already gotten enough English that when he realized he was gay and moved the the US there was no problem. Last I heard he was "picking up" Hebrew.

Ass. :)

German, French, English. Italian, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew. Whenever I saw her, we would speak German.

English, hebrew, french, spanish, russian

Fluent in all. I struggled through Spanish II in HS. I do speak English fairly well.

It's an amazing ability.

French
English
Romanian - Native
Italian

in these parts where I hang out. We talk about language A LOT, no matter what the configuration of native-speakers. Language matters.

They learned to speak English fluently in whatever in the Kenyan equivalent of elementary school, along with Swahili, the lingua franca. On top of that, they speak the native languages of their region, in this case Kinyore. Amazing, 3 languages, and this is the norm for Kenyan students! I firmly believe in teaching children languages starting in pre-school, as opposed to SEVENTH GRADE (that's when my school started language programs). I myself speak German and Spanish as well, but nowhere near fluent.

Speaks German, Italian, French and Spanish.

They lived in Saudi Arabia in the 60s. Her father was an oil executive for Esso. She went to bording school in Switzerland and spoke (I think)french, italian, german, Engish, spanish and some chinese.

What do you call someone who knows two languages?

A Bi-lingual.

What do you call someone who knows more than two languages?

A Polyglot.

What do you call someone who knows only one language?

An American.

--bkl
Who also knows some Esperanto, Spanish, French, Catalonian, Russian and Basque (in order of decreasing "fluency").

English, Japanese, German, and French.

she's a foreign exchange student here from Argentina, and she speaks six languages fluently. She knows: Spanish, Portugese, English, French, German, and Italian.

English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Japanese. He'd lived in several countries – Argentina and Japan, mainly. However, he was so boastful about his multi-lingual skills that he was unbearable sometimes. Eventually, he became unbearable for other reasons, too.

My grandparents were multiigual.

Then there's Sir Richard Burton, my linguistic hero. Google him for links.

and italian.

She is a college professor as is her mother; Her mother is a romanian language professor and speaks even more than her daughter.

Her dad is a famous political antagonistic writer in Romania...

But unfortunately, he is in jail right now.