American. But I can hold a conversation in English.
English, Spanish, Russian.
I was born in America and speak English fluently. I am also very good at Kitchen Spanish: Numbers, food-related words, basic syntax, with a lot of Mexican slang and swearing thrown in. I took German as a child and French in high school, but I’ve forgot mostly all of them because the only chance I get to practice is foreign tourists at work and movies on Netflix.
English and Spanish…
and can swear in a couple others.
I am shocked that only two people list Kannada as a language they speak and understand.
With so many Canadians on the board, I would think more people could understand “aboot” and “Eh”, but I guess not.
English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, in descending order of proficiency at this time in my life.
You left out Kyrgyz, Lithuanian, Swahili, and Tatar, all of which I’ve translated at times.
I’ve been teaching myself the Unami Lenape language—which went extinct only a few years ago when its last native speaker, Nora Thompson Dean/Touching Leaves Woman, passed. During her lifetime she worked with both academic linguists and the tribal leadership, making a heroic effort to preserve knowledge of the language so that future people would have the resources to learn it. Her legacy has resulted in a considerable number of people speaking Lenape today!
Also Finnish, I forgot to mention. I really like Finnish.
BTW, the poll is about the 100 most commonly spoken languages. Yes, we have people in the board that can speak languages not listed in the poll, but they’re not among the 100 most spoken.
Last time they did this poll, though, there were more Portuguese speakers than what currently shows (4).
English and, by the standards of the OP, Hebrew. I wouldn’t say I’m good at the latter, though.
English and Italian, and a little Spanish but not enough for me to vote for it.
English and French. I reckon I could make a fist of Latin, and retain a smattering of Attic Greek.
Having been to the Conventiculum Lexintoniense twice now without embarrassing myself, I can confidently assert that I speak Latin. From this experience I personally think that anyone who has studied Latin can speak it if they had someone to speak with. I mean, I had studied hard to get to that point, and frankly so had everyone else, but not everyone there had even completed a full grammar course. Far from representing mastery of this ancient language, the ability to actually shoot the breeze for hours in Latin can be picked up well before you’ve finished toiling over Wheelock, much less Bradley’s Arnold.
Ille admirabilissimus est!
Which pronunciation do you use there?
I assume that was a whoosh.
If not…then - Kannada is a language spoken in the state of Karnataka in India. The most famous city of that state is Bangalore - surely some of you have had a chance to talk to denizens of that city.
On a separate note, I spotted a couple of Indian ones that are more like dialects than fully fledged languages. I am referring to Awadhi and Bhojpuri. I had not heard of Dhundhari until I Googled it. But it doesn’t surprise that I, as an Indian, have not heard of it.
Aside from English, I can have a limited conversation in French (if only they will slow down–there is a skill to talking to someone who is not totally fluent) and even a much more limited one in German. Once upon a time, 42 years ago, I ended up interpreting between a German speaker and a French speaker. That was bizarre.
Oh, and one sentence of Danish: Jeg sprog ikke dansk. (I speak no Danish.)
There is no official system of pronunciation, though the reconstructed Augustinian is the default, though degrees of fidelity vary. People come from around the world, and other countries have their own traditional pronunciation systems. There was one guy who did the soft-c as an ‘sh’ sound. I said, “Rē vērā? Tū dīcere solēs, ‘Quis shit? Nēmō shit?’” Apparently so.
That’s the usual way I tell people how to pronounce it: like “Canada” but not quite. I’m shocked that there’s someone else on the board who speaks Kannada; I must find this person!
I’m learning Chinese (helps when you live there), but I’m not proficient enough to be able to speak conversationally.
Que triste.