22 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3
Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German
| Message 17 of 22 14 April 2010 at 3:42am | IP Logged |
Southern California has more than 25 languages. I have heard nearly everything.
Best multi-lingual place in the world in my opinion.
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| guesto Groupie Australia Joined 5741 days ago 76 posts - 118 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 18 of 22 14 April 2010 at 3:55am | IP Logged |
Well, practically any large city in the world will have a massive selection of diasporas that speak all kinds of languages, that's just a given and not very interesting.
Imo, it would be more interesting to discuss places where the general populace is actually multilingual to a large extent. Where you can use either language and expect to be able to get around more or less equally well.
For example, It seems Ukraine is something like this. I've seen clips of TV shows where half the guests speak Ukrainian, half speak Russian, the host speaks Russian and the captions and graphics are in Ukrainian...
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| pohaku Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5651 days ago 192 posts - 367 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 19 of 22 14 April 2010 at 4:10am | IP Logged |
If you're interested in Japanese, Chinese (all flavors), Thai, Tagalog, Vasayan, Ilocano (those last three are Filipino), Korean, Vietnamese, Samoan, Tongan, Marshallese, Chuukese, Pohnpeian, Laotian, Cambodian, English, and many more languages--plus Hawaiian--then Honolulu, Hawaii, is the place to be. And I'm not even mentioning the languages of all the travellers, students, and so forth. One nice thing, too, is that no one ethnic group here is in the majority. English is the most widely spoken language (often in the form of the local "pidgin," which is technically a creole), but those of European descent are not in the majority, and neither are the Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, or any other group. Every group is a minority, though some groups are, of course, larger than others. You'll find ways here to speak, read, and study all of those languages above, and you'll find them used in various ways, from newspapers and radio and TV broadcasts to shop signs and restaurant menus.
Edited by pohaku on 14 April 2010 at 4:39am
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| chanjhj Bilingual Diglot Newbie Singapore Joined 5449 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: Japanese, Spanish
| Message 20 of 22 14 April 2010 at 5:10pm | IP Logged |
Personally, I feel most places in the world have sizeable communities of minorities which
speak different languages. The main point is to get in touch with those groups. On a side
note, the languages you wish to learn would also affect your decision. A side note about
Singapore: Its true that you can pick up numerous languages here and finding native
speakers would be easy, but mostly English is spoken around here, then followed by
Chinese, Malay and Tamil. And then a huge amount of other languages (Korean, Japanese,
French, Spanish etc.) , I would suppose, they are less often heard. But I suppose its
good if you want to pick up Chinese, or Singlish. You definitely can't avoid that.
Edited by chanjhj on 14 April 2010 at 5:13pm
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| vilas Pentaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 6960 days ago 531 posts - 722 votes Speaks: Spanish, Italian*, English, French, Portuguese
| Message 21 of 22 14 April 2010 at 5:30pm | IP Logged |
Multi-lingual cities
The following list is an example:
Accra, Ghana - English, Akan, Ga
Ahmedabad, India - English, Hindi, Gujarati
Alghero, Italy - Italian, Sardinian, Catalan
Andorra, Andorra - Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, French
Aosta, Italy - Italian, French,Patois Arpitan
Baguio City, Philippines - English, Tagalog, Ilokano, Ifugao,
Bangalore, India - English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu
Barcelona, Spain - Spanish, Catalan
Beirut, Lebanon - Arabic, French, English, Armenian
Biel, Switzerland - French, German
Bolzano, Italy - German, Italian
Brussels, Belgium - Dutch, French
Cape Town, South Africa - English, Xhosa, Afrikaans
Cebu, Philippines - Cebuano, English, Tagalog
Chennai, India - English, Tamil, Urdu
Chandigarh,India - English, Hindi, Punjabi
Darjeeling, India - Nepali, English, Hindi, Bengali
Delhi, India - English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi
Dublin, Ireland - English, Irish
Dubai, United Arab Emirates - English, Arabic, Malayalam, Hindi
Durban, South Africa - English, Zulu
Gibraltar - English, Spanish, Llanito
Gorizia, Italy - Italian, Friulian, Slovene
Fribourg, Switzerland - French, German
Iguaçu,Brazil - Portuguese,Spanish
Helsinki - Finnish, Swedish
Hong Kong - Chinese, English
Hyderabad, India - English, Hindi, Telugu, Urdu
Jerusalem - Hebrew, Arabic, English,, Yiddish, Russian and many more
Kabul - Afghanistan - Pashto, Persian
Kinshasa,Congo - French, Lingala
Kolkatta, India - English, Hindi, Bengali
Koper, Slovenia - Slovene, Italian
Kuala Lumpur - Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, Tamil
Lahore - Pakistan - Punjabi, Urdu.
Lomé, Togo - Ewe, French
Luxembourg,Luxembourg - French, German, Luxembourgish, English
Macau - Portugese, Chinese
Manila Philippines - English, Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilokano, Spanish, others
Mangalore, India - Kannada, Hindi, Tulu
Miami, Florida - English, French Creole, Spanish
Montreal, Canada - French, English
Mumbai, India - English, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu
Nicosia, Cyprus - Greek, Turkish
Oranjestad, Aruba - Dutch, English
Ottawa, Canada - English, French
Patna, India - English, Hindi, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Magahi
Pula, Croatia - Croatian, Italian
Pune, India - English, Hindi, Marathi
San Juan, Puerto Rico - English, Spanish
San Francisco, USA - Chinese, English, Spanish
Sanandaj, Iran - Kurdi
Singapore - English, Chinese, Hokkien, Malay, Tamil, Cantonese
Tabriz, Iran - Official Language is Persian but most of the people speak Azeri
Tel Aviv, Israel - Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, English, Aramaic and more
Trieste, Italy - Italian, Slovene
Trivandrum, India - Malayalam, English, Hindi
Valencia, Spain - Valencian, Spanish ,Catalan
Vigo, Spain - Galician, Spanish
Ilocos , Philippines - Ilokano, English, Tagalog, Spanish
Willemstad, Curaçao - Papiamento, Dutch
Zamboanga, Philippines - Chavacano, Tagalog, English, Tausug, Visayan
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| Quinn Senior Member United States Joined 6323 days ago 134 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian, Spanish
| Message 22 of 22 15 April 2010 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
Interesting post. My own town (Oakland, CA) is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in America with Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Lao, Korean, Thai, Tagalog, Hindi, and Urdu, among other languages being widely-spoken in a relatively small geographic area.
Unfortunately, as in many cities, most ethnic groups tend to stick to their own communities and are often suspicious of outsiders, so even though foreign language speakers are all around, it's not always easy to find opportunities to interact with them.
One of my own goals is to gain enough confidence in my Spanish that I can head to the Latino part of town to shop and interact with native speakers. Hopefully by the end of this year I'll be ready, but we'll see.
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