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Porthos

What languages that you do not speak, can you understand best?

If Scots is to be considered a foreign language, then I would say I understand it best, along with Italian. I'm speaking of spoken language of course, for if we include written language, then Scots is clearly on top, with Portuguese at a close second.
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Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch

Liz

Deborah · Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 11:49 pm Post subject:

I don't quite get the question, because I'm not sure what you mean by "languages that you do not speak". Do you mean languages that you don't speak fluently, or languages that you've never studied?

Porthos · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 12:36 am Post subject:

Deborah · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 4:49 am Post subject:

Ah. I thought you might also have meant that only speaking a language at an intermediate level might not be considered speaking it.

In that case, since I don't speak any language other than English fluently and still have some problems understanding spoken Spanish, even though that's the foreign language I understand best, I suppose Portuguese would be the language that I don't speak at all, but understand best. Of course, I understand almost nothing, but I can make out words here and there.

Liz · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 1:38 pm Post subject:

Then I should retract what I said...it's not exactly true that I've never learnt French.
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Pauline · Guest

Written because i didn't hear (all) them:

walloon, occitan, catalan, quebec, etc.... italian, portuguese, frisian, afrikaans, luxemburgisch, maybe others - I will add them if I will think of some more

Liz · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject:

I might add Dutch to my list, too.
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André in Zuid-Afrika · Site Admin Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 1908

Porthos · Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject:

fab · Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 12:30 am Post subject:

If you mean major national languages I will say standard Italian (maybe other Italian forms but I never really had the occasion to hear them)

If we include regional language, I will say Occitan languages, which are almost complelty intelliglble without effort for a french speaker.

all other groups outside romance langue are like chinese for me. Said that I must say English can help me quite much to understand basic things in germanic languages, but it is not "direct", since I should think using a language (english) which I don't master well and with which I must think to express myself.

Daniel · Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 2:52 pm Post subject:

Being a native British Sign Language user, I must say I understand Spanish Sign Language best even though I've never learned it. They both are distantly related.

Australian and New Zealand Sign Languages are about 95% mutually intelligible with BSL. So much so that they all are considered dialects of the same language. I understand Deaf Australians and New Zealanders with very little difficulties, although because of a significant difference in vocabulary confusions and misunderstandings can still arise! For example, the sign for "coca cola" in Australia is the same sign meaning "sexual intercourse" here in the UK. A British friend of mine was once asked "Would you like a shag?" (supposed to be "Would you like some coke?") by an Australian, shocked, he replied "But I've only just met you!!"
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Loic · Posted: Sat May 26, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject:

David · Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:56 am Post subject:

Scots, Dutch, Frisian.

Irrintzi · Expert Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 168

Occitan, Catalan, Aragonese, Asturian, Galician, Italian, Corsican, Portuguese.
Maybe Frisian, Romanian, Caucasian languages and Scot.

Didier69 · Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:16 pm Post subject:

I think the language which I don't speak and understand the best is Catalan. But it's difficult to choose because I speak Swedish I understand much in Norwegian bokmål.

Travis · Expert Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 78

The language I do not speak which I understand the best is German. I can write German with some effort if I have a suitable (preferably web) dictionary on hand, but I cannot speak anything beyond very basic German, so I do not say that I can really speak German. Similarly, I can generally get the gist or at least general topic of much written German by glancing over it, even if I have no dictionary on hand, and can understand bits and pieces of spoken German. However, I cannot read German without a dictionary or understand spoken German well enough to claim that I can truly read or listen to German.

André in Zuid-Afrika · Site Admin Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 1908

I can read some German (with great difficulty), and of course understand written and spoken Dutch (if spoken slowly...)

BTW, good to see you back, Travis!

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Elaine · Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 12:28 am Post subject:

Portuguese, when spoken by Brazilians, sounds fairly comprehensible to me. Even less so with European Portuguese.

Since I studied French in high school (but not good enough to claim I speak it), I can somewhat understand it, but only minimally.

I can usually make out written Portuguese, French, Italian, Catalan, and Occitan, and whatever other Romance languages you throw my way.

Of the Germanic languages, none of them seem intelligible to me when spoken. I can somewhat decipher German, Dutch, and Afrikaans when written.

Swede33 · Novice Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 21

I can fairly understand french, german and finnish.
Have studied the first two so maybe that´s cheating but I wasn´t any good in french, so I took german instead in highschool to improve my grades.
This was a tactic from me which I regret today.
Would really have liked being able to speak french.
Another language I understand fully that I havent´t studied is, Norwegian.
This because I´m from Sweden and this language is merely a swedish dialect.