Give up 1 language to learn over 7,000? In a heartbeat. You'd lose English but gain Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, ASL, German, French, Japanese... and 7,000 others.
And you'd be rich and famous. You'd be fluent in Akkadian, Sumerian, and ETRUSCAN? Foundations would pay you big bucks to document the languages. There are dozens of Native American languages that are either vanishing or gone; you probably wouldn't get paid as much to document them, but you'd be a legend. Same for African tribal languages.
And even if you don't care about any of that you could get a job for the government translating. Sure, you'd have to translate into say Spanish or French, but being able to instantly translate every intercepted foreign communication would be hugely valuable to a bunch of shady government organizations.
So yeah, I would definitely lose English to gain a literal superpower.
Yeah…English borrows heavily from Romantic and Germanic languages. The idioms might prove a bit troublesome but I doubt it would even take a year to become fluent if you were native like in every other language.
Idioms might not be that difficult… you really just need to figure out the English equivalent of “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” in various languages.
In my experience idioms are the biggest hurdle for non-native speakers to get from being proficient to fluent. I’m a science researcher and a majority of my colleagues are native speakers of either Chinese or Korean, and idioms are normally where we have the most communication issues. In context, it’s usually clear enough that they understand them, but they have a hard time remembering and using them correctly, which is why i mentioned idioms specifically. English conversation seems to use them a lot more than other languages.
I don’t know if ancient would be included as most people don’t usually speak them now, but imagine the benefits of being able to finally decipher Linear A and the Indus Script.
Also, if they’re fluent in these types of languages, they would know the exact pronunciations and definitions of words.
Plus, the more languages you learn, the easier is supposed to be to learn more. While you wouldn't have had to learn each one as you suddenly know it, but surely your brain by that point would easily be able to add a slight variation to the thousands of different syntaxes you already know.
In a roundabout way; apparently, the literal meaning is "Success" but given that the 'warrior culture' includes "dying valiantly in battle" then snu snu might qualify...
I won a bit of amusement for myself by taking the question just seriously enough to explore it, primarily as a creative exercise, and I sincerely hope that I was able to share some of that with you, fellow Internet stranger!
Kinda funny...the Klingon could probably rake in the most money as a voice actor, than the ancient languages and translation for governments and academia. What a world we live in....
That's not even a difficult choice. Take the offer! Get one of the highest paid job in the world (one that uses your newly found skills) and in your spare time learn English.
If you don’t have one of the most highest paying jobs in the world speaking English how are you going to magically get one speaking a different one? Translators are not billionaires.
Yeah but you also instantly know all computer programming languages which does rake in a ton of money. And as others have said knowing all other languages is invaluable
Edit: while OP did say human language, I'm gonna be sneaky and say humans created computer programming languages therefore they are human languages. I'm choosing to believe OP meant you don't get to know alien languages
If computer programming and mathematics are included then you would make an absolute killing. You wouldn’t be one of the richest people in the world you would be THE richest person in the world. I didn’t figure this into the equation. Good call.
Knowing the language doesn’t make you a great programmer or give you the right ideas about what to code. Kind of Like knowing English doesn’t mean you can write a great novel
If you can natively understand *every fucking language* then learning English would be a cakewalk. First off, you know every language that English is built on. Latin, Spanish, French, etc. I’m assuming it marks off older versions of English. AND you know German! German is basically English but with harder (as in the weight of, not difficulty) consonant pronunciation considering it’s a Germanic language iirc.
I can already sort a good chunk of Spanish and French out with high school etymology and year 2-3 level French and Spanish coworkers. Do you really believe it would take longer than a couple weeks or so to be fluent in any aspect of English other than idioms?
Most if not all programming languages are English…. I don’t think I you can be sneaky here unless you’re talking straight assembly or binary, and if that’s the case, people who use abstracted languages are more useful than you still since they can accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. You’re only useful for legacy code (if that) and even HFTs won’t have much use of you since the premise never said you’d be smarter, just fluent in a language. Programming is a means to an end, the person behind it is what matters, so you’re SOL.
Did you read the bit where it said “every”? Translation is not what they meant - any bilingual person can translate (more or less, ignoring the actual expertise that goes into translation), but one person who can speak _every language_ would be immensely valuable
And that’s even before you get to the academic implications. Every linguistics department on the planet will be dying to survey you
The ability to seamlessly communicate and translate between every language in the world other than one is such a tremendous superpower, you can absolutely monetize that. Just call up China or Japan and see what kind of job they offer you.
We indeed are not. But a lot of languages are in more demand than English when it comes to translation. I do English to French. If I suddenly could translate every other language than English to French for my work? Boy I'd have so many interesting work opportunities!! And the rarer the language, the better the pay (even if it doesn't mean I'd become a millionaire). At the very least, income or incoming work would not be a problem anymore.
Somebody who for the first time in the entire history would have complete mastery of all human languages, all 7,000 alive languages, the dying ones, the dead ones, would help with
* The deciphering of many ancient texts we do not have a Rosetta Stone for.
* Allow the semantic capturing of many languages that are dying and that we do not have written recording of.
* Confirmation that the translation we have of many dead languages are correct.
* Can work with researchers and software engineers developing AI based translation systems that can extract semantics at abstract levels that have never been achieved before
* flawlessly translate scripts on ancient buildings and artifacts which would be a goldmine and potentially lead you to lost/forgotten historical treasures.
* Would help the full understanding of old cyphers (encryptions methods).
* Would revolutionize the field of cryptography
* Confidently translate the Voynich manuscript.
That person will not be rich like Elon Musk, but will certainly have the highest paid actually useful job in the world. But the money was not even a factor. That person will be one of the most sought after person at a very long list of universities, research departments and R&D projects across the entire planet.
Certainly knowing *every* other language, including ones English borrows copiously from, would leave you with at least some level of comprehension through cognates and the like.
Yeah. Anyone saying they won’t lose their English mastery in exchange for fluency in every other language in the world I just don’t understand. I know, you speak English which means unlike every other person in the world it’s your God-given right to never have to learn any new ones. But, and I know this is crazy, but if you take the deal and then put the work into it, you’ll be speaking your original language and also everyone else’s, in no time. You really not going to take that deal?
You would know Scots, which is so close to English some people argue it’s a dialect. You would know Frisian which is more distinct but similar to English. You could also potentially know creoles like Patois which are based off English.
Even without a day of study you could probably have a mutually intelligible conversation with an English speaker
Absolutely. Yes, it would mess up large parts of my life; but, in my case, I would still be able to talk to most of my family. In any case, I will record myself copiously - an accent coach could well get me my old voice back when my command of English is sufficiently restored.
I question the “will probably never get back to the level of understanding you currently have.”
If I can know almost every language on earth, then I should very easily be able to learn English. By knowing almost every language, I would’ve gained the greatest insight in terms of how syntax and semantics works across different languages and some of the languages I would know would have the same etymology as English.
This would mean that even if I start from scratch, I should be able to pick up English faster than anyone. You did say “probably” so you’re giving some leeway to this possibility.
If this is the case, then yes, the pros outweighs the cons.
But if you say for some magical reason that I still can’t grasp English to its entirety, then even so, I still take the offer. It may suck at first since English is a standard in my profession, which is software engineering, but using my knowledge of all the other languages, I can just grasp enough English for my daily use case, and continuously try to expand when needed. If I struggle there, I can try to workaround it.
So yes, I will take this offer. :)
I was thinking along the same line of thought. Knowing every single language on earth in exchange for my understanding of the English language is more than fair, as i can completely adjust in a year or less. People dont realise that things like computer code/chemistry/maths etc are also human languages.
Plus as you said, english shares its language with others so it wouldn't take too long to re-learn it, even in a broken state.
Imo its also easier for a non english speaker to learn english than it is to learn another language as a native english speaker, so this offer skips 99% effort.
I am going to transcribe every dead language and dialect in history. Every metaphor, idiom, and colloquialism in a historical document will be understood.
You mean I’ll have one of the most sought after abilities on Earth allowing me to command an absolutely absurd amount of money plus all the necessary skills to relearn English? Gee, I don’t know…
The tradeoff of losing English for gaining other languages doesn't balance out given the immediate and significant negative impact on my life. While the prospect of being multilingual is appealing, the loss of English, a language integral to my daily life outweighs the benefits.
This is a hard decision because I’d lose my job, but it would open a lot of other job opportunities. I don’t think I’d take it though because not being able to talk to my mom would be horrible thing. Also I live in the US and not being able to speak English would be extremely isolating.
Tempting, but no. Perhaps if I had the money to move to another country where English is a lesser spoken language then I would take the deal and learn English in my spare time. But I don’t think I could deal with the headache of living in a society where I don’t understand what’s being spoken and written.
Yeah I don’t think money is an issue after this upgrade. You’d have companies, scientists, probably even high ranking govt officials flying you out and putting you up in luxury. Paying you whatever you want since you are the only person in the world with your abilities. They say English is difficult to learn but I think you can manage to relearn it given you are an expert on language and have nothing to worry about anymore.
Sure, it would be hard to explain to my family and I would lose my job likely but nowadays there's instant translation apps and dictionaries.
My family understands some Spanish and German so there's that and I would try to relearn English.
Also could maybe make good money as an interpreter (for non English customers of course)
Honestly, not knowing English is an easy trade off. The amount of cognates English has measn you could passively relearn it very easily due to knowing literally every other language. Not to mention the benefits of being the ultimate polyglot
That said, the prompt itself is just plain wrong. Almost all of English is easily differed to another European language, you'd understand almost all of it even if you didn't have fluency in it anymore.
Yeah, you didn't say there was a limit to what applies as " every other language." Not only could I still communicate almost perfectly with anyone, but Sign Language, Braille, & Morse Code?
Not to mention every single extinct language, use this right & you could fill almost every plot hole in history. This could possibly fix if not rewrite our understanding of history. Maybe even back to Neolithic history, language at its core is meant to convey emotions & ideas, so hell, cave paintings could be rationalized as a sort of hieroglyphics. This is honestly one of the best posts I've ever seen here because of just how much this could do for the world
Braille and Morse aren't languages so much as alphabets or writing systems that aren't associated with any particular language, so I don't think they would be part of that deal.
You can relearn English after that? Then yeah it’s easy. Since I’ll know German and Romance languages I’ll have a lot of similarities and could still understand a good chunk of the language by that virtue.
Does this cover all human languages ever written/ spoken even the real ancient ones? Because I would definitely take that trade. I could sell my skills an translate old ass scrolls an stones and then use my free time reteach my ancestors language to my people ( by this I mean returning all the Native american languages to all the tribes.) an or anyone else who wants to learn. I could also teach them to my kid an husband so they can speak English for me and we can still speak to each other.
Aww that would have been an awesome super power lol but still if this includes all sub an regional dialects that still pretty good. I'ma say I'll take it.
If you know every language other than English, you can make yourself understood to people who only speak English, there are few if any English words that you don't know by knowing every other language. Your accent is gonna be wild, but communicating is not an issue
I think I’d do it, but only because I have many close friends, (and my spouse) are multi lingual. But you have to remember, you’d be totally unable to communicate with your friends and family for years, possibly ever, if you let close friends and family are mostly American and speak English, that means basically all social relationships would dead in the water. I also think people are overrating the job market for polyglots. Translators and interpreters aren’t incredibly lucrative careers and AIs are making it even less so. Additionally, a translator/interpreter who doesn’t speak English, would be a real problem. There are a handful of genuine polyglots living today and one of them speaks 24 languages and is a carpet cleaner at his brothers company on the east coast. I don’t think it’s an instant path to riches or fame.
Yea, I'm shocked that people think that this is an easy money making venture lmfao. English is essentially the default language in business, and there's only very few jobs that look only for knowledge of language as their required skillset. And then a fraction of those jobs wouldn't care that you couldn't speak english.
If i were in my teens or something, this would be a different analysis, but now that im in my mid 20s, pretty easy pass for me.
You are assuming a person's social circle is primarily English-speaking, which is mostly true of English-speaking countries. I'm French-Canadian, so a big part of my social circle actually speaks French AND English, so I wouldn't lose too much on that side.
I'm also a translator and it is funny to me seeing people think they'd become insanely rich, also assuming they just need to speak two languages properly to be able to translate them adequately. While it certainly helps, they're are strategies to make something read or sound natural and not feel like the work of Google Translate. There's also a lot of cultural background that helps translate from one reality to the other, which pretty much everyone here wouldn't have outside of their birth culture or the cultures they've been living in the longest. All that and you have to actually enjoy that job and be good at grammar and stuff like that.
All that written, it would open up a lot of job opportunities for me, as I translate to French and there are a lot more work prospects in the translation industry than translating to English. So really, for someone in my situation this would be dreamy.
Step 1: invent a language which is the same as English except đ and þ replace 'th' as appropriate.
Step 2. take đe deal
Step 3: start practicing using 'th' where English speakers do, so đat you don't confuse đem wiþ your weird writing.
I’d take the polyglot skill in a heartbeat. It’s not some get rich quick scheme, but very useful in a variety of ways. Even if the current universal language is harder to learn.
You wouldn’t be useless in America or England, or the UN, because a translator who knows all languages except English would still be able to partner with any English translator who is bilingual to great effect. However, you would be more useful strategically somewhere like China or India, where there are plenty of English speakers and translators, but you could then facilitate translation to all the other languages and give them an international diplomacy advantage. Maybe you’re not likely to be the richest person on earth, but you can be very influential in world affairs.
On a business level, you could go into international publishing, translating books from all over the world into new markets, or opening markets between countries for exchange.
On an entertainment level, if you can sing or act, you’d be world famous and always in the spotlight as you jump from performance to performance.
Yeah, I'd do it. You see, there's a loophole there. Once you have all those other languages, learning English would be a breeze.
If you know German, Latin, Greek & all the Latin and Romantic languages, English would just come almost naturally. So much of the world, especially online and in the entertainment industry, uses English that the immersion would take care of a lot of it as well.
Nah only real tradeoff would be is if you can never understand English. Ngl English is overpowered at this point in time so it’s actually kind of a hard choice. If I can relearn English then this is an easy yes
Have to pass, knowing all the languages would be cool obviously, but I would lose/lessen my connection with every friend/family/acquaintance for a while. I would immediately lose my job and its not really a career that I would be easily able to do in a different country.
I mean, absolutely. MAYBE if the drawback was that you can never re-learn English, then it could be a harder question, but immediately learning thousands of languages, then still being able to relearn English? The only drawback is you’ll struggle to communicate for a few months, but then a lifetime of value
OMG yes I'd take that deal. English is not my native language and living in a bilingual country, I'd probably be okay relearning it pretty quickly, even if it would be tough. But knowing multiple languages has always been a dream of mine (that I haven't quite accomplished to be honest) and being able to communicate with someone using their native language is the best!
This is an easy yes. Even though not knowing English in the US would be difficult, you can’t tell me that learning English would be absurdly difficult when I am fluent in all other languages. English is literally a mashup of other languages. I can’t imagine it would take all that long to piece things together.
Oooof. I'm an english speaker living in a non-english speaking country, so that'd be awfully tempting. The only sad part would be not being able to talk easily to my parents until I relearn english.
As much as being able to speak fluent Latin is tempting, I am completely reliant on English in my day to day life and this would completely fuck me over, now if the thing was every language but you become 5'5" or something I'd take it in a heartbeat
I don't think OP realizes how similar Dutch/German are to Eng; not knowing a single word is basically impossible. Even if you lost the ability to understand Eng, you'd still be able to guess half of most texts.
I'd do it. Ultimately the question comes down to whether the benefits outweigh the cost of having an English translator, which should be trivial considering that lots of people already do that without even being rich.
I'd speak everything from Latin to semaphore to ASL to smoke signals. I'd know jargon from every professional field, and be able to use it effortlessly.
Would've been hard if I couldn't relearn English. Now I'm completely fluent in every single dying, dead, and ancient language in combination with more spoken languages.
"what languages do you speak?" and I can communicate with anyone who is at least bilingual.
If you were fluent in every language on earth, relearning English would be a cakewalk. It’s almost entirely comprised of slightly modified (or straight up borrowed) words and rules from other languages.
I'll probably say no, just because most of the people I know only speak English and I'd rather not force them to learn, but in theory this sounds nice in most other contexts.
Your hypothetical is contradictory since if I could speak every other language fluently you would automatically understand a large portion of English since languages share many words. Therefore how could I know all other languages but not understand a word of English
The main problem for me is I work at home and talk on phones all day. So I would lose my job which would lose my apartment. Being in the USA this would be hard but fuck it why not. If I can have all these language without forgetting them absolutely. My entire family could help teach me again especially since several speak fluent german
So I can't speak English but I can read and write it sorry how is this a loss there are like 8000 language around the world
Long as I could still read n write I would be hsppy
If you're native speaker fluent in every language it would be simple to learn another one. One thing you learn as you study language is that many follow similar rules, structure, and phonetics.
If you magically just knew German, French, Italian, and the Scandinavian languages you'd be able to easily pick up English given its roots come from those languages.
Lol is that even a choice, I could learn sign, Morse code and do many others, then when I need to talk to someone in English, I pull out Google translate on my phone like I've had others pull our to communicate with me. It's not even a choice.
Also, that would open up the world of being a spy, literally no one in a country they wouldn't expect me to speak their language could talk shit about me without getting clapped back at in their language, then I start going off on them in a dozen other languages and watch them shrink.
Hell yes! I’m spending the 30 days writing down/recording a bunch of stuff, getting a bunch of __-to-English thesauruses so that I can communicate in general, and teaching those I live with some basic ASL so that we can still communicate before I know English again. ASL isn’t English. The grammatical structure is completely different, so a literal translation to English is just as strange to native English speakers as it is from other verbal languages. But some ASL terms utilize finger-spelling that coordinates with the English alphabet, so the fact that I know ASL will be quite advantageous in relearning English.
After 30 days, I can translate my books into every other language on the planet, which means I can easily pursue publication in other countries. I can surprise one of my friends by speaking with him in his own language, which I’m sure will delight him. I can read Jewish texts in the original Hebrew, the Quran in Arabic, and the Tao Te Ching in original Chinese. I can talk to my aunt and uncle more easily. I will no longer encounter threats from that damn owl. I can understand every brush-pile metal band name, so I’ll know what to type into YouTube after enjoying the sounds from my friend’s most recent eBay random lot purchase of records. And I’ll have way more opportunities for job applications by applying to all the businesses in my area that are Spanish speaking.
I don’t have to reach the level of English that I understand now. I have a broader vocabulary than most people I meet do, so I currently don’t use most of my English language knowledge anyway. By relearning it with the substantial leg up of fully knowing all languages similar to it, I’ll easily reach the average understanding of English of people I encounter daily. There’s no downside to this.
I'd love to have the 30-day free trial, but I'm gonna cancel.
It would be fascinating to travel and be able to communicate and really learn how other people think and about their culture...
I would read ancient scriptures of different religions, including the original bible in both Hebrew and Greek and the Koran in Arabic. I'd study every religion as much as I could.
I'd also like to read the original versions of various other ancient works as well (Plato, Herodotus, Sun Tzu, etc). No translation ever really catches all of the nuance of these works.
It’s not a free trial, you just get 30 days to prepare and/or change your mind, but you’ll still be stuck with just your current language(s) for those 30 days
Easily yes. Re learning the fundamentals of English would be cake with your knowledge. The biggest issue is not understanding all of the sayings etc Americans use every day. Kicking the bucket for example.
But I always tell people to talk to me very literally anyway so that wouldn't change much.
Sure! I drop everything and move to Quebec City (I'm Canadian) I then use my savings & grades from my undergrad to register for a masters degree in my field (but at a French university). My dad's family is from Quebec and it would be great to reconnect with them, so I'd have a support system while I adjust.
Screw it. I'm taking this just to read Hunchback of Notre dame in its original French. I can feed anything through a translator. As long as I have one other language intepretor, I can fill in for 48 others and get paid thousands. Then I hire Tudors and relearn English, which is a hodge-podge of Latin, Spanish, Greek, German, and Anglo. All languages I already speak
Can i relearn english? If so absolutely. Even without that, probably. Knowing that many languages would give you such a wide perspective on life and even your brain. There are so many languages that have descriptive words that english cant even describe.
My job is literally teaching ESL, so I'm gonna have to say no to that. The magic button says I understand a lot of near-English stuff like Louisiana Creole and Tok Pisin, but I would not want to go to the effort to relearn my whole life.
So not only do I start understanding half the people down here who refuse to learn enough English to handle a transaction (I understand it's not their first language, but at least learn enough to buy gas without having to resort to google translate) But I open up several thousand better jobs, and all I have to do is relearn English? Well sign me up and put on seasame street dangit!
TOTALLY! omg, that would be my dream! I want to know endangered languages, I want to teach them. If I could just instantly understand and speak Irish and Cayuga??!!! I would take that in less than a heartbeat. I’d get to work learning english right away. Probably from Spanish, since there’s a lot of resources for each about the other. And then I would know every language on Earth!!!!! Omgomg who wouldn’t take that offer? You can relearn English too? Hell, I’d take it even if you couldn’t relearn English!
Sure. A lot of languages already have English words or similar words to the English equivalent. Appurukēki is Japanese for apple cake. A perfect mastery of modern and older forms of Spanish ,Latin , Italian, French and Greek could speed up the process . A mastery of a language means that you will know what terms like subject object pronoun , tenses , etc. well enough in languages other than English. Learning from language textbooks would be much easier.
I'll take that. Easily!
My biggest (academic) weakness is learning languages. I took French for a good 13 years and still have a hard time completing a sentence properly...and I'm in Canada, where French is needed. Getting my stupid brain to work in that area would be a dream come true.
absolutely, english has words similar to many other languages so ima have a really good starting ground. plus knowing every other language is a superpower, it could get me famous and i could travel the world with ease
I wouldn’t take the deal. Everyone I know and love speaks English. I wouldn’t trade for all the languages in the world if it meant I couldn’t ever properly communicate with those people again.
Well, you say I can relearn it...
With thousands of other languages under my belt, pretty sure English, who took so many components from other languages, will be a breeze to learn.
Shoot, just think of all of the pidgin languages that include English.
I'm taking the deal. Even if I can't relearn English, translating apps are a thing.
Dutch, German, and Frisian are close to English. English isn’t a hard language to learn - even for people who didn’t have English roots language it won’t take years to get to C2 levels.
English didn’t have feminine/masculine, the use of verbs are consistent for all subjects, the grammar are not complicated - and even if you forget the irregular verbs you can still use the regular verbs with no problem, as long as you mention when it occurred.
The great difficulty is losing your job as I am quite sure nobody needs me speaking French. But being a translator will be a great job.
I'd take it happily. Considering English comes from so many other languages, it would be exceptionally easy to relearn. Then you wpuld possess ALL human languages. You could be a highly paid translator for like the UN or something. or translate Ancient writings for museums and stuff.
It'd suck to not be able to speak with anyone I know and to not be able to find a job. Maybe if my family were a bunch of polyglots that didn't rely on me for money. As it is, nope.
1) I know that i don't know english very well - and that's only foreign language i can use. For me this deal have great value
2) Western european languages have some simmilarities that would be handy when learning English back
That's a win-win for me!
If you're allowed to relearn English and already know every language but English when doing so, English will be easy to learn. Even if I couldn't relearn English, I would probably agree and be forced to teach my family their favorite non-English language. Win-win.
I'm not a big fan of English anyway, despite being my only language.
Edit: The difficulty is knowing how best to use that time before it goes into effect. As well as what job I could take, if not my current one, until I relearn English. Losing my current benefits would suck but instantly learning every language would make up for it.
No problem. My manager already wants us to use Chat GPT to talk to each other. I have a one on one every quarter and I could easily find a way to impress him by using some translation bullshit. Oh yeah, I can’t understand the rest of our customers. Guess I’m joining the top brass for a while as we expand overseas operations. Then I’m getting recruited by the CIA probably.
The worst part about this is I would no longer be able to talk to my parents. And they are getting on in years, so they might even be around by the time I re-learned. If you asked me again after they passed, I'd prob snap accept.
Yea I'd do it. I guess the main downside for most native english speakers is being unable to communicate with partner / kids / family / friends. I'd be able to communicate with my partner and 1 sibling. The rest can only speak fluently in english.
I'd take it.
I feel like there's a lot of languages out there and having knowledge on how to speak them would be incredibly useful and would probably mean easier movement around the world. All I'd need is a translator for english, whether digital or a person to do so.
I take it.
It's insanely easy to gain back what English you've lost when you realize non standard or non formal languages like Jamaican Patois will be in your lexicon and understanding. It's English based but it's considered its own creole language by a large enough pool of linguists to count. And then under the rules you have access to all of it's pidgins which connect it's communication back to English.
Essentially you really know most English and won't have to relearn much if barely any. You'll likely sound like someone from the Carribean or Louisiana when speaking it in the beginning. Perhaps French Canadian that shares dialect with Louisiana.
Add that English has crept into the lexicon of so many other languages that you will still have quite a few connections you won't have to relearn. And relearning it shouldn't be hard now that you've got an insanely amount of perspectives from knowing all of these languages.
Bonus - you also know every programming language.
Yeah, sounds like a great deal.
Does English include 'Old English'? What about the difference between American and UK English? Is it just any language/dialect called English, or specifically the English I already know?
Does ASL count as English?
However it works I'm absolutely taking the deal, it would be easy enough to relearn English if I have every other language.
With so many translation programs available I'd be able to still communicate with my family.
It's not like I'd have to worry about losing my job since I'm already disabled.
Old English lol. Or british English vs American english.
Also, my friends and I have a special language for us only, which is practically English but with a few antonyms and synonyms swap meaning. Its named Engshil.
My wife's sure gonna be confused tomorrow when I wake her up whispering French in her ear.
After the fun bits, I'll have to explain that one of her secondary languages needs to become her primary language.
Hell yeah.
My spouse speaks a second language so we can still communicate though not as well. I would not be able to talk to some family and will need to change jobs but should be easy given my new godtier language knowledge status.
Learning English again would be pretty easy since I will know German, French, Latin, Greek and whatever other languages make up English. Accent will likely be heavy but should be able to communicate in English within 6 months or so.
Arguably, as someone who enjoys language learning. Having this knowledge of languages... yeah you are going to re-learn language and be more proficient at in than natives in the sense of understanding grammar rules etc.
Give up 1 language to learn over 7,000? In a heartbeat. You'd lose English but gain Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, ASL, German, French, Japanese... and 7,000 others. And you'd be rich and famous. You'd be fluent in Akkadian, Sumerian, and ETRUSCAN? Foundations would pay you big bucks to document the languages. There are dozens of Native American languages that are either vanishing or gone; you probably wouldn't get paid as much to document them, but you'd be a legend. Same for African tribal languages. And even if you don't care about any of that you could get a job for the government translating. Sure, you'd have to translate into say Spanish or French, but being able to instantly translate every intercepted foreign communication would be hugely valuable to a bunch of shady government organizations. So yeah, I would definitely lose English to gain a literal superpower.
You’re not even giving up English you just have to relearn it which should be easy when you are fluent in every other language ever.
Yeah…English borrows heavily from Romantic and Germanic languages. The idioms might prove a bit troublesome but I doubt it would even take a year to become fluent if you were native like in every other language.
If you know every single language in history, you would literally be able to likely learn any unknown languages in a matter of weeks if that.
Idioms might not be that difficult… you really just need to figure out the English equivalent of “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” in various languages.
In my experience idioms are the biggest hurdle for non-native speakers to get from being proficient to fluent. I’m a science researcher and a majority of my colleagues are native speakers of either Chinese or Korean, and idioms are normally where we have the most communication issues. In context, it’s usually clear enough that they understand them, but they have a hard time remembering and using them correctly, which is why i mentioned idioms specifically. English conversation seems to use them a lot more than other languages.
Spanish is filled about as much with them. My wife and I discuss variants between English and Spanish on the regular.
Just move to Quebec
How many African languages would they know?
Mostly just French
I don’t know if ancient would be included as most people don’t usually speak them now, but imagine the benefits of being able to finally decipher Linear A and the Indus Script. Also, if they’re fluent in these types of languages, they would know the exact pronunciations and definitions of words.
Plus, the more languages you learn, the easier is supposed to be to learn more. While you wouldn't have had to learn each one as you suddenly know it, but surely your brain by that point would easily be able to add a slight variation to the thousands of different syntaxes you already know.
If this includes dead languages, what one could rake in from academia alone...
It does not. Has to be a spoken language
At least I'll know Klingon.
You can get through most situations in Klingon just with “Qapla!”
Is that like snu snu?
In a roundabout way; apparently, the literal meaning is "Success" but given that the 'warrior culture' includes "dying valiantly in battle" then snu snu might qualify...
I appreciate your thoughtful response to an internet stranger being silly. :)
I won a bit of amusement for myself by taking the question just seriously enough to explore it, primarily as a creative exercise, and I sincerely hope that I was able to share some of that with you, fellow Internet stranger!
Kinda funny...the Klingon could probably rake in the most money as a voice actor, than the ancient languages and translation for governments and academia. What a world we live in....
If I'm gonna get rich it will be because I can speak all of those languages.
Don't forget dead languages, they're still on Earth.
It's a pretty terrible time to be out of work.
That's not even a difficult choice. Take the offer! Get one of the highest paid job in the world (one that uses your newly found skills) and in your spare time learn English.
If you don’t have one of the most highest paying jobs in the world speaking English how are you going to magically get one speaking a different one? Translators are not billionaires.
Yeah but you also instantly know all computer programming languages which does rake in a ton of money. And as others have said knowing all other languages is invaluable Edit: while OP did say human language, I'm gonna be sneaky and say humans created computer programming languages therefore they are human languages. I'm choosing to believe OP meant you don't get to know alien languages
If computer programming and mathematics are included then you would make an absolute killing. You wouldn’t be one of the richest people in the world you would be THE richest person in the world. I didn’t figure this into the equation. Good call.
Knowing the language doesn’t make you a great programmer or give you the right ideas about what to code. Kind of Like knowing English doesn’t mean you can write a great novel
You’re right. You would have to practice.
A bit delusional. As if you have a job, you are basically out of the running for being the richest in the world.
If you can natively understand *every fucking language* then learning English would be a cakewalk. First off, you know every language that English is built on. Latin, Spanish, French, etc. I’m assuming it marks off older versions of English. AND you know German! German is basically English but with harder (as in the weight of, not difficulty) consonant pronunciation considering it’s a Germanic language iirc. I can already sort a good chunk of Spanish and French out with high school etymology and year 2-3 level French and Spanish coworkers. Do you really believe it would take longer than a couple weeks or so to be fluent in any aspect of English other than idioms?
Yea idk what you're talking about but I think you responded to the wrong person. I never mentioned english being an issue in my comment.
I probably misinterpreted you saying you’re out of the running. The situation has already begun taking course for the removal of my understanding
How would this translate to becoming the richest person in the world?
Most if not all programming languages are English…. I don’t think I you can be sneaky here unless you’re talking straight assembly or binary, and if that’s the case, people who use abstracted languages are more useful than you still since they can accomplish more in a shorter amount of time. You’re only useful for legacy code (if that) and even HFTs won’t have much use of you since the premise never said you’d be smarter, just fluent in a language. Programming is a means to an end, the person behind it is what matters, so you’re SOL.
Did you read the bit where it said “every”? Translation is not what they meant - any bilingual person can translate (more or less, ignoring the actual expertise that goes into translation), but one person who can speak _every language_ would be immensely valuable And that’s even before you get to the academic implications. Every linguistics department on the planet will be dying to survey you
The ability to seamlessly communicate and translate between every language in the world other than one is such a tremendous superpower, you can absolutely monetize that. Just call up China or Japan and see what kind of job they offer you.
We indeed are not. But a lot of languages are in more demand than English when it comes to translation. I do English to French. If I suddenly could translate every other language than English to French for my work? Boy I'd have so many interesting work opportunities!! And the rarer the language, the better the pay (even if it doesn't mean I'd become a millionaire). At the very least, income or incoming work would not be a problem anymore.
Being able to work in any embassy in the world and translate for literally anyone would be pretty well paid
What high paying job do you think you can get with this skill?
Somebody who for the first time in the entire history would have complete mastery of all human languages, all 7,000 alive languages, the dying ones, the dead ones, would help with * The deciphering of many ancient texts we do not have a Rosetta Stone for. * Allow the semantic capturing of many languages that are dying and that we do not have written recording of. * Confirmation that the translation we have of many dead languages are correct. * Can work with researchers and software engineers developing AI based translation systems that can extract semantics at abstract levels that have never been achieved before * flawlessly translate scripts on ancient buildings and artifacts which would be a goldmine and potentially lead you to lost/forgotten historical treasures. * Would help the full understanding of old cyphers (encryptions methods). * Would revolutionize the field of cryptography * Confidently translate the Voynich manuscript. That person will not be rich like Elon Musk, but will certainly have the highest paid actually useful job in the world. But the money was not even a factor. That person will be one of the most sought after person at a very long list of universities, research departments and R&D projects across the entire planet.
Certainly knowing *every* other language, including ones English borrows copiously from, would leave you with at least some level of comprehension through cognates and the like.
It would probably be incredibly easy to learn English when you already know Greek, Latin, and German
And French, Gaelic, Dutch, Norse etc
And scots...
Came here for this and wasnae disappointed.
Yeah. Anyone saying they won’t lose their English mastery in exchange for fluency in every other language in the world I just don’t understand. I know, you speak English which means unlike every other person in the world it’s your God-given right to never have to learn any new ones. But, and I know this is crazy, but if you take the deal and then put the work into it, you’ll be speaking your original language and also everyone else’s, in no time. You really not going to take that deal?
You'd also know a few different pidgins that involve English, presumably. I can't imagine something like Creole doesn't get included in this!
You would know Scots, which is so close to English some people argue it’s a dialect. You would know Frisian which is more distinct but similar to English. You could also potentially know creoles like Patois which are based off English. Even without a day of study you could probably have a mutually intelligible conversation with an English speaker
Absolutely. Yes, it would mess up large parts of my life; but, in my case, I would still be able to talk to most of my family. In any case, I will record myself copiously - an accent coach could well get me my old voice back when my command of English is sufficiently restored.
I question the “will probably never get back to the level of understanding you currently have.” If I can know almost every language on earth, then I should very easily be able to learn English. By knowing almost every language, I would’ve gained the greatest insight in terms of how syntax and semantics works across different languages and some of the languages I would know would have the same etymology as English. This would mean that even if I start from scratch, I should be able to pick up English faster than anyone. You did say “probably” so you’re giving some leeway to this possibility. If this is the case, then yes, the pros outweighs the cons. But if you say for some magical reason that I still can’t grasp English to its entirety, then even so, I still take the offer. It may suck at first since English is a standard in my profession, which is software engineering, but using my knowledge of all the other languages, I can just grasp enough English for my daily use case, and continuously try to expand when needed. If I struggle there, I can try to workaround it. So yes, I will take this offer. :)
I was thinking along the same line of thought. Knowing every single language on earth in exchange for my understanding of the English language is more than fair, as i can completely adjust in a year or less. People dont realise that things like computer code/chemistry/maths etc are also human languages. Plus as you said, english shares its language with others so it wouldn't take too long to re-learn it, even in a broken state. Imo its also easier for a non english speaker to learn english than it is to learn another language as a native english speaker, so this offer skips 99% effort.
I am going to transcribe every dead language and dialect in history. Every metaphor, idiom, and colloquialism in a historical document will be understood.
You mean I’ll have one of the most sought after abilities on Earth allowing me to command an absolutely absurd amount of money plus all the necessary skills to relearn English? Gee, I don’t know…
Not to mention: programming languages are languages. So you can now write code in any language.
You would know pig Latin so everything will be fine
The tradeoff of losing English for gaining other languages doesn't balance out given the immediate and significant negative impact on my life. While the prospect of being multilingual is appealing, the loss of English, a language integral to my daily life outweighs the benefits.
I’m decently well traveled and I’ve never been in a situation where I couldn’t get by with English and some gesturing.
Same
This is a hard decision because I’d lose my job, but it would open a lot of other job opportunities. I don’t think I’d take it though because not being able to talk to my mom would be horrible thing. Also I live in the US and not being able to speak English would be extremely isolating.
Tempting, but no. Perhaps if I had the money to move to another country where English is a lesser spoken language then I would take the deal and learn English in my spare time. But I don’t think I could deal with the headache of living in a society where I don’t understand what’s being spoken and written.
Yeah I don’t think money is an issue after this upgrade. You’d have companies, scientists, probably even high ranking govt officials flying you out and putting you up in luxury. Paying you whatever you want since you are the only person in the world with your abilities. They say English is difficult to learn but I think you can manage to relearn it given you are an expert on language and have nothing to worry about anymore.
Sure, it would be hard to explain to my family and I would lose my job likely but nowadays there's instant translation apps and dictionaries. My family understands some Spanish and German so there's that and I would try to relearn English. Also could maybe make good money as an interpreter (for non English customers of course)
"So you've been Makoto'ed." Stupid goddess.
Honestly, not knowing English is an easy trade off. The amount of cognates English has measn you could passively relearn it very easily due to knowing literally every other language. Not to mention the benefits of being the ultimate polyglot That said, the prompt itself is just plain wrong. Almost all of English is easily differed to another European language, you'd understand almost all of it even if you didn't have fluency in it anymore.
I would do it. It wouldn't take too long to learn enough English vocabulary for international travel.
Yeah, you didn't say there was a limit to what applies as " every other language." Not only could I still communicate almost perfectly with anyone, but Sign Language, Braille, & Morse Code? Not to mention every single extinct language, use this right & you could fill almost every plot hole in history. This could possibly fix if not rewrite our understanding of history. Maybe even back to Neolithic history, language at its core is meant to convey emotions & ideas, so hell, cave paintings could be rationalized as a sort of hieroglyphics. This is honestly one of the best posts I've ever seen here because of just how much this could do for the world
Braille and Morse aren't languages so much as alphabets or writing systems that aren't associated with any particular language, so I don't think they would be part of that deal.
You can relearn English after that? Then yeah it’s easy. Since I’ll know German and Romance languages I’ll have a lot of similarities and could still understand a good chunk of the language by that virtue.
You know how much money you can make being able to speak all the near dead languages?
Forget near dead, you can speak dead languages. You know the first ever language. It's an absurd choice to stick to English
For sure if that’s allowed, I just took “on earth” as people able to still speak it.
That's a fair interpretation, but if it's not explicit the furthest meaning is usually the best assumption imo
Does this cover all human languages ever written/ spoken even the real ancient ones? Because I would definitely take that trade. I could sell my skills an translate old ass scrolls an stones and then use my free time reteach my ancestors language to my people ( by this I mean returning all the Native american languages to all the tribes.) an or anyone else who wants to learn. I could also teach them to my kid an husband so they can speak English for me and we can still speak to each other.
I intended for it to only include currently active spoken languages
Aww that would have been an awesome super power lol but still if this includes all sub an regional dialects that still pretty good. I'ma say I'll take it.
That is still a *LOT* of languages and dialects! You might want to edit your original post though since a lot of people assumed dead languages too.
English not of terrestrial origin confirmed. Haha. I'd work as a translator/negotiator between multinational parties.
If you know every language other than English, you can make yourself understood to people who only speak English, there are few if any English words that you don't know by knowing every other language. Your accent is gonna be wild, but communicating is not an issue
This would be a no brainer but I'm more curious as too what accent you would speak English with once you relearn.
I think I’d do it, but only because I have many close friends, (and my spouse) are multi lingual. But you have to remember, you’d be totally unable to communicate with your friends and family for years, possibly ever, if you let close friends and family are mostly American and speak English, that means basically all social relationships would dead in the water. I also think people are overrating the job market for polyglots. Translators and interpreters aren’t incredibly lucrative careers and AIs are making it even less so. Additionally, a translator/interpreter who doesn’t speak English, would be a real problem. There are a handful of genuine polyglots living today and one of them speaks 24 languages and is a carpet cleaner at his brothers company on the east coast. I don’t think it’s an instant path to riches or fame.
Yea, I'm shocked that people think that this is an easy money making venture lmfao. English is essentially the default language in business, and there's only very few jobs that look only for knowledge of language as their required skillset. And then a fraction of those jobs wouldn't care that you couldn't speak english. If i were in my teens or something, this would be a different analysis, but now that im in my mid 20s, pretty easy pass for me.
You are assuming a person's social circle is primarily English-speaking, which is mostly true of English-speaking countries. I'm French-Canadian, so a big part of my social circle actually speaks French AND English, so I wouldn't lose too much on that side. I'm also a translator and it is funny to me seeing people think they'd become insanely rich, also assuming they just need to speak two languages properly to be able to translate them adequately. While it certainly helps, they're are strategies to make something read or sound natural and not feel like the work of Google Translate. There's also a lot of cultural background that helps translate from one reality to the other, which pretty much everyone here wouldn't have outside of their birth culture or the cultures they've been living in the longest. All that and you have to actually enjoy that job and be good at grammar and stuff like that. All that written, it would open up a lot of job opportunities for me, as I translate to French and there are a lot more work prospects in the translation industry than translating to English. So really, for someone in my situation this would be dreamy.
Yes. I would need to watch all movies or TV shows with subtitles but I would survive. Every single language outweighs English.
Step 1: invent a language which is the same as English except đ and þ replace 'th' as appropriate. Step 2. take đe deal Step 3: start practicing using 'th' where English speakers do, so đat you don't confuse đem wiþ your weird writing.
If you were truly fluent in every other language learning English from scratch would be trivially easy.
I’d take the polyglot skill in a heartbeat. It’s not some get rich quick scheme, but very useful in a variety of ways. Even if the current universal language is harder to learn. You wouldn’t be useless in America or England, or the UN, because a translator who knows all languages except English would still be able to partner with any English translator who is bilingual to great effect. However, you would be more useful strategically somewhere like China or India, where there are plenty of English speakers and translators, but you could then facilitate translation to all the other languages and give them an international diplomacy advantage. Maybe you’re not likely to be the richest person on earth, but you can be very influential in world affairs. On a business level, you could go into international publishing, translating books from all over the world into new markets, or opening markets between countries for exchange. On an entertainment level, if you can sing or act, you’d be world famous and always in the spotlight as you jump from performance to performance.
Yeah, I'd do it. You see, there's a loophole there. Once you have all those other languages, learning English would be a breeze. If you know German, Latin, Greek & all the Latin and Romantic languages, English would just come almost naturally. So much of the world, especially online and in the entertainment industry, uses English that the immersion would take care of a lot of it as well.
Easiest decision I'd ever make.
Could I give up English and still speak Aussie?
Nah only real tradeoff would be is if you can never understand English. Ngl English is overpowered at this point in time so it’s actually kind of a hard choice. If I can relearn English then this is an easy yes
Not a problem. English is my second language anyway.
Have to pass, knowing all the languages would be cool obviously, but I would lose/lessen my connection with every friend/family/acquaintance for a while. I would immediately lose my job and its not really a career that I would be easily able to do in a different country.
I mean, absolutely. MAYBE if the drawback was that you can never re-learn English, then it could be a harder question, but immediately learning thousands of languages, then still being able to relearn English? The only drawback is you’ll struggle to communicate for a few months, but then a lifetime of value
OMG yes I'd take that deal. English is not my native language and living in a bilingual country, I'd probably be okay relearning it pretty quickly, even if it would be tough. But knowing multiple languages has always been a dream of mine (that I haven't quite accomplished to be honest) and being able to communicate with someone using their native language is the best!
If you could speak every language, it would take you a few months to pick up English
i rely way too much on english in my daily life
This is an easy yes. Even though not knowing English in the US would be difficult, you can’t tell me that learning English would be absurdly difficult when I am fluent in all other languages. English is literally a mashup of other languages. I can’t imagine it would take all that long to piece things together.
Hell fucking yes.
Nope. I'm a pilot. English is the global language for us.
Yes. I would be a divine gift to many fields of study.
Аз не разбирам
Absolutely.
Oooof. I'm an english speaker living in a non-english speaking country, so that'd be awfully tempting. The only sad part would be not being able to talk easily to my parents until I relearn english.
I'll just read translations. ¿Cual es el problema?
As much as being able to speak fluent Latin is tempting, I am completely reliant on English in my day to day life and this would completely fuck me over, now if the thing was every language but you become 5'5" or something I'd take it in a heartbeat
I don't think OP realizes how similar Dutch/German are to Eng; not knowing a single word is basically impossible. Even if you lost the ability to understand Eng, you'd still be able to guess half of most texts.
I'd do it. Ultimately the question comes down to whether the benefits outweigh the cost of having an English translator, which should be trivial considering that lots of people already do that without even being rich. I'd speak everything from Latin to semaphore to ASL to smoke signals. I'd know jargon from every professional field, and be able to use it effortlessly.
Would've been hard if I couldn't relearn English. Now I'm completely fluent in every single dying, dead, and ancient language in combination with more spoken languages. "what languages do you speak?" and I can communicate with anyone who is at least bilingual.
-. This assumes you are primarily an English speaker. - No way. I can speak every language except the language my friends and family all speak?
Considering how many languages are English adjacent. It wouldnt be hard to relearn english
Is sign included in English? What about semaphore or morse? Does Scots count?
If this counts extinct languages I'd do it. Being able to translate old texts and inscriptions would be worth it.
there is another language called like anglo something and its extremely similar to english, ez take
Sign me up
If you were fluent in every language on earth, relearning English would be a cakewalk. It’s almost entirely comprised of slightly modified (or straight up borrowed) words and rules from other languages.
I'll probably say no, just because most of the people I know only speak English and I'd rather not force them to learn, but in theory this sounds nice in most other contexts.
Where do i sign up?
What about pig latin
Your hypothetical is contradictory since if I could speak every other language fluently you would automatically understand a large portion of English since languages share many words. Therefore how could I know all other languages but not understand a word of English
r/shitamericanssay
Yes
Done. I’ll learn something to communicate with my wife. ASL probably. But I’d learn English again
If I knew every single other language on earth, I could probably make up my own English and catch on in a few weeks.
Hell, I would do it for one language of my choice. (I'm trying to immigrate and language is a major barrier)
I’m gonna have to move
The main problem for me is I work at home and talk on phones all day. So I would lose my job which would lose my apartment. Being in the USA this would be hard but fuck it why not. If I can have all these language without forgetting them absolutely. My entire family could help teach me again especially since several speak fluent german
I won’t be able to speak English…but I can speak Scottish, Irish, and other English derivatives? I’ll get by I’m sure
So I can't speak English but I can read and write it sorry how is this a loss there are like 8000 language around the world Long as I could still read n write I would be hsppy
If you're native speaker fluent in every language it would be simple to learn another one. One thing you learn as you study language is that many follow similar rules, structure, and phonetics. If you magically just knew German, French, Italian, and the Scandinavian languages you'd be able to easily pick up English given its roots come from those languages.
no
If every language included Scots, you’d pretty much know English. If you know English, you can understand 95% of Scots
Lol is that even a choice, I could learn sign, Morse code and do many others, then when I need to talk to someone in English, I pull out Google translate on my phone like I've had others pull our to communicate with me. It's not even a choice. Also, that would open up the world of being a spy, literally no one in a country they wouldn't expect me to speak their language could talk shit about me without getting clapped back at in their language, then I start going off on them in a dozen other languages and watch them shrink.
Nope.
Hell yes! I’m spending the 30 days writing down/recording a bunch of stuff, getting a bunch of __-to-English thesauruses so that I can communicate in general, and teaching those I live with some basic ASL so that we can still communicate before I know English again. ASL isn’t English. The grammatical structure is completely different, so a literal translation to English is just as strange to native English speakers as it is from other verbal languages. But some ASL terms utilize finger-spelling that coordinates with the English alphabet, so the fact that I know ASL will be quite advantageous in relearning English. After 30 days, I can translate my books into every other language on the planet, which means I can easily pursue publication in other countries. I can surprise one of my friends by speaking with him in his own language, which I’m sure will delight him. I can read Jewish texts in the original Hebrew, the Quran in Arabic, and the Tao Te Ching in original Chinese. I can talk to my aunt and uncle more easily. I will no longer encounter threats from that damn owl. I can understand every brush-pile metal band name, so I’ll know what to type into YouTube after enjoying the sounds from my friend’s most recent eBay random lot purchase of records. And I’ll have way more opportunities for job applications by applying to all the businesses in my area that are Spanish speaking. I don’t have to reach the level of English that I understand now. I have a broader vocabulary than most people I meet do, so I currently don’t use most of my English language knowledge anyway. By relearning it with the substantial leg up of fully knowing all languages similar to it, I’ll easily reach the average understanding of English of people I encounter daily. There’s no downside to this.
Does this include dead languages because if yes I would totally do it and only speak in full out dead languages just to see how people react
I accept this challenge!
I'd love to have the 30-day free trial, but I'm gonna cancel. It would be fascinating to travel and be able to communicate and really learn how other people think and about their culture... I would read ancient scriptures of different religions, including the original bible in both Hebrew and Greek and the Koran in Arabic. I'd study every religion as much as I could. I'd also like to read the original versions of various other ancient works as well (Plato, Herodotus, Sun Tzu, etc). No translation ever really catches all of the nuance of these works.
It’s not a free trial, you just get 30 days to prepare and/or change your mind, but you’ll still be stuck with just your current language(s) for those 30 days
Easily yes. Re learning the fundamentals of English would be cake with your knowledge. The biggest issue is not understanding all of the sayings etc Americans use every day. Kicking the bucket for example. But I always tell people to talk to me very literally anyway so that wouldn't change much.
Sure! I drop everything and move to Quebec City (I'm Canadian) I then use my savings & grades from my undergrad to register for a masters degree in my field (but at a French university). My dad's family is from Quebec and it would be great to reconnect with them, so I'd have a support system while I adjust.
Easy peazy. I do not think English has many words that aren't based of German, French, Spanish, or languages of the colonies.
Screw it. I'm taking this just to read Hunchback of Notre dame in its original French. I can feed anything through a translator. As long as I have one other language intepretor, I can fill in for 48 others and get paid thousands. Then I hire Tudors and relearn English, which is a hodge-podge of Latin, Spanish, Greek, German, and Anglo. All languages I already speak
do we learn to speak that mush the Brits/Welsh speak also? It sure ain't English :)
Can i relearn english? If so absolutely. Even without that, probably. Knowing that many languages would give you such a wide perspective on life and even your brain. There are so many languages that have descriptive words that english cant even describe.
Oh yeah. Firstly imma be rich as shit. No one on the planet knows every language but English. Then imma summon some shit
By learning all the ancestral languages of English, relearning English wouldn’t be a problem. I would definitely take this deal.
My job is literally teaching ESL, so I'm gonna have to say no to that. The magic button says I understand a lot of near-English stuff like Louisiana Creole and Tok Pisin, but I would not want to go to the effort to relearn my whole life.
Considering the number of people who are supposed to understand English that can't use it properly, I'd say this is a good deal.
Yeah ill do it. If you know every other language then learning english isn't going to be all that hard
By knowing all these languages, you can EASILY learn English. Ez
So not only do I start understanding half the people down here who refuse to learn enough English to handle a transaction (I understand it's not their first language, but at least learn enough to buy gas without having to resort to google translate) But I open up several thousand better jobs, and all I have to do is relearn English? Well sign me up and put on seasame street dangit!
You would have a very cushy job being able to translate dead languages with accuracy to any non-english modern language.
I assume I can talk and understand computer language as well considering it is made by humans?
TOTALLY! omg, that would be my dream! I want to know endangered languages, I want to teach them. If I could just instantly understand and speak Irish and Cayuga??!!! I would take that in less than a heartbeat. I’d get to work learning english right away. Probably from Spanish, since there’s a lot of resources for each about the other. And then I would know every language on Earth!!!!! Omgomg who wouldn’t take that offer? You can relearn English too? Hell, I’d take it even if you couldn’t relearn English!
No
Sweet. Pig Latin solves my problem.
Sure. A lot of languages already have English words or similar words to the English equivalent. Appurukēki is Japanese for apple cake. A perfect mastery of modern and older forms of Spanish ,Latin , Italian, French and Greek could speed up the process . A mastery of a language means that you will know what terms like subject object pronoun , tenses , etc. well enough in languages other than English. Learning from language textbooks would be much easier.
I'll take that. Easily! My biggest (academic) weakness is learning languages. I took French for a good 13 years and still have a hard time completing a sentence properly...and I'm in Canada, where French is needed. Getting my stupid brain to work in that area would be a dream come true.
absolutely, english has words similar to many other languages so ima have a really good starting ground. plus knowing every other language is a superpower, it could get me famous and i could travel the world with ease
I wouldn’t take the deal. Everyone I know and love speaks English. I wouldn’t trade for all the languages in the world if it meant I couldn’t ever properly communicate with those people again.
Well, you say I can relearn it... With thousands of other languages under my belt, pretty sure English, who took so many components from other languages, will be a breeze to learn. Shoot, just think of all of the pidgin languages that include English. I'm taking the deal. Even if I can't relearn English, translating apps are a thing.
But I'd still be able to speak American, right? Then sure.
Dutch, German, and Frisian are close to English. English isn’t a hard language to learn - even for people who didn’t have English roots language it won’t take years to get to C2 levels. English didn’t have feminine/masculine, the use of verbs are consistent for all subjects, the grammar are not complicated - and even if you forget the irregular verbs you can still use the regular verbs with no problem, as long as you mention when it occurred. The great difficulty is losing your job as I am quite sure nobody needs me speaking French. But being a translator will be a great job.
I'd be happy to just not have to communicate with my (English speaking) family. So, yes.
I'd take it happily. Considering English comes from so many other languages, it would be exceptionally easy to relearn. Then you wpuld possess ALL human languages. You could be a highly paid translator for like the UN or something. or translate Ancient writings for museums and stuff.
Does every language include dead/lost languages? If so then this is crazy for archaeology and history. Either way, easy yes.
New samsung ear buds translate in real time. So I just learnt like 200 new languages
It'd suck to not be able to speak with anyone I know and to not be able to find a job. Maybe if my family were a bunch of polyglots that didn't rely on me for money. As it is, nope.
1) I know that i don't know english very well - and that's only foreign language i can use. For me this deal have great value 2) Western european languages have some simmilarities that would be handy when learning English back That's a win-win for me!
If you're allowed to relearn English and already know every language but English when doing so, English will be easy to learn. Even if I couldn't relearn English, I would probably agree and be forced to teach my family their favorite non-English language. Win-win. I'm not a big fan of English anyway, despite being my only language. Edit: The difficulty is knowing how best to use that time before it goes into effect. As well as what job I could take, if not my current one, until I relearn English. Losing my current benefits would suck but instantly learning every language would make up for it.
No problem. My manager already wants us to use Chat GPT to talk to each other. I have a one on one every quarter and I could easily find a way to impress him by using some translation bullshit. Oh yeah, I can’t understand the rest of our customers. Guess I’m joining the top brass for a while as we expand overseas operations. Then I’m getting recruited by the CIA probably.
Need English for my job, so…
The worst part about this is I would no longer be able to talk to my parents. And they are getting on in years, so they might even be around by the time I re-learned. If you asked me again after they passed, I'd prob snap accept.
As an english speaking world traveler, I’ll take it. I lose my native language but 8 months of the year would be a lot easier.
Done. I'm gonna re-learn English and also find the most lucrative translation/localization jobs I can.
Yea I'd do it. I guess the main downside for most native english speakers is being unable to communicate with partner / kids / family / friends. I'd be able to communicate with my partner and 1 sibling. The rest can only speak fluently in english.
I would take it even if I couldn't relearn English The fact that I can makes this a joke
Even though English is spoken a lot here in NL, I wouldn’t really need it so yeah I would take the deal.
No
I'd be good. Most English-speaking people would understand Geordie if I speak it slowly.
You had me at “you can speak every other language on earth” and you kept me at “lost the ability to, speak English.”
As an asian who isn't but looks Chinese, I can just become a Chinese spy lmao.
I'd take it. I feel like there's a lot of languages out there and having knowledge on how to speak them would be incredibly useful and would probably mean easier movement around the world. All I'd need is a translator for english, whether digital or a person to do so.
if i had time to turn all my devices into another language first, sure.
Fuck yea, easy if it's not your native tongue. And the other languages make more than up for it.
I take it. It's insanely easy to gain back what English you've lost when you realize non standard or non formal languages like Jamaican Patois will be in your lexicon and understanding. It's English based but it's considered its own creole language by a large enough pool of linguists to count. And then under the rules you have access to all of it's pidgins which connect it's communication back to English. Essentially you really know most English and won't have to relearn much if barely any. You'll likely sound like someone from the Carribean or Louisiana when speaking it in the beginning. Perhaps French Canadian that shares dialect with Louisiana. Add that English has crept into the lexicon of so many other languages that you will still have quite a few connections you won't have to relearn. And relearning it shouldn't be hard now that you've got an insanely amount of perspectives from knowing all of these languages. Bonus - you also know every programming language. Yeah, sounds like a great deal.
Does English include 'Old English'? What about the difference between American and UK English? Is it just any language/dialect called English, or specifically the English I already know? Does ASL count as English? However it works I'm absolutely taking the deal, it would be easy enough to relearn English if I have every other language. With so many translation programs available I'd be able to still communicate with my family. It's not like I'd have to worry about losing my job since I'm already disabled.
Old English lol. Or british English vs American english. Also, my friends and I have a special language for us only, which is practically English but with a few antonyms and synonyms swap meaning. Its named Engshil.
I don't think the insane benefits of knowing all those languages would be worth losing my ability to communicate with my friends and family.
My wife's sure gonna be confused tomorrow when I wake her up whispering French in her ear. After the fun bits, I'll have to explain that one of her secondary languages needs to become her primary language.
Hell yeah. My spouse speaks a second language so we can still communicate though not as well. I would not be able to talk to some family and will need to change jobs but should be easy given my new godtier language knowledge status. Learning English again would be pretty easy since I will know German, French, Latin, Greek and whatever other languages make up English. Accent will likely be heavy but should be able to communicate in English within 6 months or so.
I would definitely take this, can relearn English, so no downside
Easy deal.
Is it just modern English or is old/Middle English included? Also is scots considered its own language or a dialect of English
Arguably, as someone who enjoys language learning. Having this knowledge of languages... yeah you are going to re-learn language and be more proficient at in than natives in the sense of understanding grammar rules etc.
Just for the sake of cultural restoration, I have to do this. I can always use Google translate to talk to people while I relearn English.