# Fluent in other languages?



## Tyrant (Mar 8, 2012)

I've met quite a number of NTs who speak many different languages fluently, and was curious to know how many on this forum are polyglots, or at least bilingual. 
One of my old math teachers who was most likely an NT, fluently spoke seven different languages. It was pretty cool and annoying at the same time, considering she pretty much understood every foreign insult you could come up with.
So far, all the NTs I've met in real life have been able to speak at least two languages.


English is my second language, and I'm trying to learn a third. My native language is Thai, and I barely ever use it on the internet.


So yeah, what the title says. How many of you are fluent in other languages?


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## misstheground (Mar 11, 2012)

English is my first. 
I'm fluent in Hebrew, although I speak on the slow side.
I understand written French and can write in it, but speaking is definitely tougher.
This isn't a language, but I'm teaching myself a new alphabet, braille, which makes three alphabets.
Most people in my city speak _at least_ two languages, though. We have a lot of immigrants here.


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## skycloud86 (Jul 15, 2009)

I can only speak English, although I would love to one day be able to speak at least one or two other languages fluently.


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## Finagle (Jun 4, 2011)

French is my first language, and I like to imagine I'm not too bad in English. I have to thank the internet and video games for that.
I'll have to learn Spanish too one day, but right now I'm too lazy.


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## bubbamamma (Feb 21, 2012)

Ukrainian was my first, I picked up English in a matter of weeks in preschool, and Spanish is coming very easily to me so far.


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## Rift (Mar 12, 2012)

I can get around in a few other languages... but I abuse english the most and I don't really get to practice with the rest that often... so I really wouldn't say I was fluent in the others.


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## Amir Khalifah (Mar 18, 2012)

well English is my first language and i can speak Arabic fluently just as the Arabs do and thanks to my skin color they can tell im not Arab
recently ive been trying to pick up more languages like Turkish , Urdu and Spanish


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## Melodrama (Jan 30, 2012)

French is technically my first language, however I find my written English much better - probably because I've lived most of my life in an English city and currently know few francophone people, making it hard to keep practising my French. 

I hope to one day learn Spanish fluently, as well.


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## Hapalo (Sep 4, 2011)

Portuguese, english,VB, spanish, french.
Most fluent to less.

I will learn russian someday.


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## Owfin (Oct 15, 2011)

Keep in mind that a lot of the mono-lingual folk around the forum don't find stating the fact they only speak one language to be of particular interest, whereas polygots have more to say.

(As for myself... Ave lingua Latina! Formosa etiam gravis etiam praeterea nitens.)


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## Epherion (Aug 23, 2011)

Serbo-Croation is my first, English second.

German kinda. 

Would like to learn:
Arabic
French
Portuguese
Mandarin.


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## QuietStorm (Mar 17, 2012)

English is my first.
I used to be fluent in Spanish but I haven't practiced in years... so now I can only 'sort of' translate written things.
I took French for a while but it never sunk in. Tried teaching myself Japanese, same result. I had to stop because I couldn't focus on both that _and_ schoolwork.
So now I'm doing Chinese(Mandarin, Beijing dialect) and it's going pretty well. I'm somewhat fluent when I speak, even better when I'm writing.

I'm hoping I can get the Spanish proficiency back as well...


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## BeauGarcon (May 11, 2011)

Language fluency order

1: Dutch
2: French
3: English
---
4: German (learning this somewhat, but still pretty bad)

What I would like to learn in the future?
Spanish and Russian.


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## Transcendence (Apr 25, 2011)

Norwegian here, so naturally my mother language is Norwegian. 
I'm fluent in English, I understand written and spoken Swedish and Danish almost perfectly (and if I try, I can imitate their speech) and I know some basics of the French language, but I feel more comfortable writing and/or reading French than speaking it. 

Yeah.


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## ShipwreckEyes (Apr 1, 2012)

Fluent in spanish
Would like to learn:French, Italian, and Russin.


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## Procellis (Apr 4, 2012)

From most to least fluent:

English, French, German, Russian, Greek

The first two are due to where I live (Quebec, Canada...bilingual), the second two are due to personal initiative and the last is due to the rather large Greek-speaking community where I happen to live.


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## Kakarookee (Mar 27, 2011)

I can speak Slovenian and English fluently. I can also understand a bit of: German, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian (I understand that pretty well, I just don't speak it), Dutch, Italian,...

I'd really love to learn Finnish though, I know a few words, but I'm just too lazy to start learning it properly.


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## Vin The Dreamer (Mar 21, 2012)

When you say "this forum" do you mean the NT forum or all of Personality Cafe?

In any case, I speak English and Brazilian Portuguese fluently. I've had quite a few opportunities to learn Spanish, but something always got in the way.


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## Playful Proxy (Feb 6, 2012)

I am about to get pretty good in Python and I have a little experience in C++. Talking to computers is hard!


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## NullPointerException (Apr 5, 2012)

I'm fluent in 2 languages and pretty good at 2 other. The good part is that I gain understanding on the etymologies of words stolen between the languages. Also, I get to incorporate into my life the good parts of many cultures-- learning a language typically involves learning the culture. Thus, it widens my perspective some way. The bad part is that it's hard to become very good at 2+ languages because time spent learning 2+ languages can be focused on mastering just 1. By mastering, I mean at least a college-level vocabulary and grammar. Most people I know who are multi-lingual only have one language in college-level proficiency.


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## Mutatio NOmenis (Jun 22, 2009)

I am fluent in English.
Sum erduissimam in Latinam.
Ich kenn klienmal Deutsch.


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## Wraith (Nov 30, 2010)

Trying to learn a language. I often get distracted because I can't pick one.

Initially, I'd decided on Icelandic for its beauty, but lack of resources led me to a similar, yet easier language: Norwegian, which I am currently working on. Oh, and yet, eg elska Island... one day.


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## Fred Dryer (May 20, 2011)

My first language is Swedish. Not much more to say about it except for it allows me to communicate with Norwegians and Danes. 
Spoken Danish is a bit tricky but if you kindly ask the speaker to slow down I usually understand. 

I learned English very early in life thanks to subtitled TV-shows. Being exposed to English through video games, music and later on, the Internet has made me feel comfortable using it. Nowadays almost everything I watch is downloaded off the internet without subs. Subs are actually annoying once you no longer need them as my eyes automatically starts reading rather than focusing on the characters and environments.

I'm slowly but steadily learning Dutch in addition to the basic German I got from school.
Tracking how the germanic languages evolved from shared word stems and observing shifts of meaning and/or pronunciation, spelling in quite interesting. 

If I woke up one day and suddenly spoke another language it would be Russian or Spanish. 

hmm..writing this post got me confused on the use of learned vs learnt. Seems to be some differences between US/UK english according to my google sources.


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## Wobzter (Jun 2, 2011)

1. Dutch (native)
2. English (fluently)
3. German (understandable)
4. French (so-so)
5. Swedish / German / Japanese (some knowledge; able to construct easy phrases).

I'd like to learn more though... but I'm quite lazy.


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## MegaTuxRacer (Sep 7, 2011)

Where did all of you learn all of these languages? School? Online? Books? If not school, what resources did you use? I have always wanted to learn a second language, but I never have other than ASL in high school, but I never became fluent in it. Really hard to do unless you have someone to sign with.


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## julia_irrlicht (Nov 12, 2011)

Russian-Polish bilingual => can understand also Czech and Slovak
English (fluent)
German (fair command)
French and Italian (read, speak like a kid and understand, if you speak slowly)




Mutatio NOmenis said:


> Ich kenn klienmal Deutsch.


Wer sagt "ich kenn Deutsch" und was ist "kleinmal"? Entschuldigung Sie mir, ich bin ein INTJ 




MegaTuxRacer said:


> Where did all of you learn all of these languages? School? Online? Books? If not school, what resources did you use? I have always wanted to learn a second language, but I never have other than ASL in high school, but I never became fluent in it. Really hard to do unless you have someone to sign with.


I learnt English at school and read a lot myself. Living in a dorm with a lot of international students helped enormously. I never learnt proper punctuation but it's ok.

Learnt German, French and Italian myself. I don't have a proven solution but can tell, what worked for me:
*1. Kick it off! *Find a good teacher and get approximately 10 hours of individual lessons. This won't cost a fortune but will shape your pronunciation (which is essential at the beginning), allow to break the barrier of speaking (the toughest thing is to start speaking) and give the overview of grammar. 
*2. Track it! *Then ask for an hour of individual lessons per week. This is enough to keep yourself motivated and make sure you don't lose the track. 
*3. Make it fun! *Find a simple topic of interest, like music, travelling, sports or fashion (no finance, medicine or quantum mechanics at this stage!) and google for articles in foreign language. Reading online editions yellow press is highly recommended. Wording is simple and, after all, even yellow press is grammatically correct. Simple songs, like teen pop or pop punk are great at this stage. I listened to German pop punk (Die Toten Hosen and Die Arzte), French classic pop and chanson (Brigitte Bardot, Serge Gainsbourg, Dalida...) and Italian pop (Adriano Celentano, Tiziano Ferro, Richi e Poveri...). 
*4. Grammar!* Dedicate 15 minutes per day to learn grammar. This is unpleasant but essential to form sentences yourself. 
*5. Live it! *Put post-its with the names of furniture on furniture, try to make notes in foreign language (e.g. week plan), try to sing karaoke...

If you're interested in learning German, French or Italian, I can recommend songs with simple lyrics, useful wording and good to memorize grammar. For example, Celentano's "C'è Sempre Un Motivo" contains multum of highly useful verbs, similarly to Die Toten Hosen "Zehn Kleine Jägermeister".


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## Mutatio NOmenis (Jun 22, 2009)

> Wer sagt "ich kenn Deutsch" und was ist "kleinmal"? Entschuldigung Sie mir, ich bin ein INTJ


kleinmal=klein+mal= some little.
Ich kenn Deutsch= I know German.


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## red_1038 (Apr 13, 2011)

I'm a native English speaker. The dialect in my area (Southern Indiana) can be a bit difficult for some people to understand, especially in rural areas like my own. My accent is distinctive, I have come to discover.
I'm near-fluent in French right now (written and spoken), and I plan on minoring in the subject at my college.
I studied Spanish a while in high school. I can get on all right in conversation and I understand it completely in reading (it's really not that different from French and English).
I also know a lot of Japanese words just from watching anime and reading manga, but I have no idea how to arrange a sentence or communicate.

I've also fooled around a bit in parseltongue.


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## Konigsberg (May 10, 2012)

English is merely my second language, while Spanish is the first. Yeah, two languages is not much since all the schools teach english now, but the truth is I learnt it on my own, reading, listening to music and watching movies. I'm quite proud of that. I began learning italian just to see if it was only english I was good at, or I could be good in another language. I'm also proud to say I was the youngest and the best in the italian class. Sometimes I just want to learn words from other languages for the sake of it. For example, I heard the Lion's king song We are one in swedish and since I loved it I tried to learn it (still on it). I'm going to study german and french in college, or maybe an asian language. I'm good with alphabets like the greek and latin one, so I could also take those classes. Just, why the hell not?


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## Mendi the ISFJ (Jul 28, 2011)

Im not an NT but im fluent in English and Spanish. Learning a language seems to be an ongoing process, just when you think you can converse perfectly you encounter new slang or that words have different meanings based on country or even state.


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## Mendi the ISFJ (Jul 28, 2011)

MegaTuxRacer said:


> Where did all of you learn all of these languages? School? Online? Books? If not school, what resources did you use? I have always wanted to learn a second language, but I never have other than ASL in high school, but I never became fluent in it. Really hard to do unless you have someone to sign with.


i learned a little in high school, a little from non-credit classes in college and alot from conversing with native speakers and living in another country temporarily. my biggest suggestion is to forget about being embarrassed and just talk to people as much as possible.


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## jeffbobs (Jan 27, 2012)

I am in the process of learning chinese, when they begin their move for world power, i will know how to say "i surrender, please dont kill me....hail china!" in chinese


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## King_Moonracer (Feb 14, 2012)

My first language is AMERICAN, my second language is tongues. My third, sign language.


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## Empty (Sep 28, 2011)

jeffbobs said:


> I am in the process of learning chinese, when they begin their move for world power, i will know how to say "i surrender, please dont kill me....hail china!" in chinese



*********** ling long ting tong.


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## emzen (May 13, 2012)

I speak English, Finnish and Swedish fluently, although I sometimes fuck up with my English. I've been speaking both Finnish and Swedish for as long as I have been talking (native tongues, bilingual home) and started learning English as soon as I could read. 

English was for me a purely textual language until I was a teenager because I taught myself English through mostly visual mediums such as books and old videogames back when there were no voice actors in them, haha. So when watching TV, I couldn't (as a kid) understand what was said in English because I had no idea how to connect it to the textual dimension of the language! I speak it fluently now, although there is no consistent trace of any accent in it.

I think in all three languages and also speak three more to some extent  (norwegian, danish and german)


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## mpobrien (Apr 24, 2012)

Italian was my first language. English I speak fluently also, and maybe slightly better than Italian simply because I use it on a day to day basis, whereas Italian is really just with my mother, and grandfather, along with my family back in Italy. I've also studied Latin for a while, et Latinam legere possum, sed non dicere. I can also read and slightly understand Spanish because of it's similarity to Italian.


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## Night & Day (Jul 17, 2010)

I'm fluent in English and Spanish. I can understand some Japanese because I've watched lots of anime and became familiar with some words. I can also understand most French because it's very similar to Spanish. I know the alphabet in sign language but not whole words. I'd like to learn Italian, German, Japanese, Portuguese, maybe French and Latin. roud:


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## SophiaScorpia (Apr 15, 2012)

I'm fluent in English, Tagalog and Visayan (_my native languages_). I could understand a *little* Latin, Spanish, and French. I could understand bits of European languages and sometimes, I would guess what language is that whenever I get to read something. My school offers German and we've done one grade for the school year. I hope to learn as many languages as I could, it would be fun! Also, if it is considered, I know sign language.


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## Lunietta (May 14, 2013)

I'm fluent in Norwegian and English. I know bits of other languages, I guess, and I'm learning French in school at the moment.


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## Hoff (Apr 29, 2013)

I'm only fluent in English so far. I have all levels of Japanese and German installed on Rosetta Stone. I plan to get Spanish as well.

Now it's just a matter of not being a lazy bastard.


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## PrimroseMind (Jan 28, 2013)

My native language is Lithuanian and English is my second.  I'm still learning Russian.


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## mvwho (Jun 14, 2013)

Norwegian is my native language, and I speak English fluently. I'm also learning French and German


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## JeNiUs (Jun 13, 2013)

English is my native, and technically my 2nd language but speaking has become a bit rusty as of late is Spanish, fluent Japanese. I want to learn Russian


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## neocultures (Jun 14, 2013)

My native language is Norwegian, and I speak English fluently. I'm currently learning French, but I'm not even near speaking it fluently.


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## MerryMary (Jun 16, 2013)

Spanish, French and Russian and I'd like to take up Japanese next.


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