How many languages do you know?

[daniel_the_smith]

I put one, as I'm assuming computer languages don't count...

I think go is very similar to language, so maybe I should have put 2...

[rubin427]

I'm only competent with English.

Go U.S.A. - yeah!

[Peter Hansmeier]

English, Chinese, French. I bought a Kindle a while back and it has been handy for keeping up on French.

[wms]

I voted "2" but that isn't accurate any more. Years ago I was pretty good in French (I could read through an adult novel almost as fast as I could read in English, and I could speak and understand in a typical conversation). But that was a long time ago, these days I can say "Is this the train to Chartres?" but anything harder and I get lost. So really these days I only speak one language well. Which reminds me, I'm trying to read a French book a year to stop the loss of skill, and it's time to read another.

I also studied Japanese a little bit, but other than saying "Igo ga suki desu ne" there isn't much useful that I can speak or understand. I used to at least know the kana but not any more.

[Kirby]

...

I also studied Japanese a little bit, but other than saying "Igo ga suki desu ne" there isn't much useful that I can speak or understand. I used to at least know the kana but not any more.

Sometimes I feel like Katakana is harder than Kanji (at least commonly used Kanji).

Example: ヲ. Of course, を shows up all the time, but I rarely see the corresponding ヲ.

I don't really know if this constitutes as "harder" than Kanji, but certainly less used.

[hyperpape]

WMS: I found that newspapers were ideal for studying--you can surely find something that fits your interests, and you can get spend anywhere from 5 minutes to as much time as you have each day.

After I quit taking French courses, I used to read the Le Monde, which started off as a laborious task--3 pages of words to define or check my translation on in an article at first. I kept that up a few times a week for a year, and later my wife said that my french was hilarious because I combined the vocabulary of a well-educated professional with the pronunciation and grammar of a five year old.

[gowan]

English, Spanish, Russian, French, Japanese. As an American citizen I think it's sad that so few Americans know foreign languages. But that's likely to change before too long. The Hispanic population in the USA is growing so fast that in a decade or two the USA is likely to be bilingual with English and Spanish the way Canada is with English and French. Also, as the Chinese economy grows there will be more and more pressure to learn Chinese.

[daal]

The only foreign language (for me) that I speak fluently is German, but I can carry on a conversation in French or Russian if there's enough alcohol involved.

[Phelan]

I can speak Portuguese and English very well, can manage pretty well in Spanish, and can ruin enough French to get by, so I voted 4. I'm not sure if I should have counted French, since I'm really out of practice.

[Dusk Eagle]

I only know English fluently, so I put down 1. However, I have studied both Spanish and Japanese to some extent. Being Canadian, I was also forced to study French, but I resented being forced to do that and so I hated it and dropped it as soon as I could. There's no need to be able to speak French in Ontario anyway - Mandarin would probably be more useful.

[Joaz Banbeck]

One.

I've taken three years of Latin, one year of Spanish, one year of German, one semester of Greek, one semester of Italian, and I consider myself to be barely competent in English.

[schultz]

One for me. And not motivated enough to actually see my dream come true of learning at least one new language (at least currently, I'm working on it ).

Not for lack of trying, though. Took one quarter of German, 1 quarter of French, 1 quarter of Spanish, lived in Thailand and took a year of Thai class (teacher was terrible ), and took 2 semesters of Japanese in college.

[tapir]

Same thread for SL: http://senseis.xmp.net/?topic=1693

[Maere]

French (native), German (the one I speak every day ever since I moved to Hamburg) and English (I read much more English books than German or French ones).
It's not rare for me to get confused because of my brain trying to think of something in three different languages.

I did not count Spanish (after learning it six years in school, I can survive to a trip in Spain... barely) or Swedish (I prefer to avoid thinking of my poor attempts at learning it).

I'm surprised at how many languages people speak fluently on this forum. Most people I know somehow manage English, often with pain.

[hyperpape]

I'm actually surprised that there aren't more trilingual or quadrilingual folk, between the Europeans and Asian-Americans.