Just for fun: how many languages do you speak?

[TwoBees]

How many languages do you speak, and do you speak them fluently? Which languages (if you feel comfortable sharing)?

I really wish I were fluent in a second language. I know enough French to get by with the basics if I were to travel to a French-speaking country (eg, figure out signs, ask for the bathroom, etc), and I can pick out some Spanish and Hebrew words, but that's about it. I really hope that DDs become more proficient than I am in SOMETHING.

[Indianamom2]

I speak English with great fluency!

I can figure out words in several languages, I very briefly studied French, I sang a lot of songs in Italian (that's the language I wish I could speak) and took a foreign language for musicians course in college. It was mostly a guide to pronunciation more than learning how to speak the language, so I'm familiar with a few languages, but can speak nothing else.

I too hope that my kids will be fluent in something else.

[KrisM]

Just English. I know enough German to get by if I were to go there. No where near fluent though.

My kids have Chinese daily in school. Only 30 min a day, but it is daily starting in kindergarten. I'm hoping they'll learn enough to do better than get by.

[mushka]

Fluent in Russian and English.

[rkold]

I only really know English.

I took French in high school and I probably know enough French I could have a stilted conversation in French, could read museum descriptions, and do other basic touristy stuff.

I also know a smattering of Japanese. I have memorized a few kanji (mostly the super useful stuff like: 入口, 出口, 山 (super handy with place names), 大, 犬, 高, 川, 女, 火) and a bunch of others and I can read a little kana, but very very slowly. Some of the kana are confusing for me because they just look so similar. I don't know radicals or anything like that, but knowing 山 once helped me catch a train that didn't have its destination written in romanji. I can speak a smattering of Japanese but not in any truly meaningful way.

I'd love DD to know a foreign language but it's really really hard without spending a lot of time with someone who speaks that language fluently IMHO. Immersion makes such a difference. DH is fluent in German. He spent a year living there with a German family when he was 14. He still enjoys reading books in German, while I doubt I could read a book in French like I use to in High School.

[AnnieW625]

Just English. I took French in high school and college and can still read it, but don't think I could carry on a conversation. I can read billboard and bus ads in Spanish and figure out what they mean.

[georgiegirl]

Just English

I used to speak Italian very well, but it's been 10+ years. I studied abroad in Florence and did graduate work in Venice. I had to read old documents in Italian, so I could read and understand fluently. I took 4 years of French in high school and a year in college. I took one year of Spanish in grad school. And Italian of course. :-)

[lhafer]

Native tongue is English. Grew up with Mexican ranch hands, and took Spanish for 3 years in high school. And could get by with Spanish at work when needed. I was a nurse, and could speak to the parents about most things I was doing or info I needed to know.

Now that I live in the Netherlands, we are beginning to learn Dutch. Dh's company pays for us to have 100 hours of language lessons. A tutor comes for 2 hours twice a week. And our kids will get Dutch lessons in school (their school is an international school and is taught in English).

[Simon]

One language fluently and a second that is rusty but I could revive to fluency with work.
I know tourist phrases or can string together what I need in a third.
I know numbers if 6 or 7 languages

[lizzywednesday]

I am fluent in English and profanity

I can get the gist of written German, but my pronunciation is singers' haute Deustch. If I put in any effort, I'd be able to gain fluency. I find German to be a really fun language; it's one of my favorites to sing in. People think I'm weird for this, but whatever.

I can understand about 1 word in 8 of spoken Spanish, though I do much better with written. Again, if I put in the effort, I'd easily gain fluency. I think that my brother even has Rosetta Stone discs that I could borrow if I set my mind to it.

I used to be able to read a bit more Hebrew and Yiddish than I do now - haven't used it much in the last 12 or so years, you know? - but I'm thankful for the cultural exposure.

The extent of my French includes how to proposition someone, a song about a hedgehog, another song about a lost little dog, how to say "the Eiffel Tower", and how to say "who cut the cheese?"

I haven't had much exposure to Italian or Portuguese, but at one point when I was in college, I still understood enough written Spanish that I could get the gist of an e-mail written in Portuguese.

I know a couple of Slovak words and phrases, as well as a couple of words of Polish.
I used to know a traditional song in Russian, but I've forgotten most of it - we only performed it once and most of us thought it was stupid.
I know at least one song in church Slavonic, which is related to but not the same as Slovak.

And I know how to count to 5 and a short song about fireflies in Japanese.

But, yeah, my fluency is limited to English.