Cruel doubt

[Dingus]

Dingus,

Piddletrenthide is in Dorset in the south of England. Piddle is a river name (from a German word for something wet and low-lying - possibly related to our word puddle). Trent is from the French trente (30). A hide was an old English land measure. So the name refers to a village which consisted of 'thirty hides on the River Piddle'.

I now think my history education is deficient too. I am glad I stick around here. I have a chance to augment my abysmal knowledge stores.

[armie480]

Imagine. 19 languages. Needless to say, that little line from the book was my favourite. OK, may be not the "most" profound one - but it definitely makes a very strong impression.

If this is not your closely-guarded secret, how many languages do you know (speak or read or understand - whatever)?

personal statement. I envy people who can learn a couple of new languages during the summer.

[Dingus]

Three fluently, including English. I can understand two more - can read but not write or speak fluently in one; in the other I can just understand, nothing else. Actually, I think these last two may not count for much.

I don't think I fall in the group of people you envy - my language skills have been pretty static for the past decade or so.

How many do you know?

[Erin]

Can anybody get specific about what languages they speak? That's not so private, is it? (Edit: Unless of course your language identifies your nationality, which you'd prefer not to air publicly) I'll start:

English - native speaker.
Portuguese (Brazilian) - Pretty good in all four skills. I actually did some translation from Portuguese to English while I lived in Brazil.
Spanish - I can get by, but it's pretty much all textbook Spanish. Some accents I have a hard time understanding.
French - Basic reading is okay (newspapers, some novels that use fairly simple French)
Japanese - One semester at a community college, so I know about ten words and two sentences.

Next language projects - Mandarin or Cantonese, or both. Still thinking about this. I will not even try to learn the writing system. And I'm thinking about resuming my studies of French.

For the record, I have to say it's not nearly as great an accomplishment to learn a second, third, etc., Romance language after you have learned one as it is to learn another language from a different language family.

[BrazilianWoman]

BrazilianWoman

Sorry if my post appeared a mentoring answer to you. I suspected your question had something to do with your native language, but to tell the truth, in all my guesses I was far from the right answer. 'Cultural shock' would best describe what I experienced about your question.

Erin, thank you very much for your explanation! I lllove to compare the ways of thinking in different languages (although as a semi-amateur linguist only).

BTW, if translated into my native language, English 'married with children' would mean that children are a sort of a substitution to a (missing) spouse. And when we want to say that someone is married to someone, we say that they are married on someone.

Languages are amazing!

You helped me a lot. Thank you very much.

[wasleys]

Can anybody get specific about what languages they speak?

Erin,

As nobody seems to want to answer your question I will admit to my typically English lack of foreign language ability.

English - obviously.
French - OK at reading simple stuff and was surprised to find recently I could still get by with speaking even simpler stuff when I had to.
Norwegian - very basic reading and speaking after some self-teaching.
Dutch - spent a month working there 30 years ago and had to go on a five-day intensive course beforehand which nearly killed me but left me with survival skills in the language which are still there.
Welsh - many holidays in Gwynedd mean I can recognise many words, which at least means I know whether to use the door marked Merched or the one marked Dynion when going into the Cyfleusterau Cyhoeddus.

A major problem in Norway and the Netherlands is that virtually everyone does speak English so you're not forced into having to use their language. However people in both those countries are usually surprised and delighted to meet foreigners (especially the English) who can speak even a little of the lingo.

Michael