Can you speak Chinese and what other languages do you speak?
- Thread starter b787
- Start date
vesicles
Colonel
I can speak both English and Chinese (Mandarin) as a native without any accent. I am definitely more comfortable speaking, reading and writing English, having been living in the States most of my life. I speak Chinese better than 80% of native Chinese because of my Beijing dialect, which is considered as the standard for speaking Chinese. I can't stand it when southern Chinese miss their "h" and "ng" in their words... It just makes my skin crawl... Unfortunately, I can no longer write Chinese, which is a total shame. I can understand Cantonese and Shanghainese if I was given about 10-15 minutes to warm up.
My wife can speak, read and write both English and Chinese (Mandarin) like a native. She also speaks Cantonese like a native (Hong Kong dialect, not Guangzhou dialect). She can also understand Spanish (~50-60%) and some Portuguese (not sure how much).
My wife can speak, read and write both English and Chinese (Mandarin) like a native. She also speaks Cantonese like a native (Hong Kong dialect, not Guangzhou dialect). She can also understand Spanish (~50-60%) and some Portuguese (not sure how much).
Same here, I used to be able to speak French as I have lived in Montreal. 20 years have passed and I can't really speak it anymore. Mother tongue is Cantonese, but can't read Chinese as good as I used to. I am more proficient with English since I am in Vancouver now. Did learn to read Japanese, and got good score on oral in beginner Japanese course in University. That also deteriorated since I have not use it after I finished the course. Quite sad that I didn't try harder to retain the language that I have learned
solarz
Brigadier
I grew up in Montreal as well, moved to Toronto for university and haven't used French since... I'm planning to send my son to a French school, but mostly because it's right beside our home, lol!
Honestly, I don't find French to be particularly useful. I'd love to learn Japanese, but alas, I just don't have the time these days!
kwaigonegin
Colonel
tlhIngan pejatlh
b787
Captain
Chinese speakers can read Japanese and get some idea of the meaning, but not how to speak it unless they read a children`s book that uses Hiragana and Katakana and has above the hiragana and katakana the Chinese ideograms.
I was able to read a few Chinese characters that still are used in both languages with the same characters.
Chinese writes in the same way China and air force, so when i saw the J-10 display team i could read the meaning well since in both languages they use the same ideograms.
There is still a lot of ideograms (kanji) used in both languages with the same meaning
I feel handicapped not being able to read Chinese. I'm Dutch. In school I learned French, English and German really badly. But I learned to read all three just by needing it. I learned to understand English and German from listening to the radio and can get by in both. When I went to France for the first time some quarter of a century after leaving school it took me a day to learn to understand and speak it, badly. I know a little of Czech, Russian and Spanish.
My wife is half Frisian, half German and speaks Dutch like a native, having been born in The Hague. She understands Frisian but cannot read it.
My wife is half Frisian, half German and speaks Dutch like a native, having been born in The Hague. She understands Frisian but cannot read it.
I can speak and read Chinese fluently. It is harder for me to write manually though.
I understand a smattering of Tamil