Can Europeans Speak More Languages than North Americans?

[Stormrider^]

It's more likely that this poll will show North Americans know more languages since eGO has more NA members.

My thoughts exactly.

I'm from Finland I speak Finnish (duh), German and English.
Also, planning on learning japanese when I get my head around it.

 

[Idol]

NA here: English, Spanish (mostly Cuban dialect), and Portuguese (European, not Brasilian). I'm also fluent in Redneck, but that's more of a dialect.

 

[Rage]

English, French, Deutch. And Im proudly canadian!

 

[Dreadmaker]

It's more likely that this poll will show North Americans know more languages since eGO has more NA members.

Not true: it's all in the statistics.

Say 50 from NA can speak 3+ languages at the end, and only 40 Europeans can. BUT, 100 NAs responded, and only 60 Europeans did. Statistically, 2/3 of all Europeans can speak more than 3 languages, whereas only 50% of NAs can.

Those aren't the actual stats, of course, but just proving that you don't need even numbers to make a good statistical argument

 

[Split]

english and broken japanese

i knew japanese by heart but i havent spoken it since i was 14 :\

 

[Ezekiel]

From NA: English, German, French, little bit of Russian

 

[Nokx]

I'm european, and I speak Norwegian, English, Swedish, Danish and Spanish.

 

[OODA Loop]

My bet is us North Americaners are going to get owned in this one.

I know english!

About to learn Latin, and then Japanese... So... i'm getting there

 

[Mr.SaJoRa]

Perhaps when I know it a bit better, we can send some pms back and forth. More people to speak the language with is better

alright. ill be waiting for your first pm in german ;P

 

[foxhound-KD-]

hmmmm I myself speak 2 languages, spanish and english, live in california but what is the most important, most universal language to know how to speak? oh hmmmmm.....english, why yes , yes it is.

 

[ManBearPig]

I only know English...but I do know enough of other languages to say certain bad words thanks to the foreign exchange students when I was in H.S

 

[Artinz]

I answered it wrong, I said 2, but I really can speak 3. English, Spanish, and Hebrew.

 

[Bad Brain]

im surprised to see that im the only european so far that only speaks 1 language, the UK doesnt really teach other languages very well (or a least they didnt at my school) so not me, or any of my friends actually speak another language, surprising?

 

[frap]

It's a known fact - Europeans speak more language than Americans.

 

[Cupcake]

Of course the poll isn't going to be really accurate; there's a pretty fair amount more Americans in eGO than Europeans.

But I'm American and only speak English fluently.

 

[lplkassm]

It's a known fact - Europeans speak more language than Americans.

Mostly because Europeans actually take the time to learn the languages around them, whether it be for fun or for other purposes. Americans are the types who have a set language and want other people to learn the dominate language, which is, English.

Europeans are better at not only having others learn their languages, but they take the time to learn their neighbors language.

Being Romanian has its bonuses. Since its part of the Romance Language it makes it much easier for me to learn the other Romance Languages. Although I am having quite a bit of difficulty with my German at the moment

I LOVE LEARNING KNEW LANGUAGES, its calms me

 

[Dreadmaker]

Being Romanian has its bonuses. Since its part of the Romance Language it makes it much easier for me to learn the other Romance Languages. Although I am having quite a bit of difficulty with my German at the moment

You probably already know this, but German isn't a romance language; it's a Germanic language

It's quite similar in structure and vocabulary (ish) to English; certainly more so than, say, french or Italian.

 

[lplkassm]

You probably already know this, but German isn't a romance language

Ya I knew that, but I think how I wrote my sentence it made it seem like they were linked.

The reason learning German at the moment is difficult is because it's not a Romance Language, thus I am QQ'in heavily each time I learn something new in the language.

For some reason though I pick-up the writing style of the language a lot faster than the actual speaking of it. Right now I can write in German as well as I can write in English, but speaking it is a whole other story :glare:

Why does German have to be so harsh (by that I mean the overall tone).

I hope to complete German soon and either move on to Italian, or Latin.

 

[Dreadmaker]

Ya I knew that, but I think how I wrote my sentence it made it seem like they were linked.

The reason learning German at the moment is difficult is because it's not a Romance Language, thus I am QQ'in heavily each time I learn something new in the language.

For some reason though I pick-up the writing style of the language a lot faster than the actual speaking of it. Right now I can write in German as well as I can write in English, but speaking it is a whole other story :glare:

Why does German have to be so harsh (by that I mean the overall tone).

I hope to complete German soon and either move on to Italian, or Latin.

I tend to be able to write language faster than I can speak it too... I used to be the other way around when I started learning french, but with German, I can write better than I can speak.

I actually like the 'harsh' tone of German... coming from basically exclusively English, I like the little things... like the fact German has no 'w' sound: it's 'v'. Also, I really enjoy the fact that you can almost arbitrarily stick nouns and describing words together. That makes things more succinct.

For those who don't know German, basically, in German, instead of saying, for instance, 'paper plate', like in English, it's actually 'paperplate'. No space. And, you can basically do that with as many describing words as you like... it could be a squareyellowpaperplate, for all anyone cares. That's neat to me, something fun about the language

 

[Euphoric]

English, Spanish, and a bit of Hebrew. Hebrew was a class and i learned it quite well.