how many languages do you speak?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:50 am

chonsigirl wrote: Japanese would be cool, so would Korean-since I have a brother and sister who are Korean. I remember all the kids words I learned, but not enough for an intelligent conversation. Always impresses a new Korean student when I say something simple, then that's it, I can't really say much more!:wah:
Yamaseyo!

Kansamneda

Tipsida

My entire Korean vocabulary.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:51 am

:wah:

I know those!

I can still draw the words for things like cat, dog...........really biug writing vocabulary. But sometimes it is enough to have a new student, who speaks very little English, to smile and feel comfortable in class.

svenskanurse · Post by **svenskanurse** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:25 am

Hello! I'm quite new at this so I'm going to try to post again, hopefully my writing doesn't disappear like it did this morning under the moving to fla. thread.

I speak fluent Greek. I lived on the island of Cyprus for four years since my late husband was a Greek-Cypriot. I lived in Larnaca and our oldest son was born in Limaasol, Cyprus. It was a cool place then, the beach resort that boasts hundreds of hotels only had one hotel and we used to hike through the acacia trees and swim on Ayia Napa when it was a semi-deserted stretch of white sand beach.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:48 am

Oh Sven, that is so cool. To be able to speak and be conversent in Greek-I only can read the old stuff....................

Tell us more about the isles, I am listening to everything................

abbey · Post by **abbey** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:09 am

I'm doing a sign language course, does that count:-2

capt_buzzard · Post by **capt_buzzard** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:01 am

ENGLISH please.

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:23 pm

abbey wrote: I'm doing a sign language course, does that count:-2
Absolutely! It's unique communication. I used to know Japanese sign language. I'd forgotten all about it. I dated a deaf girl for a short time and kept the friendship for several years. We would go dancing. My friends would tease me saying "what would you do if she were blind? Go to the movies??" :wah:

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:24 pm

abbey wrote: I'm doing a sign language course, does that count:-2
That is a great language abbey! I am learning a little sign, to go with the songs I direct.....................it helps my daughter who is taking sign language to practice them with me! You go abbey!

actionfigurestepho · Post by **actionfigurestepho** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:49 pm

abbey wrote: I'm doing a sign language course, does that count:-2It totally counts! Plus, that's a marketable skill. Lots of publically conducted events need signers to help out the speaker.

abbey · Post by **abbey** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:00 pm

chonsigirl wrote: That is a great language abbey! I am learning a little sign, to go with the songs I direct.....................it helps my daughter who is taking sign language to practice them with me! You go abbey!Tonight i learned how to sign "sing a rainbow"

pina · Post by **pina** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:03 pm

abbey wrote: Tonight i learned how to sign "sing a rainbow"

Yeh!! but can you sing it.:wah:

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:11 pm

abbey wrote: Tonight i learned how to sign "sing a rainbow"

That is so cool abbey, think of all the things you can silently say to everyone, when they don't understand a word?

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:14 pm

Women have been saying volumes with just a look for eons.

lady cop · Post by **lady cop** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:16 pm

hey Abbey, i know two hand signals!! ...really it is so good of you to learn sign. you're an :yh_angel ..but you knew i love you.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 5:43 pm

Accountable wrote: Women have been saying volumes with just a look for eons.
Women just have that special knack AC.........................:-6

svenskanurse · Post by **svenskanurse** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:11 pm

chonsigirl wrote: Oh Sven, that is so cool. To be able to speak and be conversent in Greek-I only can read the old stuff....................

Tell us more about the isles, I am listening to everything................

I learned to speak Greek out of sheer necessity. My Greek-Cypriot husband was a Chiropractic student at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. But then he graduated shortly after Cyprus was invaded by the Turkish Army. He went home to see what was left of his country. It was 1976, so only half his country was left! I joined him in the spring of 77. Cyprus was not a big tourist destination then. Larnaca was just a sleepy little backwater town. We lived in one of the nearby villages at first with my husband's widowed mother. Half the population were living as refugees, most of them in plywood houses in refugee camps, the rest in tent cities. President Makarios was still alive then and had returned as their president after the Turkish invasion and as the archbishop of the church.

I was really lonesome and homesick. I could spot other Americans occasionally if their sneakers said Keds or if they wore Levis with the orange tab rather than the red tab. (Only Levis purchased in the US had orange tabs on the pocket). I was soon be-friended by a British woman from Liverpool who had married a Greek-Cypriot pediatrician. She still lives outside of Larnaca and is more Cypriot now than British. We took Greek language classes together in order to grasp some of the grammar. Cypriots speak a funny sort of Greek dialect though, and learning the nuances of their own language was pretty unique. One of our classmates' was also British, she was a millionaire, married to a former wrestler named Milo. She came to Greek classes in his Rolls Royce while we all arrived in old Minis or Vauxhalls. I was too chicken to drive anywhere at first, because the Cypriots drive like complete idiots and I had to master driving on the left, which seemed pretty awkward. And then trying to navigate the roundabouts. I kept having to ask my hubbie, "aw right, who yields the right of way in these stupid things?? I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie "European Vacation."

The island was fantastic though. In the spring the almond trees bloom with pink flowers, fields of red poppies carpet the landscape under the olive trees and the sea is magnificent. We drove through mountain villages for fun on weekends and have picnics in the midst of artichoke fields and tangerine and lemon groves. It was great fun. I understand the island is really undergone a lot of development and has been subject to an influx of foreign immigrants, Russians and central Europeans. It was a great island in the late seventies though.

abbey · Post by **abbey** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:55 pm

lady cop wrote: hey Abbey, i know two hand signals!! ...really it is so good of you to learn sign. you're an :yh_angel ..but you knew i love you.

Thankyou x :-6

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:35 am

Why is that child slapping herself?

chrisb84uk · Post by **chrisb84uk** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:41 am

:yh_rotfl You know I hadn't noticed that hehe.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:43 am

Too much Sesame Street....................

chrisb84uk · Post by **chrisb84uk** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:45 am

Ah the old childhood days of Sesame Street, such memories.......

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 5:08 am

precursor to ADD if you ask me.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:25 am

Which nine Far?

Jives · Post by **Jives** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:50 am

DAMN FAR!! WE ARE NOT WORTHY!

I'm only fluent in English, but I can understand and speak a smattering of:

Navajo

German

French

Spanish - (I'm actually almost fluent in this one now.)

LilacDragon · Post by **LilacDragon** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 11:00 am

I am fluent in English but I know a smattering of curse words in different languages.

chervil · Post by **chervil** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 12:22 pm

I use BSL ( british sign language ), makaton and block sign in my job. English and some school french, and a bit of german from when my husband and I lived in germany for 3 years.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 12:46 pm

Jives wrote: DAMN FAR!! WE ARE NOT WORTHY!

I'm only fluent in English, but I can understand and speak a smattering of:

Navajo

German

French

Spanish - (I'm actually almost fluent in this one now.)
Oh Jives, I am jealous, I always wanted to know some Navajo!

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 6:03 pm

Far Rider wrote: ah its german for NONE! are you sure you speak german?

ist weit............. so lustig

*I stuck it in babelfish, I don't know German*

It says far is so funny, looks pretty cool in German...................

Accountable · Post by **Accountable** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 5:04 am

Far is lustig, alright! It's gonna get him in trouble someday, I'll wager.

SweetDarlin · Post by **SweetDarlin** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:41 am

I speak tidbits of many languages... but really I wouldn't even say I'm fluent in English ROFL