How many languages do you know?

[tj86430]

There has been some interesting discussion about learning other languages (esp. Chinese, Japanese and Korean). In the spirit of that, I'd like to know how many languages people know. To make an arbitrary definition regarding what counts: if you can cope in everyday situations, read most of a newspaper and at least somehow express yourself in writing it counts.

As for myself, Finnish is my native language, I'm somewhat fluent in Swedish and English (although my spoken Swedish is very rusty, I know it would come back to me very quickly), and I know enough German to satisfy the definition above. In addition I know a little French, but not enough for it to count.

[kirkmc]

Only two: bilingual English and French. However, I lived in Norway for a year, some twenty years ago, and achieved a good level of Norsk, and have studied Chinese a bit before that. Alas, languages fade away if they're not practiced.

[cdybeijing]

I speak Chinese everyday in my office and regularly work with monolingual colleagues. However, I only read about 100 characters, as all of my language training has been conversational.

When I was a child, I attended an all French middle school for several years. I don't count that because I haven't used it in 5+ years, but I feel it would come back to me quickly if I were in an appropriate environment for several months.

[topazg]

I can just about get by on French and Spanish, but only at a stretch, and I don't feel it's up to the standard expressed by the OP, so I put 1. I've always struggled with languages ..

[DrStraw]

I consider myself bilingual - British and American.

I can read French well enough to make sense of a newspaper but would not know all the words and I cannot speak it. I know a fair bit of Japanese but am very rusty as it is 20 years since I took a class. I can read Esperanto well enough to get the meaning but would have trouble writing it. I can understand about 10% of what is said in the Russian room on KGS. Beyond that, nothing.

So I said 2.

[Mike]

I speak Finnish and English. Studied Russian, Swedish, German, Japanese, Chinese and right now Korean, but I wouldn't list any of them as a language I know. I've forgotten practically all of them by now(except Korean which is now the WIP), even though I studied Russian for 6 years for instance..

[MountainGo]

I'm fluent in American English (native) and French, and I know diddly squat in others.

[karaklis]

I voted three languages, because I can speak German (mother tongue), English (kinda fluent) and Indonesian (fluent in the colloquial language which is quite different from the standard language).

I have learnt French and Spanish at school. Both languages are quite rusty now, but I know enough to read newspaper articles.

Besides, I often have to research in the national statistical agencies, some of them do not publish their data in English. Usually they have limited English content, but the statistical data that I'm interested in are not available in English, so I have to dig through the pages in their original language:

Portuguese and Italian (Spanish and French help me with that)
Dutch (my Low German knowledge helps me here).

Last but not least: I know some Arabic, i.e. enough to read and understand most of the Quran.

[unkx80]

I voted two languages: English and Chinese.

I am a bit of a strange case: I am more comfortable reading and writing English, but more fluent conversing in Mandarin.

I don't know exactly what language I should call my native language. Officially, my mother tongue would be Mandarin because I am of Chinese descent. However, among locals, I tend to speak somewhere in a continuum between Singlish and Standard English, and frequently code switch with Mandarin if they understand Mandarin as well. Note that Singlish is a rojak language with elements of English and a variety of other languages including dialects of Chinese, Malay, and Indian, plus some vocabulary and grammar that is unique to Singlish.

Foreigners sometimes cannot understand what we Singaporeans are speaking amongst ourselves. It's uniquely Singapore.

[Sverre]

Heh, being a Scandinavian I get three languages for cheap, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are all close enough to be mutually intelligible .

Other than that I speak English fairly well and German sufficiently to fit the criteria, but don't know any other languages at that level of fluency, so I chose 5.

[freegame]

Voted 3:

Dutch is my native language.
I have no problems using English.
I know enough German to also count.
(but most German people speak English anyway)
My French is not good enough to count.

[Kirby]

Do computer languages count?

[phrax]

Do computer languages count?

I wish. Although I haven't read a newspaper in Perl, sometimes its a more comfortable method of expression;

[emeraldemon]

Ich habe Deutsch studiert, aber ich kann nicht sage, dass ich fluessig spreche. Klasse an der Uni, ohne Zeit nach Deutschland, ist nicht genug eine Zeitung zu lesen

[palapiku]

English/Russian/Spanish