Depends on the level of fluency you seek. There are more passively trilingual than actively trilingual.

i wish i could get my german down. all i really like to say is ich frage mich wo ist die frikadellen und warum ist die frikadellen sehr gross? ich weis nicht...

how many time i'd use that in germany? probably like 67

My friend is, or more accurately is learning German and Japanese. I only know German, aber mein Grammatik ist sehr scheisse. Was ist eine "frikadellen"? Mein Wörterbuch hat sie nicht.

Is there a point to that giberish?

Some people are more learned with more popular languages that deal with the real world.
Such as Spanish, French, Chinese(Mandarin), and English0- such as me, so what is that? Quad-lingual?

1. Never say "sehr scheiße" theses both words did not fit together.
2. it´s "Frikadelle" only in plural "Frikadelle(n)"
3. A Frikadelle is a meatball.

Ad. 3: nope, a 'Frikadelle' (frikandel in Dutch) is a fried stick of meat, usually combined with french fries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frikandel

Quote:

"In the Netherlands and Curaçao, the frikandel mainly consists of a mixture of pork, beef, chicken, and by some manufacturers horse meat.[citation needed]"

Urban legend states it's a fried horse penis.

Hm, I take my words back. It seems that frikadellen are actually meatballs, while a frikaNdel is a meat stick.

@Ursa
I am from Germany and you are not describing a Frikadellle :-)
largeham asked in german so its about the german food not the dutch...

A german Frikadelle or Bremsklotz or Fleichpflanzerl or Bullete
Are Ground Beef with Egg, Bread Crumps, Onions, Mustard Salt and Pepper.
Mix that all together roll littel balls and tak them in a Pan with hot oil.
Let them get brown and enjoy....
GREAT STUFF

Yeah, I know what you mean. My mother makes them too sometimes. In Dutch they're called 'gehaktballen' (literally 'meatloaf balls'). De-licious...

I'm trilingual in at least those three, and my Mandarin Chinese is better than either German (the foreign language I studied in high school) or Japanese (one of my majors in university). And it's not really right to say this is a Linguistics question. You're using the old, popular definition of linguistics. And I'm also a linguist (my other major).

@Ursa
"'gehaktballen' (literally 'meatloaf balls')" er, no. Gehakt means chopped (think of the word hacked) and ballen you can guess at, so a literal translation would be 'chopped balls' (ouch!).

@Zephyris
"trilingual in at least those three". Great language skills but that just doesn't sound right, try "I'm fluent in those three, and ...".

Thanks Möricke, maybe you can do my German exam for me :P. Since you're from Germany, you would've learned a few languages.

@ diplomat61: I see, I was wrong again. In Dutch the word 'gehakt' could indeed mean 'chopped' but is also used as a noun, in which the correct translation would be 'ground meat' or 'mince(d) meat'. But according to Wikipedia 'gehaktbal' corresponds with 'meat ball'. FYI...

@Ursa: no question about gehaktballen meaning meat balls, it was the meatLOAF bit that caught my eye. I have never seen gehakt used on it's own as a noun to describe anything, including meatloaf, but cross-checking E-D dictionary I see that it can be used that way. My apologies.

Spreekt u Nederlands?

in my german class i learned frikadellen were giant meatballs and that fleishballchen were regular meatballs.

@ zephyris:
Yes I see what you mean about linguistics. And I'm the one who loves to be technically accurate! How embaressing! (except spelling, I'm not so good at that in English)

Mein Deutsch wird immer besser und bald werde ich Japanisch lernen beginnen.

Wow. This conversation degenerated really fast.

Yo. I can.

@De Gaulle. There are more native German speakers in the world than there are French. I would say that German is a better choice than French. My languages are Spanish, German, Italian, English, Japanese, and a little French.

I want to learn Russian and French (lol I found a 56 year old French-English dictionary hiding in my bookcase) , but I've heard Russian is bloody difficult.

@JWD: "more native German speakers in the world than there are French" Really? Are you refering to the population of the two countries, in which case I agree, but is this still true when you add in Quebec, half of Belgium, Pondicherry and assorted French dependencies.

In any case, I would argue that French is a better choice than German because there are (probably) more people who speak it as a first OR second language (the Mahgreb, much of West Africa, Lebanon). But on that basis Spanish or Chinese are even more useful.

Of course, it depends on what you want to learn the language for. To charm the ladieeez with the language of lurve: pick French rather than German (or Dutch). To set up a sushi restaurant, learn Japanese (although most of the Japanese restaurants in the Netherlands are run by Chinese so I get a laugh with my very basic Cantonese).

In 20+ years working around the world I have picked a little of a lot of languages. There is no doubt that English is the most useful language, in all that time I have only been unable to communicate on a few occasions. Learning a few words wherever you go is always a good move (hello, tea, coffee, beer, please, thankyou and toilet is my basic vocabulary). Any language with a non-Roman script (e.g. Arabic, Thai) is hard for me but the most difficult language that I have encountered is Chinese because it is tonal, that is tone changes meaning, and I find it very difficult to hear the tone being used. Couple this with a non-roman script and ..... aargh. Oddly, my Chinese friends tell me that I am quite good at producing tones.

For those considering learning Chinese go for Mandarin rather than any of the dialects. Because I was being posted to Guangzhou (i.e. Canton) I was advised to learn Cantonese, which was not the best choice in practice. However, bear in mind that not everyone in China speaks Mandarin, many less educated people only speak their native dialect. So, if for example your intention is to work with farmers in Xinjiang be prepared to learn a dialect as well. The good news is that Mandarin, with only four tones, is one of the easiest dialects.

@diplomat french may be considered the language of love but Italian makes the women go weaker at the knees. i mean it sounds even better. Bounjourno! sounds more exotic than Bonjour

@diplomat61: "Spreekt u Nederlands?"

Zeer zeker, mijn waarde. En u?

@DJEcc24: si

@Ursa: alleen een beetje

@Diplomat: Would you care to cite your sources, as I can site mine. Belgium is split between three languages (French, German, and Flemish), as well as Switzerland (French, German, and Italian). Now, the eastern border of France is German speaking (Alsace-Lorraine), Germany is German speaking, Austria is German speaking, Leichtenstein, North Eastern Italy, parts of Africa still speak German, areas in Micronesia still speak German, North Western Czech Republic, Danzig, Eastern Poland, Southern Denmark, and parts of South America.

German is also the root language of the Scandinavian languages minus Finnish. It also is the father of Nederlandisch, Afrikaans, English, Dansk, and Flemish.

Would you like to try and argue more, cause I am a language major.

Oh and for charming the ladies. My girlfriend is French, but she likes my language better when I am trying to be sexy. It is manlier and reminds them of when they were read child fairy tales at a young age.

Oops, forgot parts of Romania too.

And Luxembourg... And parts of Pennsylvania... The list goes on.

@JWD: calm down, no need to site (sic) anything. I asked a question "but is this stil true .....", thank you for answering it.

Can you also answer my second (implied) question about the number of people who speak French as a second language vs. German?

My primary point is: why are you learning language X. To communicate with the greatest number of people? to study origins of a language group? to live in a particular place? German will not always be the best choice.

In the thread on WW1 I recall saying that you were a history major studying the period, now you are a language major with a thing for German, and dominating French women to boot. Is there anything you are not telling us? Should the rest of Europe be worried?

No, to be precise I am a language major with a thing for any language besides German, cause German is my first language. There are a lot of people who take French as a second language, only because they are right next to the country. We must take into account, just because they speak it as a second language doesn't make it a better language. If more people speak German as a primary than French, but more people speak French as a secondary than German, wouldn't that usually mean, a good deal of those who speak it as a secondary speak German as a primary.

But I digress, the question was who speaks English, German, and Japanese. I do, I speak English, Deutsch, and Nihongo.

My degree is major World Language, minor European History (Only European between the ages of Rise of Rome to Modern). I studied at the LMU in Munich. My goal is to be a tour director for a Museum or to be the Curator itself.

Check my post in my profile, direct copy

"I would like to point out that I minor in European History (my major is World Language). I would not argue world war one with me as that tends to be my area of focus. To narrow the focus of blaim from Serbia to even the Black Hand would be fair. The Archduke himself on that car drive was giving a peaceful show to the people of Serbia as they where being added to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (story for another day). This did not sit well with the Black Hand, whose sole purpose was to build a Greater Serbian empire like that of the middle ages. They armed these college kids with various instruments; IEDs, Cyanide, and Mauser Pistols mainly. They then sat on the main road of Sarajevo, and waited for Ferdinand's motor carriage to pass. The first one threw his IED at the vehichle, it blew up between the Duke's car and the car after. The Duke's driver spead up as the terrorist jumped into the main river and attempted to commit suicide with the Cyanide, which had spoiled and made him vommit instead of killing him. The next one tried, the bomb failed to detonate and the same thing happened. Next we come to Princip, who threw his grenade and it bounced off of the car. After few few more misses, the car turned around and stopped on a side street. Princip, the failed assasin from earlier happened to be at a cafe'. He noticed the car, drew his pistol and shot them. Austria tried to make a treaty with Serbia, who declined. Austria then grabbed Germany to help them against Russia (who Serbia was an ally of), who barely agreed to help due to Austrian neutrality in the Franco-Prussian war. Next we have why the war became so big of a deal..."

@JWD:
Don't you mean "Proto-Germanic" is the originator of the Scandinavian languages, English, etc.? I'm into linguistics too, though nothing in the way of a formal education.

Well, If we really want to get into it Old Saxon is the origin of all of the languages. But most Scandanavian languages and German sound almost one in the same.

&

Please keep up the interest, it is always good to hear about more people trying to learn more.

@JWD: good to hear that your plans don't include European domination.

"We must take into account, just because they speak it as a second language doesn't make it a better language." What do you mean by "better"? If you want to communicate with as many people as possible then pick the language that has most speakers (primary or secondary).

I just did a bit of checking and found this:
http://www.vistawide.com/languages/top_30_languages.htm
It shows more native & secondary German speakers than French, by approx 60%, which really surprised me.

Better to learn is what I meant. If it is their second language compared to their first, you both will be speaking in second languages and can become confused.

@JWD: "Better to learn". Your second sentence suggests that you mean ability to communicate with people in their first language, in which case Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, English, Arabic, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian & Japanese all rate above German.

Yes, but not French.

i want o learn an african language with the clicky noises