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Old 14th August 2020, 19:38   #31
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Interesting thread!
  • Marathi - my mother tongue. Interestingly I was born and brought up in central India and never formally studied Marathi. I consider my Hindi to be better than my Marathi.
  • Hindi - I'm quite proud of my grasp on Hindi and honestly a little concerned with how people I know who grew up learning Hindi are dismissive about it and barely use it anywhere.. but I digress here.
  • Gujarati - My girlfriend of 10 years (and wife of 4 years out of those 10 ) is Gujarati and naturally I picked it up (and quite well if I may say so).
  • German - very very basic understanding of the language. Partly due to my interest in the German band Rammstein and also due to studying German for 1 semester in my MBA. Interestingly I find comprehending verbal German easier than written German!

Apart from this, when I was younger I had a Malayalee friend and his parents would often speak with him exclusively in their mother tongue so I did manage to learn phrases of Malayalam - most of them were them scolding him

I can also have a passable conversation in Bengali and Punjabi I guess - thanks to friends who have these mother tongues!
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Old 14th August 2020, 19:39   #32
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

English: Read, Write, Converse
Kannada: Read, Write
Kundapura Kannada : Converse with mother and her relatives
Managalore Kannada: Converse with wife and her relatives
Bangalore Kannada: Converse with people/friends in Bangalore
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Old 14th August 2020, 19:49   #33
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Mother tongue is Tamil ( To be more precise Talayalam) but brought up in Bombay. So more comfortable in Hindi and can read/speak/write basic Marathi. Learnt to read the Tamil script as it was needed to travel in TNSTC whenever I visited TN. Even then it seemed shameful to not know the Tamil script speaking Tamil. Unfortunately even my parents don't know to read the script so had to pick up in college from a book.

Did PG in Bangalore so can speak and slowly read Kannada. I learnt conversational Kannada for approximately 3 months which was useful.

Now working in Andhra so can understand/speak little Telugu. Script of Kannada and Telugu are almost same.

English obviously is understood.
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Old 14th August 2020, 20:22   #34
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

I really struggle with languages. My list is as under:

1) English - U,R,W,S,T
2) Hindi - U, R, W, S (but not fluently and with a heavy accent)
3) Marathi - U, R, S(very poorly - probably with more than 50% Hindi and English mixed)
4) Tamil (Palghat Style - mixed with Malayalam) - U, S (enough to save my life)
5) Tamil (formal) - Can’t understand at all - will catch more of the Bengali or Gujarati news than a Tamil news bulletin
6) French - R (can’t understand spoken French since my French teacher had a Mallu accent - but can manage to read, though it is deteriorating)

Don’t label me a Lutyens gang member or SoBo snob please - have lived in SoBo for only 2 years out of nearly 50.
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Old 14th August 2020, 20:43   #35
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

I am from Kerala��

Malayalam - Speak, Read, Write, Understand
English - Speak, Read, Write, Understand
Hindi - Speak, Read, Write, Understand
Kannada - Speak, Understand
Tamil - Speak, Understand (Can read signboards and news headlines as well)

I am able to follow (little bit) Marathi, Telugu, and Tulu.

I have 3 brothers and they know few other languages as well. If you shout in front of our home in your language, chances someone coming out and answering in the same language is very high

Last edited by Latheesh : 14th August 2020 at 20:51.
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Old 14th August 2020, 20:49   #36
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Malayalam - U R S W/2 T
Hindi - U R S W/2 T
English - U R S W T
Gujarati - U R S/2
Marathi - U/2
Tamil - U/2

U/2 means can understand/manage. Not comprehend/deal in tough, colloquial language. Jokes can be tough.

On similar lines S/2 means can speak but not fluently, in this case takes help of hindi words more & W/2 means can manage but out of touch for many years.

Last edited by Vasuki : 14th August 2020 at 20:51.
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Old 14th August 2020, 20:57   #37
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

My mother tongue is Tulu but I struggled to understand and speak it as I was born in Bombay and spent the first 30 years of my life in Gujarat.

1. Hindi - Can Read, Write, Understand and Speak Fluently
2. English - Can Read, Write, Understand and Speak Fluently
3. Gujarati- Can Read, Write, Understand fully and Speak somewhat Fluently
4. Tulu - Can Understand fully and speak Fluently now with a heavy accent(8 years after settling down in Mangalore).
5. Malayalam- Can understand quite a bit as I had many Malayalee friends in Gujarat
6. Kannada - more of guessing than actually being able to understand.

Last edited by Rudra Sen : 15th August 2020 at 12:30. Reason: edited
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Old 14th August 2020, 21:18   #38
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Languages, a nice topic

1. Kannada - Speak very well, grew up in Bangalore. However, never studied the language in school and I never got around to learning to read/write. In fact, it was after my class X that I picked up the language almost exclusively by traveling around in BTS (pre-cursor to BMTC) and KSRTC buses and conversing with the conductors, drivers and fellow travellers

2. Hindi - Speak, Read, Write, studied as second language in school

3. English - Speak, Read, Write, medium of instruction through my education

4. Tamil - Speak, Read, Write (albeit very slowly, not proficient enough). Mother tongue, whatever little I can Read/Write was by self-learning

5. Malayalam - Speak and can understand the language well, thanks to some roots from Kerala. Topic of confusion for many of my friends when I say we speak Tamil at home but have roots in Kerala!

6. Telugu - Speak a bit and can understand the language to some extent

7. Sanskrit - Read/Write, studied as third language in school. Never attempted speaking/conversing in the language though

Last edited by NPV : 14th August 2020 at 21:23.
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Old 14th August 2020, 21:19   #39
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Wow, going through the thread and just figured out the popularity of languages down south. Okay, so here I am with little additions of my own :
I can read, write, understand and speak Bangla( mother tongue), English and Hindi.

I can read, understand and speak Assamese.

I can understand Punjabi, Odiya, Bhojpuri and little bit of Haryanvi as well !!
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Old 14th August 2020, 21:45   #40
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Kannada - SWRUT
Mother tongue.

English - SWRUT
English became my primary thinking language, probably during college days.

Hindi - SRU - would have liked to add W too, but it's been 20+ years since i cleared high school, which was the last time i wrote anything in Hindi! No fluency in speaking. It's common for me to respond back in English when someone initiates conversation in Hindi.

Tulu - SU - would include R too if Kannada script is used (Tulu has an ancient script but it's no longer used). No fluency in speaking though, in spite of Tulu being the primary language for most of our extended family relatives. My maternal grandfather insisted on Kannada as the language at home, and that effect has carried on for couple of generations now. Add to it, my own lack of interest in learning languages, i don't feel comfortable talking in Tulu at all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RedTerrano View Post
Contrary to propaganda induced popular belief, we do not have one national language. Our constitution recognizes multiple languages as official languages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keeleri_Achu View Post
Thank you. You can argue with your friends. You can argue with random strangers on the internet. But when your 100% malayali mother who have never lived outside of Kerala argues with you as apparently she was taught 'Hindi hamara rashtra basha hei' in primary school, you tend to lose all hope and just smile and keep mum whenever the topic pop up.
You can't blame her! This notion of Hindi as national language existed since pre-independence days. There's an institution Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha, established in 1918 primarily to propagate Hindi in southern states to bring the country together using Hindi as a platform. This institution conducts examinations like Rashtrabhasha Praveen, even today. My mother cleared this exam back in 1970's, and i am sure she too will feel that Hindi is indeed the national language.
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Old 14th August 2020, 21:48   #41
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Telugu - Mother Tongue (Read/Speak, not a competent writer though)
Kannada - Read/Write/Speak fluently - Had my middle and high school in Bengaluru (1987 to 1993), and staying in Vijayanagar and studying Kannada in school, really helped
Hindi - Read/Write/Speak Fluently - thanks to my early childhood in Chittaranjan, WB
Bengali - Speak - haltingly - Studied Bengali as 3rd Language till my 6th grade.
Tamil - Speak very sparingly - my two year stint in Chennai circa 1998 to 2000 really helped.
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Old 14th August 2020, 22:02   #42
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Like a typical UP guy, I am conversed with only Hindi ( RWSUT) and English ( RWSU). Looks like I am a bit challenged on language side. Sanskrit was only to get some pass mark.
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Old 15th August 2020, 02:47   #43
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Malayalam (mother tongue) - SWRUT

Hindi - SWRU - Learned it in school, then movies and later web-series have helped to keep in touch with the language. Speaking is the more difficult part as I am not used to speaking a lot in Hindi.

Tamil - SRU - This is a curious one. My parents are well-versed in the language, as my father worked in a few places in TN, before I was even born! So, they used to watch Tamil serials and movies on TV when I was young, which let me pick up a bit of the language. I wouldn't claim to be fluent in Tamil. I can read a bit, again picking up the alphabets from TV. Maybe it should be described as pattern-matching instead of reading, as if the fonts are changed, I can get confused

English - SWRUT

Finnish - SWRU (having taken a couple of courses, but have a long way to go before becoming any good at it)
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Old 15th August 2020, 03:56   #44
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Kannada - SWURT
Telugu - SURT
Tamil - SU
Hindi - SWURT
English - SWURT
Finnish - SWUR
the gauge for Finnish is not the same as with Indian languages though.
Can Speak fluently and try colloquial Finnish but volume of words is low. Needs practice. Technically the Writing is easy as the pronunciation drives spellings. eg. Ä, Å and A are all pronounced differently. hard to think in Finnish.


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Finnish - SWRU (having taken a couple of courses, but have a long way to go before becoming any good at it)
Where have you taken your Finnish Courses?
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Old 15th August 2020, 06:15   #45
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re: How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?

Being born and brought up in Delhi, I am quite good at Spoken Hindi. People normally don't believe I am a South Indian when they hear me speak.

The languages I Know in the order of proficiency.

English- Speak, Read, Write, Understand
Hindi- Speak, Read, Write, Understand
Malayalam- Speak, Read, Write, Understand
Marathi- Understand, Read
Tamil- Understand, (Speak?)

My wife being a Malayalee brought up in Bangalore has similar language skills. Her Kannada will be as good as my Hindi. But Hindi and Malayalam slightly lower.

My 3.5 year old daughter understands basic Hindi and Malayalam, but speaks only in English (Peppa Pig English).
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