Any Bilinguals / (Wannabe) Polyglots here?

[Chub_by]

Hey everyone,

one of my many interests alongside fish, is linguistics. As such, I'm very interested in different languages, dialects, and people who speak more than 1 of either.

What languages and dialects does everyone here speak or learn? Which ones would you like to learn in the future?

Here is a Wikipedia article on the topic containing many interesting links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyglotism

Hope we can make a good discussion out of this

 

[Warborg]

My wife speaks 3 languages... 1 dialect. So 4 all together. Me? 1 I tried German and Spanish( didn't get too far).

 

[HarleyK]

Fluent in 2, would need to get out the WD-40 and wire brush to freshen up on 2 more I learned in my younger years....

 

[Chub_by]

Nice, which ones are those HarleyK and W Warborg (well,your wife that is)?

 

[J. H.]

I can sort of read Russian (taught myself), but not understand it. I am literate in Hebrew and Yiddish and have spoken them when the person I am talking to can't speak English. I am sort of literate in Aramaic as well, but not really.

 

[Warborg]

Nice, which ones are those HarleyK and W Warborg (well,your wife that is)?

Wife - Filipino,Chinese, English and local dialect (which is different then the common Filipino language).

 

[Chub_by]

I can sort of read Russian (taught myself), but not understand it. I am literate in Hebrew and Yiddish and have spoken them when the person I am talking to can't speak English. I am sort of literate in Aramaic as well, but not really.

Teaching yourself is a formidable feat, I'd love to be able to do that! I think for me it would only be possible if it was a very similar language. I can understand quite a lot of Yiddish. What nationality are you?

Wife - Filipino,Chinese, English and local dialect (which is different then the common Filipino language).

That's pretty cool. Has she never tried to teach you?

 

[J. H.]

Teaching yourself is a formidable feat, I'd love to be able to do that! I think for me it would only be possible if it was a very similar language. I can understand quite a lot of Yiddish. What nationality are you?

I am an American through and through. My grandfather served in Korea, and my great-grandfather in WW2. Minimum 2 generations any way you look, and 4 generations ago I already had ancestors here. I spent quite a bit of effort trying become multilingual in highschool - my mother can speak a little Hebrew, but neither of my parents can speak Yiddish. I got my roommates to speak to me in Yiddish or Hebrew if they spoke either one, and tried teaching myself Russian from a book, your grasp Yiddish is probably better than mine, and mine is a mix of dialects on top of it. The little Aramaic I know is from studying Talmud. I am sort of a rebel from the Ultra-Orthodox schools I went to, going to college and all that .

 

[souzie]

Fluent in English, Laotian, alot of Thai, some French and a little Spanish...

 

[Warborg]

That's pretty cool. Has she never tried to teach you?

Her version of teaching me is for me to ask her any questions I may have(no motivation).