Which languages do you speak?

[Gia]

Just out of curiosity, how multilingual are Go players?

You can mention languages you are a native speaker of, you are fluent, actively learning or studied during one summer in your teens or even picking words and phrases due to exposure (for example you have a Greek son-in-law). All accepted.

I’ll go first, from best to worst, at varying levels: Greek, English, French, German, Korean. I also tried to learn Portuguese (BR) and Hawaiian.

Edit: since we ventured into ancient times, I can understand a bit of Latin (never officially taught though) and lots of ancient Greek, which is actually not the norm in Greece. Depending on age, some were taught at school, but it’s not a general population thing.
Also, I’m slowly learning for fun Arvanitika, a dialect spoken in my hometown. Kind of a mix of Greek, Albanian and Turkish, I think, and I think it will die out, unfortunately.

Note: It doesn’t matter if you are fluent or learning to count 1-10 at this point, this is a general chat topic, no tests.

[yebellz]

Native English and Chinese (Mandarin) speaker, however, since I grew up in the USA, my Chinese language skills are very poor. Also studied Spanish (in school) and Japanese (for work), but not conversational in either.

[Vsotvep]

Native Dutch (the Netherlands), fluent in English, I can understand most of conversation in German (but never tried speaking) and I’m conversational in Japanese.

French, Latin and Greek I officially learned, but I wouldn’t say I speak any of those.

[Gia]

Ancient Greek to go with the Latin or modern Greek?

[ayaros]

I cannot avoid marking my level just to avoid to be accused to be a false person:
Italian
English
French
Spanish
Japanese
Romanesco (an Italian dialect )
Umbro-Marchigiano (another italian dialect)

[Vsotvep]

Ancient Greek, that is… Yes

[Gia]

Ha, I’ll count them as two for me, I was officially taught both.

[RubyMineshaft]

I’m a native English speaker. I’m fluent in Chinese, but nowhere near the level of a native speaker. (If that seems confusing, I hold an HSK 5 certificate. I could probably pass level 6, but I’m lazy )

Seeing some of your lists makes me feel really uncultured

[tonybe]

I grew up in the former USSR, so my first language was Russian.

At the age of 8 yrs old, my family moved to the United States, and I learned English. Given that I only went to 1st grade in USSR, and most of my education happened in the US, my primary language ended up being English.

I also speak enough Spanish to get order food and make simple conversations in Spanish-speaking countries, but not enough to read an age-appropriate book.

[Vsotvep]

It is interesting that you mark Spanish as two stars while native in Italian. Often when I meet a group of people containing both Italian and Spanish people, they tend to talk quite naturally with one another in their own language.

[ayaros]

@Vsotvep

Italian and Spanish people, they tend to talk quite naturally with one another in their own language.

Yes, because we can understand each other quite easily. But it is not the same to speak Spanish avoiding an incredible number of “false friends” (better to say non existing words) just because we Italian think that an unknown world in Spanish can be obtained adding an ‘s’ to the end of the equivalent word in Italian. This is not the case, obviously. Also grammar is different.

Anyway, when I went in Spain for an holiday, after a week spent together with native speakers, I tended to speak a better Spanish naturally (like an Italian dialect that a lot Italians learn naturally since each region has its own local dialect or so).

[Conrad_Melville]

I feel out of place in this cosmopolitan company. I’m afraid I am still trying to master English. I sleep with Fowler’s Modern English Usage (first edition only) under my pillow—not really, but metaphorically. I studied German in high school and could read a moderate amount of it 47 years ago, but I could never speak it worth spit.

[DVbS78rkR7NVe]

Only English and Russian here.

I imagine it’s hard to learn any language you don’t have a use for.

[BHydden]

I’m only fluent in English.

I have some rudimentary Japanese and even less German, and then I can also count to 10 in Indonesian.

[KAOSkonfused]

I’m afraid I am still trying to master English.

You don’t need to be perfect at one language to start with the next one. That’s not how languages work. Actually, you might even profit from once having learned Spanish for a year when you later learn Russian - just an example - because you learned something about learning and about grammatical concepts in general.

[KAOSkonfused]

Native: German
Quite good: English
Once at an intermediate level, but forgot most of it: French and Polish
Once at a basic level, but forgot most of it: Russian and Esperanto
Only able to read and understand part of it: Dutch
Only about 15 to 20 words: Hebrew, Arabic, Italian

And whenever I visit a foreign country, I think it’s just polite to learn at least a few words, like “hello” and “thank you”.

[BHydden]

@KAOSkonfused

like “hello” and “thank you”

and “toilet” haha

[Gia]

What I usually say is the 3 most important words to learn are hello, thanks, sorry.

Acknowledging the other person’s existence, efforts and feelings.

[bugcat]

cries in monoglottism

[KAOSkonfused]

Ach, du Armer! *gives bugcat a hug*