Polyglots?

[feign_ignorence]

Do programming languages count?

If not: english and an embarassingly poor french and german.

[Dr. Kwaltz]

Native language of English, plus Italian, German, and I'm going to count Swiss German as an extra language. Germans don't understand it.

No wonder, I'm telling ya! I spent a winter in the Saaser-tal many moons ago and acquired some of the local dialect, it's sounds like gibberish really, mostly thanks to in-breeding in the secluded Swiss valleys over centuries.

[Svartalf]

Native language of English, plus Italian, German, and I'm going to count Swiss German as an extra language. Germans don't understand it.

No wonder, I'm telling ya! I spent a winter in the Saaser-tal many moons ago and acquired some of the local dialect, it's sounds like gibberish really, mostly thanks to in-breeding in the secluded Swiss valleys over centuries.

Thanks for being a condescending racist... I'm pretty sure I could say the same of plety other dialects...
Then again, If exposed to those (with writing), I'm pretty sure I could reconstitute the links to proper German...
After all, I'm used to wending my way through Yiddish and Alsacian...

[Chinaski]

Native language of English, plus Italian, German, and I'm going to count Swiss German as an extra language. Germans don't understand it.

No wonder, I'm telling ya! I spent a winter in the Saaser-tal many moons ago and acquired some of the local dialect, it's sounds like gibberish really, mostly thanks to in-breeding in the secluded Swiss valleys over centuries.

Thanks for being a condescending racist... I'm pretty sure I could say the same of plety other dialects...
Then again, If exposed to those (with writing), I'm pretty sure I could reconstitute the links to proper German...
After all, I'm used to wending my way through Yiddish and Alsacian...

Actually the bit about inbreeding is probably accurate.
I speak the Luzerner variant, but can understand any of the others, the inflections are just a bit different. Although there are some isolated, secluded valley areas that sound completely weird.

[Dr. Kwaltz]

Native language of English, plus Italian, German, and I'm going to count Swiss German as an extra language. Germans don't understand it.

No wonder, I'm telling ya! I spent a winter in the Saaser-tal many moons ago and acquired some of the local dialect, it's sounds like gibberish really, mostly thanks to in-breeding in the secluded Swiss valleys over centuries.

Thanks for being a condescending racist... I'm pretty sure I could say the same of plety other dialects...
Then again, If exposed to those (with writing), I'm pretty sure I could reconstitute the links to proper German...
After all, I'm used to wending my way through Yiddish and Alsacian...

HUH?

I was just stating the facts behind how these dialects evolved the way they did, has nothing to do with racism but everything with geographical isolation. Holy cow! Talk about going off the deep end.

[Svartalf]

Well... having spent long periods in boondock locations where the people supposedly speak really thick patois that is "murdering the original language" etc etc, I may be a little sensitive to that kind of attitude, especially since part of my hobby as a linguist is to study the ways in which and reasons for which a dialect becomes different from its forebear when a population loses contact from the rest of the speakers of the same language (and I'm still far crom understanding why and how Occitan is distinct from gascon, which is not the same as Catalan, which is different from Spanish, which is another language than Portuguese, which suspiciously resembles Galician... let alone get why Lothringer Platt is so different from Luxembougish, and why I can't get a thing from Alemannic Swiss beside the fact it is a Germanic dialect...)

[Kimpatsu]

I'm a native English speaker who works as a professional translator (Japanese to English). Beat that.

[maiforpeace]

I'm a native English speaker who works as a professional translator (Japanese to English). Beat that.

I couldn't. Japanese must be a very challenging language.

And, by the way Kimpatsu, welcome to the forum!

[Kimpatsu]

I'm a native English speaker who works as a professional translator (Japanese to English). Beat that.

I couldn't. Japanese must be a very challenging language.

And, by the way Kimpatsu, welcome to the forum!

Thank you. Good to be here.

[Berthold]

...which is another language than Portuguese, which suspiciously resembles Galician...

The Galicians themselves aren't quite sure. It is possibly a two-edged sword: If they defined themselves as Portuguese who happen to live in Spain, they would have a larger "mother culture". On the other hand, they would then probably use school books etc. from Portugal, and their special local flavour would be endangered.

[DRSB]

Learning languages online: some good links in this NYTimes-article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/techn ... ral&src=me

[Eriku]

I'm not sure how many to put down

Fluent to a native degree in Norwegian and English... Danish and Swedish could be added in the tier below, but I consider that cheating... I can speak and write stilted German and have a VERY basic grasp of Spanish and Portuguese... I'll put myself down for three languages.

[FBM]

I guess it depends on how well you have to speak it to be considered "able to speak" a language. I used to be able to speak Spanish quite well, but I haven't used it in over 15 years. Studied Chinese and Japanese in univ., along with the Spanish, but forgot practically everything due to not having any Chinese or Japanese friends. Most recently, Korean, of course, and whatever Thai is still lingering around in the noggin.

[DRSB]

I speak in addition to German and English several Slavic languages, most proficiently Russian, Bulgarian (first language) and Czech. Polish and Serbo-Croat fluently enough but with some interference form the other Slavic languages. Learned Hungarian to a usable degree, though far from fluent. Never been drawn to Roman languages.

[Kimpatsu]

I guess it depends on how well you have to speak it to be considered "able to speak" a language.

As a rule of thumb, I say you should be able to read a daily newspaper without resorting to a dictionary.