I'm from the US and English is the only language I speak fluently.

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[–] 18 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

From Croatia, I'm multilingual!

English

Croatian

Serbian

Bosnian

Serbo-croatian

Montenegrin

Probably missing some.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I'm from The Netherlands and I speak Dutch, English, a bit of German and no French at all even though I had French in school for 13 years.

    But The Netherlands has 2 official national languages, Dutch and Friesian, although English officially isn't a foreign language anymore due to the quality and quantity of English speakers and there are discussions to make English the third national language.

    I wish I knew more languages, but sadly I'm really bad at learning any. Some people learn languages so fast, I'm better at math and such. I wish I knew Russian, Chinese and Spanish because I'd love to travel to old USSR republics, China and other Asian countries and South America. Knowing the most spoken languages in the world would be amazing I imagine. And I wish I knew Norwegian because I love the language and the country so much. Plus, you can communicate in Denmark and Sweden too. But luckily now we have Google translate so I could communicate even though I don't have shared languages with where I want to go.

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The second part is easy to answer:

    1. German
    2. Polish
    3. Swedish
    4. English
    5. Korean (just started learning.

    The first part is a bit more complicated, depending on what you are actually asking, where and who you are.

    • If you're asking where I live then it's Korea.
    • If you're asking where I came from to Korea then it's Sweden where I lived for 15 years
    • If you're asking what nationality I feel I belong to with my heart then it's Germany where all my ancestors are from
    • If you're asking where I was born then it's Poland

    I hope you his answers your question.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    From Germany and i speak German, English and Spanish. I can survive daily life in French and Catalan, but its pretty rough. Currently, i am learning Persian :)

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago*

    UK, trying not to be a typical one-language Anglo by learning German. I'm thankful there seems to be a large German community on Lemmy!

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    From the Netherlands. I speak English and Dutch pretty much on the same level. I can work my way around German if I've been in a German speaking country for a couple of days. I can speak French if I really need to and I'm currently learning Portuguese. Understanding Portuguese has made me also understand Italian and Spanish a bit better.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Dutch too. Fluent in English, my French is quite good and I can manage German (though my grammar is horrible).

    I did learn Latin so I understand Italian and Spanish if it's written and not too complex.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    US. Fluent in English but I can speak enough spanish to do most everyday things. I am learning Japanese, and while I can read and understand about half of it, I can't pronounce shit and haven't bothered practicing since I just want to read it.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Norwegian.

    I’d say fluent in Norwegian, English and German. German because I lived there for a year and the missus is German.
    I can make myself understood in Spanish.
    Swedish and Danish come for free as they are so close to Norwegian. I don’t need to speak them as we understand eachother mostly.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Hungarian, so beyond that that i speak english (duh) swedish, though i mostly read books on it, not a lot of swedes around, and i am trying to pick up some chinese now

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Swedish: Native English: Fluent to the point where it might as well be native Spanish: Alright, probably upper B2

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    American, English only but I need to learn Burmese as that's where my daughter-in-law is from. Can't have hypothetical grand kids speaking a language I don't know.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Italy: Italian, English and a local language

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    American, I speak English, Thai, and Korean.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Mexican here:

    Spanish & English - Fluent

    Japanese - Intermediate-advanced

    French - Still learning but it's so similar to Spanish it feels like cheating 😅

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    Ireland. First language English, second Irish (but only in the education system), learning Russian

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

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

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    From Mexico Magico, and I speak Spanish, English, enough French and enough Portuguese brasileiro to get by. And I am currently working on improving my Korean because I live in a city that has a huge community.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago*

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

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    From the UK originally, which is complicated enough. To foreigners I tend to say "England", which (a) is true and (b) everyone understands. But I consider myself British, not English, and certain not a "UK person" (ugh).

    I speak French near-natively from having lived there for a big chunk of my life. Spanish: intermediate, because it's like French. German: got an A at GCSE decades ago, so not very good. Tried learning Russian a few years ago and, wow, that was hard. I cannot speak Russian. But being able to decipher the Cyrillic script is definitely a cool party trick.

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    [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    United States and I speak English and a little Spanish but I wish I knew more Spanish.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    South Africa and pretty much just English. Apparently I was fairly fluent in Zulu when I was little kid, before starting school and losing it. And we learnt Afrikaans in school but Afrikaans kids went to Afrikaans schools and I grew up and lived in English speaking areas so it was never used. If I tried to speak Afrikaans now, I would embarrass myself but I can mostly read it and understand someone if they're talking slow enough and I'm concentrating hard enough.

    Honestly something that pisses me off is that despite going through school in the 'new' South Africa, the new government never bothered making sure we learnt to communicate with each other. So instead of learning Zulu and being able to freely communicate with the majority of the population, we learnt Afrikaans because they never fucking bothered to change it.

    I can also understand very small bits and pieces of written and spoken German from high school but that's barely worth mentioning. Also, I can kinda sometimes understand a little bit of written Dutch because it's remotely similar to Afrikaans.

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    [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Polish living in Poland, I know English, I don't speak it much though, currently learning Japanese

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Lithuanian.

    I speak Lithuanian, English, some Swedish and traces of Russian.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I hate it.

    Can you elaborate?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Nope. Too much reasons to hate this country.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Talked to two Japanese students who went to Europe because they hated their home country, like you do. Both were adamant they would have become a number in the suicide statistic if they wouldn't have gotten out of the country. They didn't plan on returning, ever.

    Just saying there is a way out, I guess that's what I thought was needed to be said.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    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.

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    [–] 3 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)
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    [–] 3 points 2 years 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.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    The UK.

    I am fluent in English and good enough in Mandarin to get by.

    Earlier in life I was passable at French in France, but I have lost that now. It's been overwritten by the Mandarin from having spent a few years in the PRC teaching English.

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