How many languages do you speak?

[u/Maleficent_Split_428]

And what are these languages

[u/WulfDracul]

Five. Seven if you count dialects.

French & English, our official languages.

Bassa'a of my father's tribe.

Duala of my paternal grandmother's tribe.

Fulfulde. I grew up around the Fulani people. In West Africa, in Senegal particularly, their language is called "Pulaar".

Dialects : Camfranglais (mix of French, English and several expressions/words from Cameroonian languages) and Pidgin English.

[u/CaioHSF → u/WulfDracul]

How do you guys grow up listening to different languages without mixing them? Like, how do you don't forget that the word X belongs to the language A and not to the language B?

[u/Technical_Tear5162 → u/CaioHSF]

It's just natural. But we can intentionally mix languages as well. Sometimes you need words or phrases from another language to be more expressive. In my country most people are bilingual with English and you"ll rarely find people speaking Shona without sprinkles of English or vice versa.

[u/WulfDracul → u/CaioHSF]

It happens to me but rarely, especially when it comes to French and English. At other times, when I'll want to say a word in French, the word in Bassa'a will pop up in my mind for example and I'll pronounce it in Bassa'a.

Like I said, it rarely happens though. It flows naturally most of the time.

[u/Cooltashee00]

Two. English and Yoruba.

[u/Willlllllllly]

English, afrikaans, Oshiwambo* and some German. *my mom is mixed oshindonga and oshikwanama so my oshiwambo is an unholy mix of the two. Those are dialects

[u/OddTheoryCircle]

Swahili and English

[u/blueboy628 → u/OddTheoryCircle]

Habari yako Habari yako in speed voice 😂

[u/tr0LL-SAMA]

Xhosa, Zulu, English, Sotho, Japanese(N4)

[u/696E6E6F]

Kinyarwanda, Chewa, English and Swahili conversional.

[u/Over-Space833]

2, English and Nyanja. I want to learn Chewa as that was my dad's language and is my tribe. As a hobby, I started learning German but put that on a back burner to learn Irish (because that's what my daughter is going to be taught in and I want to be able to help her with her homework).

[u/AssistConstant6926]

I speak two languages fluently; English and Chichewa. And I also speak to a lesser extent one other Malawian language and Sudanese Arabic. I have passive and working knowledge of Ancient Greek, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Classical Arabic.

I've always been interested in languages and linguistics since I was young. I'm still vigilant to improving my fluency in Arabic and try to learn another language. Studying languages is the most activity my brain enjoys.

[u/Mulopwe_wa_Kongu]

4 1. Lingala 2. French 3. Dutch 4. English

[u/MedicalLeadership633]

Somali, Swahili and English

[u/MandyxLola]

Four incl English. My HL is Siswati. I learned Zulu from necessity, 3 years living in EC made me semi-fluent in Xhosa. All of them being in the same language family is a cheat code.

I can hear a couple others but dont speak them. The tragedy is I learned French from grade 2-7 but cant do more than tell you the days of the week and count to 100. Now I can't claim it and look cool on reddit 😔

[u/Hopeful_Idea1568 → u/MandyxLola]

Are you from Mpumalanga or Swaziland? Do Swazi people learn Zulu?

[u/MandyxLola → u/Hopeful_Idea1568]

Swaziland. I assume you're asking about school, no we learnt siswati at school.

Most of us can get by with a little (butchered) Zulu because its so similar but also TV shows familiarised us with it. I learned it because I was living in dbn for varsity

[u/Hopeful_Idea1568 → u/MandyxLola]

I meant as a second language,  is learning Zulu common? In Mpumalanga it's the most common second language 

[u/MandyxLola → u/Hopeful_Idea1568]

In SZ, no its not common. Most who speak Zulu only do so because they studied/worked in SA.

[u/koldestkenyan]

English and I taught myself Swahili (conversational)

[u/Accomplished_Mix3866]

Mandinka, Swedish, English and French

[u/Gold-Concentrate-744]

French, English, enough Malagasy to understand the general idea. And same for Spanish.

[u/Sea_Hovercraft_7859]

French, Lingala,English, Swahili, Kituba with some control of Spanish

[u/king_eclat]

I speak seven languages. I learned Italian online and am now fluent. Currently, I’m learning Finnish to challenge myself, as it’s one of the most difficult languages to learn.

[u/IndependentMuscle249]

Five, not saying what they are. I don't want to be geo-located. lol

[u/whichevernamethereis]

Arabic, English and German

[u/Donovan-TheGreat]

Nine of our Official languages. 1. English  2. Zulu 3. Xhosa 4. Sotho 5. Tswana 6. Tsonga 7. Venda 8. Pedi 9. Swati

My Afrikaans is rusty but I understand it quite well. Currently learning Mandarin

[u/Technical_Tear5162 → u/Donovan-TheGreat]

I'd really like to know if you speak all these languages at native level. Or it's kind of like you can get by.

[u/Donovan-TheGreat → u/Technical_Tear5162]

Native level for all except for my Venda and Tsonga, I'd say I'm intermediate there. My mandarin is also intermediate level. 

[u/Technical_Tear5162 → u/Donovan-TheGreat]

Wow. Impressive but I do get the Nguni and the Sotho-Tswana language grouping makes it easier for South Africans to be multi-lingual. When I was young watching SA soapies in Zim I found it weird that people.would speak in different languages to each other and understand. But I guess that's how diversity works. It's great that SA prioritises all languages.

[u/desertknight1234]

Arabic and English

[u/AndryJohanesa]

French, English and our native language.

[u/AskAnAfrican-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

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[u/NetCharming3760]

Somali, Arabic, and English.

[u/Old-Priority1388]

I can speak English and Yoruba(intermediate) then after maybe Spanish or Igbo.

[u/Longjumping_Ad_1140]

4 and i am on my way learning the 5th one and i'm on my 6th month. it's the hardest one so far. Mandarin.

[u/OgXwMr]

English, Somali, Swahili.

[u/Sxavage_]

Fluently: English

Proficiently: TshiVenda, SePedi, IsiZulu and Afrikaans

[u/Busy-Skin2299]

Fante, English, German, French(basic)

[u/krymzynnova]

Portuguese (Native) Spanish (B2) French (B1-B2) English

And a bantu language, those are the ones I can speak with minimal to zero issues

Can be Conversational in Italian and German

Know a couple useful phrases in greek

Learning romanian, polish & Russian

[u/MoiMemeMyself]

Pulaar (Fulfulde), Maninkakan (Mandingo), Sossokhui, French, English. Can read (but don’t understand) Arabic, Russian and Greek

[u/mAmsSsSS]

Hausa and English

[u/Capable_Teaching_340]

Roughly 6.
English, Spanish, Swahili, French, Yoruba, Igbo, technically if you look it up Nigerian Pidgin counts as a language but yh I won’t count those.

I’d say my big 3 in terms of fluency are those first 3 in the list

Then there’s also languages I’m not sure if I should list but I know phrases and words in too like Malagasy and to a lesser extent Somali
Anyway…