1 post tagged “foreign language”

How many languages can you speak?  Which languages can you read or understand?

Having been born and raised in a bilingual country, it's usually mildly surprising to others of different countries when I tell them I can only speak English, especially after telling them I took mandatory French classes for six years. Oh, and by other countries, I generallly mean the United States, as I have visited very few... er... no other countries. Case in point, nearly two years ago I traveled down to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving to meet my boyfriend's family (AND extended family, whew) for the first time. We were sitting down at his grandparent's table ready to dive into Thanksgiving dinner when Dan's twelve year-old cousin made a demand: "Can you speak French!? Say something in French!", to which I dumbly responded with a searching "errrrr...", and promptly shoved a mountain of mashed potatoes into my mouth.

I suppose I could have responded with a quick "Je ne sais pas" or if I was feeling slightly more confident, "Je ne sais pas beaucoup francais", but why try to act all smart when, simultaneously, you're actually telling someone that your about as resourceful as a turnip on the given subject?

All this stuffage aside, no, I can't speak any other languages... fluently. HowEVER, I can speak very, very miniscule bits and pieces of French, mainly phrases and names objects, but I have a hard time sticking stuff together with the grammer. I can probably understand more of it then speak it, though. Also, I can also speak and write a wee bit of Portuguese, probably more then French at this point, as I took an introductory course on it last year as to fill my language requirement for school.