How many languages do you know and which languages do you want to learn? I'll start:

Know:
English
Urdu
Punjabi
Persian

Want to learn Turkish

I've formally studied French and Japanese in school, but I use neither on a regular basis and the French Canadians who are the most common French speakers I encounter speak a very different dialect than what I learned in school and it's hard for me to understand them. I read news articles in French frequently on the internet though and am pretty fluent in reading French still.

Also learning one Latin-based language makes the others easier to pick up. It helps me piece together a rough understanding of Portuguese and Spanish so that I can contextually learn new vocabulary on the go that I can use while playing charades with locals I'm trying to communicate with. I picked up Swedish words and phrases in a similar manner while I was in Sweden because Swedish is similar enough to english.

Studying japanese helped me read Chinese (but not speak or understand the spoken language) because Kanji is the same as (traditional)Hanzi for single simple words, and they are pictographs that represent what they mean.

I have no practical use for Japanese though so I'm really out of practice.

English, French and Spanish.

My Spanish was never brilliant but it's more than enough to get me around Spain (and hopefully South America soon).

Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, German, English, and a bit of Flemish/Dutch. Can read restaurant menus in order beers in French, Spanish and Italian, and have a rudimentary understanding of Turkish and Greek. Can also curse in Arabic, but nothing more than that.

Sadly only fluent in my native English, can read and understand a little bit of German, can understand a small amount of ASL but cannot sign much myself. Beyond that its a few common words and phrases of random languages that I'd bet most people know anyway. I wish our schools here would have done foreign languages in grade school instead of waiting until high school when its much harder for your brain to parse it out and ingrain it.

in order

English
Italian,
French
Spanish

I also know a lot of swear words in Spanish, I picked them up when I moved to Miami, FL. It took me about a year to learn Spanish, everybody in Miami speaks Spanish and when in Rome. I don't know how it happened, I just started speaking it one day, and my co-workers were shocked. Italian has similar words, it just came easily to me, unlike French which I learned in High school and college and slaughter when I'm in France.

English
Understand most Japanese, especially Kansai dialect. Losing speaking ability fast.
Okay Spanish, though I can understand/read far more than I can speak.
Know basic (survival) Korean, Mandarin, Thai, and French.
Lots of curse words in Afrikaans and Dutch, but that's about it.

English (Native)

Norwegian (cusp of A2/B1 level) Been studying off and on for about five years but barely anything more than a beginner. I'm just at the point where I can make sense of a news article, even if I can't translate every single word. The biggest barrier is being so far away and not being able to practice in any meaningful real life situations. I did spend some time in Norway in 2018 and picked up quite a bit fairly quickly, but have since gotten worse.

French (A1 at very best) I've dabbled a bit with Duolingo and Babel but still very beginner only know a few common phrases and the most common nouns and verbs. Like Norwegian lack of exposure is an issue, but at least if I want immersion New Caledonia is only a couple of hours away so a lot more viable.

German. Learnt in school but never went higher than say A1/A2 level retained quite a bit of vocabulary for several years. That was until I started studying Norwegian. Now I've lost that, especially where grammatical gender is concerned. Ironically I can still count in German just as well as English.

French native
English fluent
Italian I can understand some, speak some (I have many Italian family members, but they all speak French so it doesn't help learning Italian)
German 9 years schooling, can't piece a sentence together.

Jouhou : I've spent a week in Québec, they really speak French there, just with a funny accent, and some different words, but most of the language is exactly the same. It's about as different as American English vs UK English.

American English and liturgical Hebrew.

My school system claimed to offer Spanish and I was in the honors program grades 8 through 12 but they did not actually teach Spanish. Mr. Berger would lecture in Spanish about medieval Spanish history (that's how you make the language relevant to 1980's teenagers, see) and then he had us read Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz. In English.

Airstud wrote:

American English and liturgical Hebrew.

My school system claimed to offer Spanish and I was in the honors program grades 8 through 12 but they did not actually teach Spanish. Mr. Berger would lecture in Spanish about medieval Spanish history (that's how you make the language relevant to 1980's teenagers, see) and then he had us read Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz. In English.

My HS Spanish was equally useless - three years worth but we mostly took quizzes and hardly had chances to speak. Only enjoyable part was watching telenovelas And you made me realize I forgot to include liturgical Hebrew - like most in the diaspora, can read it and know basic daily vocabulary but can’t speak at all.

Native English speaker
Had to learn Spanish when I moved to Spain (it’s like they have a different word for everything)

Fluent in gibberish, rubbish

Aesma wrote:

French native
English fluent
Italian I can understand some, speak some (I have many Italian family members, but they all speak French so it doesn't help learning Italian)
German 9 years schooling, can't piece a sentence together.

Jouhou : I've spent a week in Québec, they really speak French there, just with a funny accent, and some different words, but most of the language is exactly the same. It's about as different as American English vs UK English.

They use a lot of vulgar slang. I know I've asked them what they had just said and the translation has been a string of vulgarities. Makes sense that they didn't teach me *that* in school.

Also some of the British accents are really hard to understand...

Only English.

If I had been born anywhere where English is not the official language, I’d probably would have learnt more than one.

Native Spanish and Catalan and then in a scale ranging from fluent to more or less gets by English, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, German.

Started Arabic this year (work reasons) but I'm still learning the letters so doesn't really count.

Can order a beer in over 40 languages, though.

English - Native
Polish - Fluent
French - A1/A2 (used to be around C1 but I haven't used it in about 15 years aside from the odd ski trip)
Spanish - A1

Swedish native
Nordic languages (I consider them as Nordic dialecs) norwegian, danish, finnish swedish
Enlish fluent in voice and text
Spanish fluent in voice and reads text
School german that I currently has as project to make fluent.
Understands Italian and brazilian portugese

American English, UK English. In America, I check the oil, close the hood, put the top down on my convertible, and go for a ride. In England, I’d check the oil, shut the bonnet, drop the hood on my roadster, and go for a ride. Or, something like that.

WesternDC6B wrote:

American English, UK English. In America, I check the oil, close the hood, put the top down on my convertible, and go for a ride. In England, I’d check the oil, shut the bonnet, drop the hood on my roadster, and go for a ride. Or, something like that.

Can you curse someone out proper in both Manchester and Glasgow though? Glaswegian slang is a square go to get used to.

Aaron747 wrote:

WesternDC6B wrote:

American English, UK English. In America, I check the oil, close the hood, put the top down on my convertible, and go for a ride. In England, I’d check the oil, shut the bonnet, drop the hood on my roadster, and go for a ride. Or, something like that.

Can you curse someone out proper in both Manchester and Glasgow though? Glaswegian slang is a square go to get used to.

I’m afraid not. But, I know that were a Bad Guy in the UK, and wanted to buy the law, that “It’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsie in snide”.

English, French and German.

German (native)
English (fluent)
French
Spanish
Dutch
Arabic (studied it for 3 years at university)
Russian (learning it with Duolingo)

English native, Afrikaans took me 6 months to be fluent in school, basic German that would be workable if I lived in Germany for 3 months or so.

English (native
French
Spanish
Italian is getting there.

My assistant is something of savant when it comes to languages

English
French
Spanish
Italian
German
Mandarin
Cantonese
Russian
Malay
Thai
Filipino/Tagalog

The amazing part is, she can actually translate as the person is speaking which is very hard, i've pointed out to her many times she could make a small fortune translating for a living.

And because her step son is now dating a young lady from there, she is now learning Gordie.....

Scandinavian languages
English
German would be great after a few weeks of active use.
Can follow a conversation in spanish, but not speak it myself.

English, some Spanish, and a smidgen of Hebrew.

In high school, I used to be able to curse in almost twenty different languages.

Marc

For me:

Cantonese (Native)
English, albeit with an accent
Mandarin, HK style
Japanese - can read 95%, speaking/hearing wise only on a survival level
Spanish - learned it in high school, forgot most of it but can easily pick it back up

Jouhou wrote:

Also some of the British accents are really hard to understand...

Aussie accent >>> British accent.

Italian: native

German: native - bilingual upbringing

English: fluent (BrE, can also do AmE)

French: fluent

Spanish (Castilian): proficient, mostly self-taught, probably a C1/C2 in spoken and written comprehension, B2 for spoken and written production.

Modern Greek: intermediate, completely self-taught. I usually get the gist of any given text, and spoken interaction is not a problem as I can mostly deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words from context.

Russian: intermediate, written comprehension better than spoken. I get to read Russian texts and practice every day at work. This also means that I am well versed in technical terms pertaining the natural gas and energy industry, more so than in everyday vocabulary.

Arabic: forgot almost everything, but I can still write and read the alphabet (well, decipher the letters would be a more accurate definition).

I understand written Portuguese, Dutch, Swiss German, and Luxembourgish. Nordic languages are fairly easy to understand once you learn how certain letter combinations are pronounced: although I have never studied Swedish, for instance, I once played Trivial Pursuit in that language against a group of Swedes - and won. I can also (mostly) get the gist of written texts in several Slavic languages, from Slovenian to Polish.

English native

Fluent in Spanish

My proudest moment maybe ever was helping my coworkers insult each other in Chinese, Russian and French at the same time.

English
Greek

I can't converse in it, but I can make out what's being said if it's in Spanish or Italian.

Will be learning German with my son starting in September.

Oh yeah, Newspeak...getting much better at that.

I actually have as project to make my German fluent over the next 2-3 years. I will do anumber of business trips during 2020 and 2021 to germany and I take the opportunity to make my old school germany into something better.

Germany now start to retake its importance it used to have as forreign language in Scandinavia and eastern Europe as it used to have before the wars.

Aaron747 wrote:

Airstud wrote:

American English and liturgical Hebrew.

My school system claimed to offer Spanish and I was in the honors program grades 8 through 12 but they did not actually teach Spanish. Mr. Berger would lecture in Spanish about medieval Spanish history (that's how you make the language relevant to 1980's teenagers, see) and then he had us read Carlos Fuentes's The Death of Artemio Cruz. In English.

My HS Spanish was equally useless - three years worth but we mostly took quizzes and hardly had chances to speak. Only enjoyable part was watching telenovelas And you made me realize I forgot to include liturgical Hebrew - like most in the diaspora, can read it and know basic daily vocabulary but can’t speak at all.

8 years of hebrew and i still don't understand the language. I can read it though, but can't speak it

Italian (native)
German (C1)
English (C2)
Spanish (B2)
French (B1)
Next one: Dutch

Airdolomiti wrote:

Italian: native

German: native - bilingual upbringing

English: fluent (BrE, can also do AmE)

French: fluent

Spanish (Castilian): proficient, mostly self-taught, probably a C1/C2 in spoken and written comprehension, B2 for spoken and written production.

Modern Greek: intermediate, completely self-taught. I usually get the gist of any given text, and spoken interaction is not a problem as I can mostly deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words from context.

Russian: intermediate, written comprehension better than spoken. I get to read Russian texts and practice every day at work. This also means that I am well versed in technical terms pertaining the natural gas and energy industry, more so than in everyday vocabulary.

Arabic: forgot almost everything, but I can still write and read the alphabet (well, decipher the letters would be a more accurate definition).

I understand written Portuguese, Dutch, Swiss German, and Luxembourgish. Nordic languages are fairly easy to understand once you learn how certain letter combinations are pronounced: although I have never studied Swedish, for instance, I once played Trivial Pursuit in that language against a group of Swedes - and won. I can also (mostly) get the gist of written texts in several Slavic languages, from Slovenian to Polish.

Which, is what I said basically.

German: Native

English: By now probably C2, I had a C1 certification before living in the United States for a year. Very confident about those skills in any form.

Spanish: B2 - Fluent conversational and understanding, however I haven't had a lot of experience with taking college-level classes or doing business negotiations yet

Portuguese: Somewhere around B1 - I feel confident understanding the language (especially Brazilian portuguese), and can adapt to speaking after a bit of renewed practice

French: A1 - A2. Rather basic still, which is sad because I live close to the French border. I have no problem reading french texts and I can articulate myself in everyday situations but wow, understanding French spoken by an actual French person is a whole other challenge.

Native Spanish speaker, fluent in English (no accent).

French...consider me a beginner-intermediate speaker. I can write and pronounce it but cannot hold a conversation yet.
Russian: can read it and semi-pronounce it. Nowhere close to holding a conversation, much less writing it.

English (American)
Spanglish
Sarcasm
And I'm getting better at English (British)

T18 wrote:

Sadly only fluent in my native English, can read and understand a little bit of German, can understand a small amount of ASL but cannot sign much myself. Beyond that its a few common words and phrases of random languages that I'd bet most people know anyway. I wish our schools here would have done foreign languages in grade school instead of waiting until high school when its much harder for your brain to parse it out and ingrain it.

Same here, except it was never offered in the curriculum at my school, up until college, at age 16 to 18 years. The only reason people took up another language when I was this age back then was if they were going into the hospitality sector, and/or planning on moving from a regional to a metropolitan area - or going abroad . Australia’s only (un)official language is English, which is based on British English (spelling).

Afrikaans & English: native

Setswanna & Seshoto: I was conversational as a teen, but I haven't spoken (or for the most part heard) either in many decades, and I find I'm having trouble remember anything beyond the most basic pleasantries and some random vocabulary.

Dutch: I can read and understand it near perfectly - for a while in my life I lived somewhere remote where VPRO was the only station I picked up, and I read an awful lot of Dutch.

German: intermediate (studied at uni level) but severely faded. It comes back after a few days in Germany

Mandarin: read well, write less well, my speaking is ok for day to day stuff but it needs a lot of polish before I'll break it out at a customer meeting.

Japanese: similar to Mandarin - speaking is a bit better, reading a bit worse

Cantonese: current project. When I moved to HK I was just starting to make progress in Mandarin, so I avoided Cantonese as I found it interfered too much. I regret that now.

Having a number of Germanic languages means I often understand things in languages I haven't heard before. When I was young I worked in retail - had a couple come in and I understood every word they were saying amongst themselves, but didn't have a clue what language they were speaking. Turns out it was Switzerdeutch. Sounded closer to Dutch to me than to German, but didn't sound *like* either. Another language I found I can frequently understand is Danish. I've never studied it, but give me a few days of exposure and pretty soon I know what's being said. At least, to a degree.

zakuivcustom wrote:

Aussie accent >>> British accent.

What does this mean?

Jouhou wrote:

Also some of the British accents are really hard to understand...

difficult to keep up with progress ))

What I learned late was that the range of American accents are
archaic, closer to historic versions of "original" English.
Emigrant Settlers preserved their language and show less change over time.
Not only language but other cultural properties too.

My youngest brother is on the cusp of GenX and Millennial. He showed me that I have a translation app built into my phone, so I know all the languages! LOL

Honestly, my native language is English and I speak enough Mexican Spanish to get by. I can understand what is going on when people speak Italian but I have no clue what is going on when people speak European Spanish or Portuguese.

English
Spanish
Mandarin
French
Bahasa Indonesia
Bahasa Melayu

A few words in Thai, Japanese, Korean.

Dutch, English, French and some German.

Also Turbo Pascal, c# and php, but haven’t used any of these in ages.

.

sonicruiser wrote:

How many languages do you know and which languages do you want to learn? I'll start:

Know:
English
Urdu
Punjabi
Persian

Want to learn Turkish

A good question would be how many languages can the brain learn fluently.

CitizenJustin wrote:

sonicruiser wrote:

How many languages do you know and which languages do you want to learn? I'll start:

Know:
English
Urdu
Punjabi
Persian

Want to learn Turkish

A good question would be how many languages can the brain learn fluently.

Interesting. I suspect growing up in a bilingual or multilingual household would make it much easier to learn additional languages later on. Like learning to play multiple musical instruments, anyone who is motivated can do it, but some will struggle while others will have a natural-born knack for it and will seem to do so almost effortlessly.

CitizenJustin wrote:

A good question would be how many languages can the brain learn fluently.

Depends on your definition of "fluent". Google's defnition is
1. able to express oneself easily and articulately.
2. smoothly graceful and effortless.

While the Cambridge Dictionary says:
3. When a person is fluent, they can speak a language easily, well, and quickly:
4. When a language is fluent, it is spoken easily and without many pauses

#2 IMHO is the preserve of a few very eloquent speakers. I don't even think most people attain that level in their native language. Smoothly and effortless, parhaps, but graceful?

If we take #4, which it does not imply a native level or a lack of accent, the number is pretty high. People all over Asia and Africa (and to a lesser extent Europe) routinely speak 4-5 languages well, and oftet understand a few more at a various levels.

Beyond that there are people who either for work or as a hobby, learn languages by the dozen. I've met a few such individuals. Spend enough time in their company and you learn that they're not special. They spend the time and work at it consistently, and have worked out what works the best for them in tems of efficiency.

English
Spanish
Hangul
Nihongo
Mandarin
Tagalog