Job Discussion Forums

Peligro · Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 16

ANd please post what languages you speak if you are bilingual or multi.
Thanks!

jpvanderwerf2001 · Joined: 02 Oct 2003 Posts: 1117 Location: New York

Could you define bilingual/multilingual? Meaning, I can get by in two languages (Ukrainian, Spanish), but I'm not fluent in either; would I then be monolingual?

nomadamericana · Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Posts: 146 Location: Minneapolis, MN

English, Spanish and Portuguese!

thelmadatter · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject: bilingual

I have to concur with jp on this. It depends on one's definition of "bi/multi-lingual" If it means being able to use more than one language Im multi-lingual (Ive studied 5), but I'm not comfortable using that label on myself. I grew up with what I would consider "true" bilinguals, people who grew up speaking two languages and can function socially and comfortably in both.

I consider myself conversant in Spanish (not quite fluent but making progress), but even if I were fluent Im not sure I could call myself "bilingual." I'm not sure Ill ever compare to those who have 2 (or more) "native" languages.

dajiang · Joined: 13 May 2004 Posts: 663 Location: Guilin!

Fluent in Dutch and English.

I suppose being bi-lingual means you're in command of a language as if it was your native tongue. I can speak a bit of a lot of languages, but far from fluently.

Peligro · Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 16

I would say that being bilingual means knowing about 75% of the language, being able to hold conversations, and feel comfortable enough with it to call it 'one of your languages'

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Fluent in English and Spanish, not bad French.

Can curse in Italian.

Cardinal Synn · Joined: 01 Nov 2004 Posts: 586

Bahasa Indonesia, Spanish, Norwegian, Danish. Crappy French, Arabic and Thai. Definitely very far from perfect in any of them, though pretty good at Spanish and Indo..

basiltherat · Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952

Malay/Indonesian and English.
basil

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

I think what would be interesting to know is not what languages people speak well, but how long it took them to reach that level of fluency.

After six months in Mexico I'm still at what I would consider a beginner's level in Spanish, yet one of my colleagues has (in the same period) reached an intermediate level, despite us both spending roughly the same amount of time and effort trying to learn the language.

valley_girl · Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:05 pm Post subject:

English et francais

IanN · Joined: 31 Jul 2004 Posts: 78 Location: Valencia

English & Spanish.

Didn't speak a word of Spanish when I arrived 18 months ago.

Magoo · Joined: 31 Oct 2003 Posts: 651 Location: Wuhan, China

moonraven · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 3094

I am bilingial English/Spanish.

I also scrape along in Portugese, Italian and French.

I used to speak and translate from German, but those days are gone.

I studied Gaelic and Latin--and still do some reading in Latin.

matttheboy · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Posts: 854 Location: Valparaiso, Chile

Used to have fluent french until i started learning spanish 15 months ago. Now understand french fluently but speak like a total muppet (pretty good esfrangnol actually). Spanish needs another year before i'd call myself fluent but i'm pretty proficient and never speak english with my chilean english speaking girlfriend.

Went to paris a couple of weeks ago and found it incredibly frustrating being able to understand everything but not being able to respond. Anyone else had this problem when learning more than 1 romance language?