Are you multilingual?

[Mr Allen]

Not fluent in it, but I know a bit of Spanish. It's not enough to get me anywhere, but I can translate bits and pieces of it.

I would like to be bilingual at the very least (English/Spanish), useful skill to have here in my neck of the woods but that's going to take a little more dedication.

Well after 40 years of watching Fawlty Towers, I can kind of speak a little Spanish

 

[Progster]

Well after 40 years of watch Fawlty Towers, I can kind of speak a little Spanish

¿Qué?

 

[Tom]

No. To be honest it always kinda sounded like a dirty word to me.

 

[Aeolienne]

I recently went to a conference on autism in the workplace where one of the speakers joined us via Skype from the Netherlands. Although a native English speaker (originally from Wales) at one point she stopped and said "Oh my God, I can't remember the English word for grenzen". I piped up, "Is it boundaries?" People turned to me and said "Wow! Do you speak Dutch?" I said "No, it just sounds like the German word Grenzen," albeit with a less guttural sound to the G. (Grammar pedants note: in German all nouns begin with a capital letter.)

 

[The Guy]

Swedish
English
Spanish

For some reason I don't seem to be able to study Russian on a regular basis. My mind "rejects" it somehow. I get tired of it quickly. I was thinking of trying to learn Italian. It's quite similar to Spanish so it I imagine it wouldn't be very challenging learning it.

 

[Anthracite]

Does guinea pig count? I used to have two and can still get reactions from guinea pigs to this day if I squeak at them appropriately

 

[Sabrina]

I'm fluent in Spanish and English, less so in Italian, I read in French (I used to be fluent, but lost it) and I’m currently learning German with Duolingo.
@Otenba congratulations for learning Japanese, that looks tough.

 

[Sabrina]

Onegood thing is that when I get threatened by people with guns I just tell them I don't understand and walk off.

Is this literal?

 

[Sabrina]

. Spanish actually irritates me.

Cuánto lo siento (I couldn’t help it ).

 

[pjcnet]

Lol, I struggled to learn even English and my speech development was so slow that I was one of the few children to be diagnosed as autistic in the 1970s that is now on the higher functioning part of the autistic spectrum. Against all expert advice my parents insisted that I attend a "normal" school where I had a terrible time in many ways (that's another long story). I tried to learn French at around 13 years old when I was forced to, but I failed miserably before finally being allowed to drop the subject after 2 school years, it was absolutely impossible for me and I couldn't cope even in the lowest class. I remember doing an end of year French exam which was like a pure guessing game to me, but I couldn't even do that in the parts where I was actually expected to write in French, it might as well had been an exam in Welsh which I can't speak a single word of, in fact even if they'd given me a German exam paper by mistake I don't think I would have noticed lol! At the time I was the only person in the top group in maths and yet in the remedial group in English (a small 4th group below the standard lowest class out of 3), but at the same time I was an expert on computers, writing complex programmes which started from the age of 10 in 1979 and I needed to be reasonably good at Maths to achieve this.

I came a long way with English as I got older however and the Internet also greatly helped since the mid 1990s (yes, that's when I started using it), but I still make loads of mistakes writing, often getting words mixed up that aren't what I intended to write, which means reading and correcting multiples times to get it right, but with patience I can write reasonably well now at least. I only know about 10 words from other languages in total which I remember from movies and computer games, not counting words that are virtually the same in English like "cafe". I still remember that "bonjour" means hello and you are supposed to add "Misure" or "Madam" because otherwise it's considered rude, but that's close to my limit in French. At least we now have Google translate and similar, but if you translate and then translate back you can see how inaccurate it is because it is often very different from the original text, but it's good enough to just about get by with foreign languages even when you know nothing.

 

[Progster]

I think that I'm good at languages because of my autism, not in spite of it. I find it easy to pick up on patterns in the language, such as grammar rules and I have a good long term memory so I can memorise vocabulary easily. I have the same social communication difficulties with another language as I do with English (autism doesn't miraculously disappear when communicating in another language), but that doesn't affect my ability to learn the words, grammar, make sentences, write, speak and translate.

 

[wight]

Taking your meaning and context as "other spoken/written human languages"...then no.

On the other hand, I know maths, dog, and horse.

Is there irony in the fact that I can communicate with animals completely in body language but not humans? Probably.

 

[Otenba]

I'm fluent in Spanish and English, less so in Italian, I read in French (I used to be fluent, but lost it) and I’m currently learning German with Duolingo.

Nice!

Otenba congratulations for learning Japanese, that looks tough.

Thanks! It is, especially when compared to English, but I made peace with that fact before I started. I enjoy seeing pictures in the characters they use to help my memory as I learn it. To give an idea on sentence structure as well, it's like talking like Yoda from Star Wars!

 

[Sozdatelniza]

I speak Russian, German and English. I also know Ukrainian but I already forgot some words because I don't speak it really often.

 

[Mr Allen]

As mad as it sounds, after about 6 years of watching Mrs Brown's Boys, and before that, Father Ted, I am fluent in Irish swear words, but I'd rather not draw the ire of the Mods so I'll refrain from posting examples.

Also, after about 35 years of watching Coronation St, I speak a little Mancunian.

 

[Aeolienne]

I did French and Spanish at school, but I've forgotten most of both, I could just about manage to order a drink in a French Pub though, erm, "Je Voudrais un Beir sil vous plait, merci" and if Dad was with me I'd order "Et voudrais un juice d'lorange sil vous plait, merci beaucoup"

Je voudrais un bier s'il vous plaît, merci
Et je voudrais [or il voudrait] un jus d'orange s'il vous plaît, merci beaucoup

 

[Sloth]

I grew up with both Russian and English as native languages, and can freely read/write/speak both without accent. One of my majors in University is Spanish, so I'm pretty high level in that.

I've always loved languages, it really helps with one of my favorite things which is analyzing words and their origins. For that reason, I know a large amount of words from various languages. I kinda regret not learning more during my childhood, but I figured it was a good idea to just focus on one learned language to get it to a professional level.

 

[Lady Lucifer]

I can only speak german through Rammstein lyrics. Does that count?