Poll: Life Skills, Part Five: Can you speak a foreign language?

[Oliveloaf]

Well?

[Oliveloaf]

I can sorta speak German, but I voted no. I can hardly read it, and it takes me a while to get back into it.

[Zuul]

Not anymore. I can recognize words and parse meaning, but speaking has always been much more difficult for me than understanding and I'm rusty now.

[Sarahfeena]

No, not at all.

[Orual]

I had to vote 'no'. For all of my studies, I don't think I could carry on a conversation in any other language but English. I'm probably capable of asking basic questions in Spanish and French, and making vaguely word-shaped noises in Japanese.

[Ramses]

I can communicate in American Sign Language. This isn't speaking, and it's also not foreign. So I answered No.

I can speak some Iraqi dialect Arabic, but I can't read it, and I couldn't do more than trade-and-medical level communication. So I don't count that either.

[The Original An Gadaí]

Yesish, vaguely conversational in German and French. I learned a lot more of the French language in school than the German but as fate has decided I've got way more use out of my bischen Deutsch than the French. For many years since I completed school I've been wanting to gain actual fluency in either or both languages. I can also speak a bit of Irish but that's not a foreign language.

[What Exit?]

I lost most of the little Spanish I knew and never actually spoke Latin.

[parzival]

"Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiss nichts von seiner eigenen." (I only throw that in because it is apposite but so often quoted imperfectly. It's not true, anyway (although I would support a modified corollary - [Wer fremde Sprachen kennt, weiss mehr von seiner eigenen].)

I actually hold a degree in German, but I have such rare need to speak it, and studied so much older literature, that it takes me a little while to put it into practice. I can read it just fine. I have a tiny bit of Hindi/Urdu but it's also mixed up with an even tinier bit of Nepali, so it's not something I really know.

[Hatshepsut]

Yeah, my Indonesian is passable, although I wish it were better.

[artifex]

My Spanish isn't good, but I can usually get my point across, so I'm claiming it.

[Campionaki]

I took a total of 6 years of spanish, and never got past the intermediate level. And that was two years ago, so I cannot claim to have any speaking ability, though I still recognize many words and phrases.

[jali]

My French sucks, but I'm learning Welsh right now - my lessons are on my IPod so I voted yes.

[OneCentStamp]

My Spanish is accented but completely fluent; I took it in high school and college, and spent two years in South America where I actually took the opportunity to really learn the language, rather than just get by as a lot of my fellow missionaries did.

I know enough French to get my point across...in present or passé composé tenses only, please.

[Peeta Mellark]

Oui, mais à peine.

I'm taking French right now and I think the only reason I have a B in the class so far is that the instructor is taking pity on me.

[Elendil's Heir]

I answered "Yes." I took four years of high school Spanish and hated every minute, but I've retained some of it. If you parachuted me outside of Madrid tomorrow I could probably find my way to the U.S. Embassy, and get a bite along the way. I know a little French and German, too.

Those who speak French will definitely want to read (or better yet, hear) David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his misadventures learning the language.

[Claptree]

English and German. Working passively on French and Spanish - I hear stuff and it sticks, but I lack the capacity to put together sentences of my own.

[Myglaren]

Swedish and Geordy.
Would prefer French or Greek right now.

[Oliveloaf]

Geordy? Geordy is a language?

That's just an English dialect, right? I can't be this bad at geography...

[Myglaren]

It's like a bloody foreign language, believe me!