Do you speak a second (or third) language?

I used to speak Spanish, my mother speaks French and Spanish, my grandmother spoke I think 7, coulda been 9. I am now the only person in our entire extended family who is not at least bilingual.

We moved to Ecuador when I was a kid, I picked it up fast, no problems. When we moved back to Florida, I only knew my mother who spoke Spanish, it took a lot longer for me to forget it, about three years of not using it then it did for me to pick up basic communications, about two weeks.

As I said on an earlier question, I still sometimes dream with snippets of Spanish, but I don’t speak it, and can only understand some.

I could pick it up again if I wanted I’m sure, but…eh, I’d rather learn Arabic. :)

grow up in a german and english home, picked up italian a couple years back.

German = native, English -> ESL

I speak english, russian and some ukrainian.

Nope.

I speak some French. I was able to translate Québécois in my head when I was in Montréal well enough to get around and not get lost. I started French lessons in HS and continued until my junior year of uni.

No but I wish I did and have made attempts but as much as I’m able to quickly understand, I can’t put a sentence together to save my life.

German because I was taken care of by German-born grandparents…Spanish from 8 years of schooling in language and literature…American Sign Language from dating a deaf girl for three years…Vietnamese after I married my wife of 20+ years…trying to learn Japanese now but it’s kinda hard…

Urdu= native tounge
English= ESL
Arabic= picked up a little while we lived there for 8 yrs as a kid
A little French from school/ travel/friends
Spanish as an aduld due to work.

spanish=native
no other language spoken at home growing up
english—> ESOL in grade school, fluent by age 8–9
studied both German (2 yrs) and French (3 yrs) in high school
currently working on French, would like to be fluent
plan to begin studying Japanese in the next couple of years

Spanish. I took four years in HS and then lived in Costa Rica for a while, which solidified it a lot more than my time in the classroom.
I wish I were raised bilingual.

My father was raised in Chile speaking French at his first school, German with his grandparents, Spanish with his friends, and English at home and at his second school. He subsequently learned Cantonese as a result of World War Two and then Dutch because he worked for Shell. He spoke several languages at home, using German primarily when we had done something wrong, French for telling stories, and Spanish at the dinner table.

As a result all of us kids are fluent in Spanish. My brother additionally speaks Portuguese (Brazilian version). My sister added Norwegian and Italian to her knowledge base and may have added some Tibetan or Dzongkha because as a Buddhist she has made pilgrimages there. I have studied and upon occasion muddled along and gotten by in French, German, and Portuguese. I have also studied Japanese and Mandarin, and have picked up odd phrases in a number of other languages, including Farsi, Tagalog, Indonesian, Italian, and Russian.

When my parents offered to host a foreign exchange student the organization had difficulty choosing the right one because they wanted the student to be forced to use English and thus required the host family to be unable to speak the student’s native tongue. Eventually the organization arrived with a perfect solution: they sent us an Australian.

Little did they know that my grandmother spoke fluent “Strine.”

my native language is Russian
at 12 I learned English when we moved to the U.S
throughout jhs and hs, I studied Italian
but forgot a lot of it

I had French for maybe eight years, and Russian for six. Little remains of either, and I used to be able to converse in both (albeit, painfully).

@Simone_De_Beauvoir
Вы красивейшая персона

I speak pretty good Spanish. I grew up in a bilingual household, but my parents never pushed for me to learn Spanish. I just kinda picked it up. My Dad spoke French and Japanese also.

I grew up in Greece in a household where the main language was English, so yes, it was sort of bilingual. I did some German at school, but mainly picked it up when I lived there, and also did some Russian, Czech and Arabic at university. I can understand Dutch quite easily (but don’t speak it) and also lived in Poland recently, so overall I could probably communicate with most people in Europe, at least on a basic level. I even understand some Italian (though I’ve never really learnt it).

Norwegian
Swedish
Danish (they are so close to norwegian making them easy to learn for us, even thou there is no real need)
English
German

My mother tongue is Spanish.
I speak a fluent English and I’m learning Arabic.

@KalWest
wow, nice
thanks

English = first language
French = second language (intermediate)
Portuguese = third language (beginner)

@jo_with_no_space I’m jealous!

Such beautiful languages.

I took French for like…2.5 years. I had already had experience with Spanish, so it was a lot easier. I also said Portuguese would be my next endeavor.

@aviona Thank you! I have a lot to learn still, especially with Portuguese.

English is my second language.

@cwilbur: What’s your first?

French.

No, but I’ve studied French in the past and would love to be able to speak it fluently.

My first language is Spanish, second one English (studying for 12 years in school. Pretty good in it by now), French (just two years. Not as near as good as I’d wish to be) and Esperento (studied just 2 or 3 months and I can speak it pretty good :) )