English--fluent
Spanish--Good enough to get to some place
German--not good at all
English--fluent
Spanish--Good enough to get to some place
German--not good at all
Hmmm, well, apart from my English (which is obvious, me being on an english forum):
Russian
Read - fluent
Write - fluent
Speak - fluent
Understand - proficient
So if anyone finds Russian document and need translations, let me know, happy to help.
Last edited by Dog of War; 11-15-2018 at 21:41.
Xорошо, Oлександр!
German - my native tongue
English - good
French - moderate
Portugese - a little (better hear than speak)
English (especially the Australian variety)
native, so speak, read, write and understand well
Bislama (of Vanuatu)
Read - okay
Write - can with some effort
Speak - not as well as I used to
Comprehend - fairly well, depending a bit on who is speaking
Czech - native
English - with a heavy Czech accent
German - very poorly, but i can turn any shop name into a loud imperative, especially when i am drunk in Dresden.
French - just to impress people who don't speak French at all
Russian - poorly (willingly)
Spanish - just enough to understand my mother-in-law is saying evil things about me behing my back
Portugese - just enough to understand my father-in-law is saying evil things about me behing my back
Last edited by Honza; 01-23-2020 at 02:09.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
I was exagerrating a little, it is not as bad as it sounds. I love them. I believe it is mutual.
I'm always impressed with people that know several languages. In Junior High school I had French and in High school some Spanish. Took a couple semesters of German in collage but with no one to speak with I forgot just about all of it. As a joke whenever someone would ask me to say something in German I'd reply "Ich Weiss es nicht". They'd ask me what it meant and my reply with a smile was "I don't know"!
Funny how much you can remember though. Once for work I was on Easter Island for a few days. I ended up renting a room from a local that only spoke Spanish. I understood enough to know what they were saying to me but sadly could not say much back.
I only learned German for one year at school, but later on in Austria I discovered that a surprising amount readily came back to me.
While skiing in the Italian Alps, I found myself on a 3-seat chairlift with my Austrian instructor and an American tourist, who were conversing in German, ripping into the other members of my ski group, oblivious to the fact that I spoke, and understood, a little German!
When I joined their conversation, "innocently" lavishing my small German vocabulary upon them, they immediately clammed up, and flushed as red as the instructors ski hat!
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
Oh how sweet it is !
My mate was a traffic cop, married to a German and was fluent in the language, if with a Brummie accent !
He pulled over a German trucker one day to check his tacho, docs & vehicle and though this bloke understood & spoke a little English he spoke German as he produced the required documentation, you know - usual stuff, "here's my licence" in English "you a******e" in German, so on and so forth.
My mate let it go on and on then, having established some offences, prepared the ticket and issued it to the driver in fluent German along with lengthy advice about showing proper respect to police officers and the potential consequences of public order offences for a foreign national if he didn't - he went an odd shade of white apparently !
Another colleague is an ex Hong Kong Inspector, I was with him when he ordered a Chinese takeaway for scoff at work.
After what he heard the manager saying about us he delivered him a similar dressing down in fluent Cantonese. They nearly had kittens - Priceless !
"He is wise who watches"
Love it!
I grew up in an area with a predominant Portuguese minority. Of course there was the usual stupid tension between them and the locals. A lot of my friends were Portuguese so I had heard it spoken quite a bit. Once just standing waiting in a line I was being insulted for no reason by several young guys. I could pick out the choice words. I just turned to them and smiled saying 'obrigado' (thank you) They were very quite after that. Not as sharp as your stories but it was satisfying at the time.
I talk American real good.
Here's to them what are like us. Damn few and they're all dead.
English-Native
Spanish
Speak -Somewhat well
Read -Very little
Write -None
Unfortunately i am a 'typical' American (that is, from the United States). I only know how to speak, read/write, English, but i try to learn phrases from other languages.
German like a Nativ
English allmost perfect
Fluent in English. Conversationally fluent in Spanish.
English good London variant
Rubbish 100% effluent
English and Franglish
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