If you could be trilingual....

[Rudra]

check out this guy, he knew over 60 languages as a proven fact and he was not even completely nuts, but a lawyer and diplomat...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Krebs

 

[3countriesPlan]

lol his brain was 'taken"
that sucks.. anyways he must really have been extremely elite to master so many languages. But, is it possible for people to attain native speaker status in other languages? Or more importantly over 50 others!?
I'm wondering that due to the vast number of words and levels of complexity in languages..
Everyday speech
Formal speech
Professional speech
Formal Writing
Story Writing

My mom knew a guy who had mastered 12 languages and was totally messed up cause of it...anyways had this guy been a PUA he could have literally gotten ass from Australia to Botswana.. pimpin all other the world!

 

[WaterTiger]

If you live in California, Spanish & Mandrin are the two to know.

The Army is always looking for people that speak Arabic, so that's another that will serve you well.


Hey, doesn't Julio Igalsias the singer know 8 languages fluently??? I think I remember reading that somewhere....

 

[Fred Da Head]

lol his brain was 'taken"
that sucks.. anyways he must really have been extremely elite to master so many languages. But, is it possible for people to attain native speaker status in other languages? Or more importantly over 50 others!?

I don't know if you can be truly fluent in 50+ languages, but you can definately be fluent in two or three. It's all about speaking the language often enough with native speakers, and hearing the language a lot.

 

[AgonyUncle]

I think from a business point of view, Russian and Chinese are two languages that one needs to seriously start considering.

 

[mexican_player2]

i know english, español and Wŏ huì shuō yī dian Hàn yŭ

 

[Kerpal]

If you live in the US, I think the big 3 are:

1. English
2. Spanish
3. Mandarin Chinese

 

[3countriesPlan]

i know english, español and Wŏ huì shuō yī dian Hàn yŭ

你會說依點漢語? 現在全球興起學中文的風潮呢..

 

[3countriesPlan]

hmm I wasn't allowed to edit my last post.. anyways the fourth character should be "- "
but the computer changed it to that other one, which has the same pronounciation..

 

[mexican_player2]

你會說依點漢語? 現在全球興起學中文的風潮呢..

i only know pin yin!!

 

[wootapotky]

i only know pin yin!!

Ni3 hui4 shuo1 yi4 dian3 han4 yu3? Xian4 zai4 quan2 qiu2 xing1 qi3 xue2 zhong1 wen2 de feng1 chao2 ne.

I don't quite understand the second sentence though. Something about the whole world rising to the campaign for studying Chinese is my guess. The xue zhongwen de feng chao sounds weird to me. If you could explain that 3countries it would be helpful.

 

[Giovanni Casanova]

I don't know if you can be truly fluent in 50+ languages, but you can definately be fluent in two or three. It's all about speaking the language often enough with native speakers, and hearing the language a lot.

Once you get a few down, you start to pick up others easily. English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc. share a lot of common roots, so learning many of those languages, particularly in the area of audio comprehension, is much easier as you go along.

 

[Giovanni Casanova]

English
Spanish
Arabic
Chinese

It's not trilingual, it's quadralingal, but whatever.

 

[Quiksilver]

Great thread!

Here's my list:

1) English -

2) Spanish - written is fluent,still struggle with speech, have a hard time understanding people talking very fast(my teacher)

3) French(canadian) - fluent, learned french all through school, i have a couple french friends to practice on as well. havent practiced it in awhile so i doubt i could carry a long convo.

4) Indonesian - fluent in the written, i can understand speech and can string together sentences, but still rough... not enough practice. I'm learning this one because my family has some business in indonesia and we go there frequently. For anyone who knows the lay of the land down there, it's particulalry jakarta and bali.

5) russian, german, mandarin, those are ones I've yet to get a bite into yet, but want to learn.

 

[Sunnysa]

I can speak
Mandarin
Cantonese
English

And I think Chinese is useful, if anyone want to learn Chinese, PM me. And i want to learn Spanish

 

[Eph]

Already partially fluent in Spanish, English is my native language. Originally, I wanted to become fluent in Spanish, Japanese, and Italian but recently there's been a growing interest in Arabic for me as well. I'll be well in my 40's before I can claim fluency in at least the original 3.

 

[Cloudtopsun2100]

lol this is hilarious... this thread is back.. Im still.stuck being bilingual, need another language, spanish or japanese.most likely

 

[SeymourCake]

Russian
Japanese
Arabic

 

[Dryden]

Next to my native Language and English... well I would very much like to learn French, Japanese, Portuguese and Russian.

It depends it depends, of course it depends.

What you think is going to be "business" gold is not really relevant, it depends on where you want to be.

These are all countries I want to be in some way. Granted, the most interesting Frenchmen(girls) speak English quite well, but most of them don't. Japanese people all want to learn and speak English if they can, are very interested, but their level of mastery of the speech is usually quite limited. Most can't afford good English education, I think.

It is nice to curse in Russian.

And Portugal, there is something about Portugal.

 

[Atom Smasher]

It's more fruitful to become sublingual.