What is your primary language?

[mcardall]

I am a curious person, and inquiring minds want to know... what is your primary language? What language do you speak in at home? What language do you read in? What language do you dream in?

Sadly (I really wanted to minor in Italian in college... didn't happen!), my answer to all of the above is English... although thanks to Dora the Explorer my Spanish skills are about that of a 9 month old native Spanish speaker!

[digideb]

English

[amystoffel]

I speak fluent toddler . But my primary language is english. I know some german and a little spanish.

[ditzyscrap]

English for all of the above. I know a little bit of French and a tiny (tiny) bit of Spanish, and there's a girl at work attempting to teach me Filipino but it's not sticking very well, lol.

[Laura_A]

English for me... though my German is getting better and I speak a little bit of Spanish.

DH speaks English, French and Hausa (an African language) fluently.

[ColleenSwerb]

I know a little French. I love french, it's so beautiful. I dream to visit there one day.

[kscwgirl]

English. I've retained a tiny bit of French from high school, and Spanish from Dora. I also speak toddler. LOL

[newfiemountiewife]

English, and I also know quite a bit of French.

[lizzyfizzy]

english is my fluent tongue. i wish i knew more spanish though and i wish dh was fluent in korean, but alas we suck.

[scrapperjade]

English all the way around. I didn't retain much french from school, but I can still ask to use a washroom (in french, haha!) and can sing "Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes" in french... I'm useful like that, lol!

[mcardall]

heehee, toddler! i speak that, too!

[jessica31876]

english for me. I took spanish but the only thing I retained were the "bad words" (which were not taught at school but the kids who spoke spanish fluently) and counting and colors.

I do speak jibberish and pig latin though LOL

[Megan Turnidge]

English... but I was really good in my French courses. It seemed to come so easily to me. I wanted to major in French, but honestly that major is useless unless I wanted to be a teacher. lol

I used to work at New York & Company and people would come up from Mexico all the time. One guy got SO MAD at me when he tried to speak to me in Spanish.... I was like, sorry, no hablo espanol. "WHY NOT?!?!" He actually asked me that. I was like, ummmm because I am American. lol

I'm all for healthy cultural mixing and learning from each other. And yes, Spanish would have been way more useful than French... but to be honest I hate how people have started EXPECTING that we speak Spanish here. If I went to Mexico, you bet I'd try to learn a little Spanish. If I moved to Italy, I'd learn at least a little Italian to get me around.

Sorry, not trying to sound rude. lol

[jessica31876]

I agree we were just talking about this because the local grocery stores have started posting everything in spanish and english. Billboards are going up in only spanish and my husband works in a business which is owned by a hispanic couple and alot of his paperwork is written in spanish even though they are fluent in english. He has no idea what some of it says and they wont translate for him because they do not have time. Their meetings are held in spanish so he is excluded there also. One of his friends does a brief translation after teh meeting is over.

Originally Posted by mturnidge

I'm all for healthy cultural mixing and learning from each other. And yes, Spanish would have been way more useful than French... but to be honest I hate how people have started EXPECTING that we speak Spanish here. If I went to Mexico, you bet I'd try to learn a little Spanish. If I moved to Italy, I'd learn at least a little Italian to get me around.

[Paula]

English - but I can speak Spanish and DH and I speak German to help Zakk and Hannah with their German for school.

[meems]

My 1st language was Korean but that has long been obliterated from my mind. DH is fluent in Korean.

We had been married for seven years when my mom mentioned one day that I had been pronouncing his name wrong.

[BrattyMeg]

I speak English primarily. I do know Spanish. My mom was 1/2 hispanic and made sure we knew Spanish.

I took Greek in High School..yes what was I thinking?? haha (I WAS thinking Med school haha)

[sannajeannine]

English to all of the above, but I can count to 10 in Korean because my DD took 6 years of TaeKwonDo

[Chels85]

ASL is my first lang, english is second for me

[Jennilyn]

I took French for 7 years but I'm not fluent in it. I'm fluent in English.

[AllieP]

English, although I can speak enough German to get by.

[switchwiz]

only English for me

[Leila]

English is definitely first for me. I know enough German now (thanks to my husband who is fluent) to hold my own in a conversation. I've even translated a few things here and there when he wasn't available to help.

[pbumbaca]

English. I took Italian in HS and can remember a few words and I have a very big Italian family so I know lots of swears!

[joelsgirl]

Chels, why do you speak ASL as a first language?

I speak English, but we are fluent in Malay/Indonesian, and my little guy is in a Chinese pre-school. He offered me a cracker in Chinese the other day and I have never been more proud.

[Chels85]

Originally Posted by joelsgirl

Chels, why do you speak ASL as a first language?

I'm deaf

[scarletsierra]

English. I've always loved language and I know a *little* Italian, German, and Spanish. But I'd really love to learn more and become fluent someday. The only language I have extensive schooling in is Latin. I took 7 years of Latin, lol. It's helpful for vocabulary and learning other languages a bit, but otherwise it's a dead language.

[jessica31876]

My son is taking ASL for his foreign language requirement in high school.

Originally Posted by Chels85

I'm deaf

[Mama-to-Elle]

Originally Posted by mturnidge

English... but I was really good in my French courses. It seemed to come so easily to me. I wanted to major in French, but honestly that major is useless unless I wanted to be a teacher. lol

I used to work at New York & Company and people would come up from Mexico all the time. One guy got SO MAD at me when he tried to speak to me in Spanish.... I was like, sorry, no hablo espanol. "WHY NOT?!?!" He actually asked me that. I was like, ummmm because I am American. lol

I'm all for healthy cultural mixing and learning from each other. And yes, Spanish would have been way more useful than French... but to be honest I hate how people have started EXPECTING that we speak Spanish here. If I went to Mexico, you bet I'd try to learn a little Spanish. If I moved to Italy, I'd learn at least a little Italian to get me around.

Sorry, not trying to sound rude. lol

I 300% agree with you Megan....

And I am fluent in English and ASL...
(I had a super hot neighbor for a few years in jr high, who's whole fam was deaf, so i learned ASL super quick, then took 2 years of classes, to learn it "properly"..

[isaacsmom]

My family speaks English. We also sign - my son is deaf but hears/speaks due to cochlear implants, but when they are off, he is deaf so we sign some. I also took Japanese in high school and college.

[Amber1279]

English here as well. Living so close to the border I should know more Spanish - but I only took 1 yr in High School and didn't do very well.

I also know a few basic ASL signs - I had a co-worker that was deaf & mute so I had to learn some to communicate with her.

[Teresa]

English is my first language. I took Spanish in high school and college (almost minored), but I've lost a lot of it (my Spanish-speaking friends an attest to that! LOL)

[rach3975]

English for me. My 2.5 year old DS has a speech disorder (apraxia), so his primary form of communication right now is sign language. I've been learning along with him. We're a long way from fluent, but we're getting better.

[sugarink]

English here... But, I wish I knew how to speak more than just to understand my ethnic language - Tagalog.

[marnel]

English is primary and Spanish secondary

[chloe]

French, and I also speak English, a bit of Italian and a bit of German (and DBF and his family are trying to teach me Alsatian, a local language close to German)

[NettieB]

I voted other. Nettie-ese. Call it all of the above -- ASL to surfer-mahalo delivered with a slight Texas southern twang... Seriously. I'm a multi-ethnic muddle lingo linguine mix pot o' me who has been known to throw a bit of everything in a sentence if I'm really tired.

[Juno]

I voted other. I'm from the Netherlands so Dutch is my first language

[EveRecinella]

Gosh, well I am a bit of a mixed bag here. LOL We speak mostly danish here at home, but I speak english to the kids (DH speaks danish to them). I read in english or danish, but I always dream in english. LOL

[FireWolf]

My native language is English, but since I live in the Netherlands and DH is Dutch we try to use more Dutch than English. I also know some German and some Spanish as well. I can read both Dutch and German fluently.

[Stacey42]

I speak English.

I am fairly fluent in written French but unless someone is speaking really slowly to me I'm not so good at understanding spoken French

[~Julie~]

English... I took 4 years of spanish in school but dont remember much!