this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Asklemmy

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Alternatively, in the languages I speak:

Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie? (Deutsch/German)

¿Qué idiomas habla usted? (Español/Spanish)

Quelle langue parlez-vous? (Français/French)

EDIT: These sentences are now up to date.

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[–] toomanypancakes@lemmy.world 29 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I only speak two languages: English and bad English.

[–] Monster96@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Aw, I was gonna make that joke

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[–] spizzat2@lemm.ee 26 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

Was Sprachen Sie spricht? (Deutsch/German)

I'm not a native speaker, but I'm pretty sure it's

Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie?

assuming you want to be formal, which feels a little weird to me in the context of an internet forum.

Edit: but to answer your question: fluent English, mehr als ein Bißchen Deutsch, y un poquito Español.

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

ein Bißchen Deutsch

BTW, this should be written as:

ein bisschen Deutsch

We switched from ß to ss in all words with a preceding short vowel in 1996: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_der_deutschen_Rechtschreibung_von_1996
So, it's "Fuß" and "Maß", because those are pronounced with a long vowel, but then "Fass" and "muss" and "Biss", because those are pronounced with a short vowel.

And in this case, "bisschen" is spelled with a small "b" for reasons that I'm not entirely sure are logical. 😅
It would be spelled with a capital letter, if "Bisschen" was a unit of measurement here (i.e. a small bite), like a "Liter" is.
But because it was used so much and without really referring to a specific measurement, it eventually began being spelled lowercase, similar to "wenig" or "etwas" ("ein wenig Deutsch", "etwas Deutsch"). Apparently, this kind of word is called an "Indefinitpronomen".

https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/bisschen
vs.
https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bisschen (much rarer)

[–] spizzat2@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago

Thanks! It's surprisingly difficult to get Germans to correct me on things. Most of them are just happy that I can speak it at all, so they tell me not to worry about the little stuff. 😂

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[–] hanabatake@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

French, English, German and a little spoken Japanese. I also studied latin

Edit: in French we say: « Quelles langues parlez-vous ? »

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

(Or, let's be honest, more likely « Quelles langues parles-tu ? »)

[–] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago

t'parl'qu'a?

[–] hanabatake@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Oh damn. It didn't even occur to me that we were talking plural here lol

Obviously you're right.

edit: I honestly hate the fact that English doesn't have a non-vernacular way to distinguish between singular and plural in the 2nd person. Makes it so much harder to get my head around this sort of situation. "What languages do yous speak?" Would make it so much easier!

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

English and ɥsolƃuƎ uɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀

[–] 7uWqKj@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Bist du sicher, dass du deutsch sprichst?

[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 months ago

Thats what I thought too when reading the German sentence xd

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

~~Was Sprachen Sie spricht?~~ Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie? (Deutsch/German)

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[–] jbrains@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (10 children)
  • I have spoken English since birth.
  • Je parle français depuis l'âge de 7 ans, parce que je l'apprenais à l'école.
  • Estudiaba el español en la escuela secundaria.
  • Jag lär mig svenska i fler än tio år.
  • Ich kann etwas Deutsch lesen und verstehen.

And thanks to my Swedish, I can read a surprising amount of Danish and Norwegian.

I would call myself proficient in French, passable in Spanish, barely functional in Swedish, and I can get by in German in a very banal emergency. 😉

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[–] abrahambelch@programming.dev 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I'm able to speak German (native speaker) and English (fluent).


Also, as a German speaker, I'd like to correct the question in the post:

Formal would be "Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie?".

More fitting for a casual environment (such as Lemmy) would be "Welche Sprachen sprecht Ihr?" though :)

This is, because in German there are formal and informal ways of addressing people, both with their distinctive pronouns. Usually, when talking to people you don't know personally, you'll address them formally and then, when offered to, switch to the informal style once you know them. Online or among the younger generation it is much more common to just use the informal case though.

[–] FleetingTit@feddit.org 5 points 4 months ago

Welche Sprachen sprecht ihr?

Would be correct. The capital "Ihr" is used when addressing nobility.

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Welche Sprache sprechen Sie*

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[–] grandel@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

* Welche Sprache sprechen Sie?

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[–] WILSOOON@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago

Baguette, dutch, english and spanish, i love to speak all 4 equally but french is the equivalent of a having a migraine to write

[–] Yambu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
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[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

I know enough Spanish to embarrass myself. I know enough of Nahuatl to understand some glyphs. I speak English at an American level, which is greasy.

[–] KazuchijouNo@lemy.lol 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

(Spanish):
Mi lengua materna es el español.

(English):
I speak English as my second language.

(French):
Je parle rançais aussi, me pas aussi bien que l'anglais. (Ouais je sais, ce n'était pas un accident)

(Japanese):
日本語も できるよ。2年ぐらい 勉強している。実際、去年 日本語能力試験を受けて、N4が できた。言語は 勉強の頑張れば、頑張るほど、よくできるよ。

(Russian?):
When I was in highschool I started learning russian, but since then I've forgotten most of it, I can only say hi, good (morning/afternoon/evening) and other easy things. I don't have a russian keyboard but it's 'Privyet', 'Dobraye utra', 'Dobrij bchyer', 'Spakoinai nochi', 'Spasiba', 'Izvinitye, ya nye ponimayu, ya nye goborit po-russkij', 'ya nichyevo nye snayu'.

(German?):
Ich lerne Deutch im Moment mit meine Freundin. Aber ich bin nicht gut.

Si quieres algunas observaciones... "¿Qué idiomas hablan ustedes?" Sería lo correcto (de acuerdo a la RAE). Creo que utilizaste la conjugación de la segunda persona singular del verbo hablar "tú hablas", en vez del plural "ustedes hablan". Et en français, je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais mon cerveau me dit que "¿Quelles langues parlez vous?" Va mieux. Und auf Deutch, ich denke dass "Welche Sprachen sprechen sie?" richtiger ist.

[–] hanabatake@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

How do you learn kanji?

I lived for some time in Japan so I learned to talk and to read the kanji useful in the everyday life (like in the restaurant or the bus). But I feel like reading the news is still too hard and I do not even know where to start.

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[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

fluent in Maltese (native) and English. Conversational in Italian. I was one of the last generations to grow up without the internet, so we had to watch TV. And we're in close proximty to italy so we could get their channels. It is much less common nowadays for kids to also know Italian here. But people my age have no idea what Dragon Ball Z sounds like in english. We all watched it in Italian.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Dutch, English, French and German.

With a sliver of Latin from school, so I do understand morsels of Italian and Spanish

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[–] RyanLiu@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

你會哪些語言?(Traditional Chinese)

That's about it. I am an interpreter and translator between English and Chinese.

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[–] tilefan@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I can speak the official language of 67 different nations.

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

English and Scots Gaelic.

A bheil gàidhlid agad?

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[–] Txopi@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

Euskaraz hitz egiten dut. (Basque language: I speak Basque)

Spanish is also my mother tongue. As you can see, I also speak English.

[–] vfreire85@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

in addition to my native brazilian portuguese, i'm fluent in english and basic to intermediate level in spanish and french. i can understand and speak roughly some german and russian too (started the courses, but never finished). my objective is to someday learn both german and russian up to intermediate level, and then go for some arabic, mandarin, kongo, nheengatu (an old creole language that mixed tupi-guarani and portuguese) and esperanto.

[–] linux2647@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 4 months ago (4 children)

English is my native tongue.

J’ai appris la français à l’école.

Rŵan dw i’n trio dysgu Cymraeg!

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[–] jeena@piefed.jeena.net 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)
  1. Polish
  2. German
  3. Swedish
  4. English

And I'm learning Korean now but it's so damn difficult it's very frustrating.

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[–] Ascend910@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

English, Mandarin and fluent in C++

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[–] folkrav@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Ma langue maternelle est le français. Je suis né et vis au Québec, d’une famille canadienne française assez typique. Mes habiletés d’écriture sont plutôt fortes à en croire mes notes à l’école, mais je les pratique très peu. Je ne le parle pas aussi bien que je l’écris…

Otherwise I’m pretty proficient in English. I’d say I’m more or less bilingual at this point. I cannot seem to enjoy fiction books nearly as much in the language though. I can’t really appreciate the differences in style well enough, I think.

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[–] RVGamer06@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago

Parlo italiano da madrelingua, and i speak english decently(mostly informal and internet/'murican slang).

I studied a little Spanish in middle school but forgot it, mostly.

Mi parolas la Esperanton tre malbone.

[–] 667@lemmy.radio 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Mi parolas iomete da Esperanton, y yo hablo tambien un poquito Español, pero medyo fluent ako sa Pilipino, ang wika taga sa Pilipinas. I’m pretty good at English, too.

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[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

Greek, English, and I understand a bit of French, since my husband is French. I lived for 9 months in Germany too, and I could understand a bit of that too, but that was 30 years ago and I've forgotten most of it.

Truth is, I don't really like verbal communication, in any language. I have trouble finding words (including my native one), it's as if my brain is not optimized for language. It gets worse when I'm sick (I have multiple autoimmune issues), it's as if language becomes a barrier. My husband becomes aggravated when I can't find the right words to communicate. I wish we had telepathy, communicating with feelings.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nederlands is my native language. And I speak English, some German and I can make a fool of myself in French. And I can order a beer in Spanish and thank you for it.

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[–] Nemo@midwest.social 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

English natively, but I also speak Spanish every day at work. I can read and write Latin. I can exchange pleasantries in half a dozen other languages.

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[–] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago

Fluent in Norwegian and English. Norwegian allows me to basically fully understand Swedish and Danish, but my mimicking/mocking of those languages does probably not count as languages I can speak.

I also have some very rusty german education which would probably allow me to be understood, but hardly enough to have a conversation.

[–] tmpod@lemmy.pt 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'm a native Portuguese speaker, fluent in English and can understand Spanish and French. Despite having had 3 years of French in school, I can no longer speak properly, and my writing is really bad, but I can understand pretty well. Spanish just comes to me because of the similarities with Portuguese, I never formally learned it.

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[–] TheGuyTM3@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

My native language is French, but I also speak fluent English and a little 日本語 and Spanish.

日本語はもっと難しいだったな。 El español era más fácil de aprender gracias a sus similitudes con el francés, pero, no hablo muy bien😅.

Oh btw, it is not "Que langue fait-vous parler" (blind traduction of the english "What language do-you speak") but rather "Quelles langues parlez-vous?" ("What languages speaks-you?").

We don't use "do" for interrogative in french. The endings for "parler" (to speak) are: Je parle, tu parles, il parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, ils parlent. To make interogative phrases, just invert the pronoun and the verb: tu parles -> parles-tu? So "What language you speak" -> "What language speaks-you?". Sorry for the awkward course ;)

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