Se habla ingles?

[hackthis_archive]

I had a dream last night that I had to make this poll. It's just for curiousity's sake, but you know me, I may try to pick your brains later if I want one of my characters to start cursing at people in Russian. Even though my keyboard isn't equipped for Russian.

ETA: I define 'speak' as some degree of fluency/proficency where you can a) carry on a conversation b) curse prolifically and summon a policeman in said language and/or c) survive if you are kidnapped, tied up, dropped off in that country with nothing but your name, and can communicate well enough with other people (without sign language) so you can get back home.

Too much Burn Notice what?

ETA 2: Yes, kids, I know that Scandinavian and Eastern European are regions and not languages, but in some instances you have to generalize because unless it's for a paper, I'm not listing 600 languages.

[Poll #1077017]

Comments

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

Unlike most people, I tend to be honest about my language skills in favour of exaggerating, so I only clicked German and English. I can also do what you said in your ETA in Chinese in French, but only just, and my proficiency in those languages is directly related to how much time I've recently spent there, so I would not dare to call myself trilingual or some such. But since I know a LOT of people who tell others that they can speak a language (or ten) because they know how to survive in the language (i.e. how to get a croissant or a plate of gongbao jiding), I thought I'd mention it.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

Ja, same for Ich. *g*

I'm bilingual in French (from France) and English (mostly US, but UK too), and I *used* to speak/read/write German. I can still understand some of it and reading is not too hard, depending, but I can't write it anymore and speaking will be at survival levels. My accent remained tiptop, but that's 'cause I have a good ear, mostly.

As a result of mostly learning through auditory stimulus, I have easily and quickly forgotten all the Ancient Greek I ever studied in school. And as a result of speaking French and English and some German, I can often decipher written Dutch somewhat (but neither parse it when I hear it nor speak or write it, of course).

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

I can't help myself, it's really getting on my nerves that people keep saying they know, say, Latin, because they had a year or two in high school. Yes, I too had it for six years, it was my first foreign language and I can still read it reasonably okay twelve years after stopping, plus I remember 90% of the grammar, but I actually know NO ONE who can speak fluent Latin apart from church invocations etc.. But that's not speaking a language.

Not to diss anyone who answered this poll, but there is a difference between having learned a language at some point for a couple of years and actually speaking it. If I cannot at least follow a political discussion in a language (think: understanding the gist of what is going on in The West Wing without subtitles), I just cannot say I know a language. Then again that's just me, and my standards might just be too high.

Aujourd'hui, je vraiment écrirai cette lettre! *défait ses livres*