For better or for worse, I’m known as a decilingual. This is both a sorta-complete way — or an incomplete way — of describing my case. Indeed, there are a number of languages outside of this list that I can read — but that’s about it. Is that “knowing” a language? If that’s about reading a sign in Japanese about the escalator being borked, yes. If it means communicating with people in Tokyo for about five hours in the same language, probably not…
Below are the languages that I know. Those that I can speak with relative fluency are in bold — so you may want to try one of these to start the convo…
RECENT: Read my post about how similar English is (along with German and Dutch) to Luxembourgish… (wonder what that lingo is?)
人家問我「你會多少國語言?」這個時候，我給出的答案通常比較… 低調吧。畢竟，作為中國人，我們不應該太過張揚。但是面對人家老外的話，該說的還是真的得說: 比如嘛，語言方面上，我確實會十國語言。
至於會多少，能不能就跟著一個人用這種語言連續多個小時「侃大山」，就要看以下清單了。凡是以粗體顯示的語言，均為我熟練掌握的語言。註: 這裡或會「省略」掉一些方言，如粵語、台語 / 閩南語等。
- English / 英語
- Mandarin Chinese / 華語 (現代漢語)
- German / 德語 / Deutsch *1
- French / 法語 / Français *2
- Italian / 義大利語 / Italiano
- Korean / 朝鮮語 / 조선어 *3
- Spanish / 西班牙語 / Español
- Romansh / 羅曼什語 / Rumantsch *4
- Latin / 拉丁語 / Latina *5
- Dutch / 荷蘭語 / Nederlands
此外，我也熟悉下列語言；不過，由於知識寬廣相比不足，或因其或許不屬於「相對獨立語言」，所以暫不將其納入「十國語言」名單中:
I also know a bit of the following languages (or accents) — note that they are not included in the “Full 10″ list, as knowledge of these languages is comparatively spotty, or because they are not really “full” languages…
- Japanese / 日語 / 日本語
- Swiss-German / 瑞士德語 / Schwiizerdütsch
- Taiwanese / Minnan / 台語 / 閩南話
- Cantonese / 粵語
- Tianjinese / 天津話
- Shanghainese / 上海閒話
- Northeastern Chinese Mandarin accent / 東北話
*1 Based mainly on Swiss Standard German / 以標準瑞士德語 (非土話) 為主
*2 Based mainly on the use of French in Switzerland / 以瑞士使用的法語為主
*3 Based mainly on the usage of the language in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea / 以朝鮮民主主義人民共和國語言使用方式為主
*4 Based mainly on Rumantsch Grischun / 以瑞士聯邦標準為主
*5 Reference language only / 只做參考語言