this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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I'm from the US and English is the only language I speak fluently.

(page 2) 40 comments
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Just saying you'll probably have a better time asking this in a casual conversation community. To answer the question though I'm Egyptian and I speak Arabic, English, Japanese and a bit of Chinese.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

US. English is the only language I know and I'm pretty fuckin bad at it lol.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

From Croatia, can speak Croatia/Serbian/Bosnian at native level.

Know english decently enough, can somewhat understand some small amount of german ( cousins that live in germany ), and can understand most balkan/slav languages.

Dabbled into japanese with duolingo back in highschool almost 7 years ago and stopped cause tf is up with their writting system.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

stopped cause tf is up with their writting systems.

FTFY.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I'm from the UK and speak English and am fluent in British Sign Language. I can speak enough French and Spanish to navigate a short holiday, which means I suck at both.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Also US

English of course

I took a few years of French in middle and high school, not much of it stuck. A couple basic words and phrases, and if they speak slowly and clearly I can usually get the gist of what someone is saying and fake my way through some reading.

The story of my French education is a mess, full of long term substitutes, substitute-substitutes, a sad lonely man whose spirit was absolutely broken by the kids who had him first semester before I had him and got fired a couple weeks before the end of the school year, and a lady who was absolutely baffled by the fact that her French 3 class barely spoke any French because the first 2 years of our French education was a total waste.

A handful of Spanish words and phrases from middle school "exploratory" Spanish class for a couple months and working in a warehouse for a few years where I was one of only a handful of native English speakers, but nowhere close to conversational.

And I've been teaching myself Esperanto, which has been going rather well. It's hard to say how conversational I am because there's not a whole lot of esperantists running around to chat with, but I'm reading at probably about a 2nd grade level, which is something I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Hi! I'm French, living in Germany, fluent in French, German, and English, conversational Japanese

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Born & raised in the US, lived in Poland for the past several years. Speak a good bit of polish, enough to navigate most interactions with strangers but not enough for deep conversations with the father-in-law.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

From Germany and know German and English. I can read Dutch and understand snippets but speaking it is beyond me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Depends what you mean.

By country of birth: I'm from PRC

As in "Where are you posting from?": USA

I speak Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and the the basic words of Spanish such as: ¡Hola!, Uno, Dos, Tres, Bruenos Dias, Muy Bien, ¿e tu?, Me habla pizza (Thanks, Spanish class. Still can't get the Spanish alphabet song out of my head lol 😅). And I can read like English (obviously), most basic Chinese characters, I think I know the top 100 of them, I'm more confident in identifying the characters if its in simplified. And techically, I can read the Kanji parts of Japanese (since they are basically Chinese). I hear some Japanese and Koreans words and can make out some of the words because they are so close to Cantonese. (I think Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese, decended from a common language). I could only write in English, after 10+ years of never using Chinese, I can't write shit beside like few basic words and my name in Chinese.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

(I think Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese, decended from a common language)

Idk about Korean but I do know that Japanese loaned tons of words from Chinese when they imported Kanji but they're otherwise unrelated afaik.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Fed! I know you transmit radio into my head! Ever since you implanted these metal teeth into my mouth!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

I’m from the US and English is my native language. I took French in high school and minored in it in college and was actually pretty fluent in it for a while. A decade after graduating I married a native French speaker from Quebec, but our semiannual trips to Quebec to visit her parents now remind me just how much fluency I’ve lost. I’m still fine in common daily tasks but get into a deeper conversation and I start floundering.

I used to work in a technical role at a Spanish-language TV station and picked up some, but that’s also disappearing now ten years on.

I guess it’s a use it or lose it situation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I’m from England and I only really speak English. I speak a little French because I lived in Morocco for a few years but it’s really not that good.

One thing I learnt while living overseas is that while English people aren’t very good at speaking other languages, we’re really rather good at understanding foreigners trying to speak our language, even when they get half the words wrong and use a really thick accent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

we’re really rather good at understanding foreigners trying to speak our language, even when they get half the words wrong and use a really thick accent.

This is actually something I only realized after coming to Japan. It's surprising how much English tolerates mistakes when a small-ish mistake can completely throw off a Japanese speaker from what you're talking about. I wonder how other languages compare.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (6 children)

I'm from Japan and Japanese is my first language. I hate it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which part? Being from Japan or the language?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

US. I speak ok Mandarin, poor Spanish and bad Portuguese. And I guess English. Also I can't read Chinese reliably, so I am also illiterate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Dutch but I live in England. Speak Dutch an English fluently and French and German reasonably well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Australian here.

English and basic German

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

USA. English fluent, decent Spanish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

From the US. Fluent English, conversational+ japanese, and used to know basic German and french though I've mostly forgotten those. Also used to have survival level and very basic conversational Spanish. I've studied Albanian and Norwegian a bit, but don't remember enough to say anything anymore properly

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