I speak five languages--English, German, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. And I have (to various degrees) knowledge of several others--among these are French, Italian, and Dutch.

I speak English, and continue to study Spanish---I go to an adult language school. This thread brings to mind a book I read called BREAKFAST WITH THE BUDDHA. The main character, a monk, speaks multiple languages---and at one point is rudely challenged by a character who doesn't believe him. When provoked to name the languages he "supposedly" speaks, he pleasantly replies that one of the languages he speaks is "kindness". I try to remember that when considering my fluency.

I speak English and French. Nodding with Torontogirl as I took French all the way through high school and then one year at university to meet the one other language credit for my degree. I understand French better than I speak it.

Our DD is in French Immersion, which for the Catholic school board starts in Junior Kindergarten (4 years old). My French is improving with helping her with some homework and reading French library books. (so far so good! I can pass JK!)

Well I am absolutely terrible at languages, particularly accents, but I suppose I could count Hebrew as my second language at this point .

I am a native English speaker. I majored in Spanish at university, although my spoken Spanish is very rusty from lack of use. I read Spanish much better than I speak it. I can also catch the gist of a lot of Italian and occasionally some French and Portuguese, because of my 'romance' language educational background (Spanish, Latin, and French classes pepper my entire educational career starting in 1979 when I was in 3rd grade). I would love to use these languages more often, because I learned, at the tender age of 9, that learning a language does a lot of things for me:
* helps me communicate with a wide variety of people's
* exposes me to different cultures
* connects me to people at a heart level (hearing my 3rd grade Spanish teacher talk about fleeing Cuba when Castro took over? Imprinted on my psyche)

Native English speaker. German was one of my undergraduate majors, and I’ve been to the country a few times. I have enough grasp of the language that I’m confident, if I go back to Germany, the my German will come back.

Last summer I started learning French. I’d decided a while ago I wanted to learn another language, both to keep my brain sharp and also I love studying languages. Then I heard a world-class organist who spent much of her career based in Paris say in a lecture that to play French music with real understanding, it helps immensely to speak the language. That was the motivation I needed to go out and buy a very thick textbook and CD’s and start teaching myself French.

Completely fluent in three, and can speak a bit of French since we lived there for a while.

Dutch - Mother Tongue

English - First Language (my education was in English)

Afrikaans - because I had to learn it at school.

I am VERY bad at languages and have no interest in them either. The only reason I am fluent in three is because I learnt them at the right age. That's the secret!

The only language I’m fluent in, besides my native English, is German, including a Swiss dialect. I learned Portuguese once, but have forgotten most of it. Also had a start on Somali, but most of that is gone too. I’ve been saying for years that I want to learn French and Arabic, but haven’t done anything about it. I don’t learn languages well in the classroom. Best way for me to learn—have a guy fall in love with me and teach me his native language.

FI !