I grew up speaking German, in Germany.. :) learned school English, and now, speak Okie... I am here since 1972. :)

I think and dream in German by the second day/night, and usually back to American as soon as I hit the ground back here... after a visit.

Moni

I took Spanish in high school, but had forgotten most of it by the time I moved to SoCal 8 years later. There, though, I found a need to speak some at work (many Spanish-only speakers came through the ED) so I acquired a rudimentary, like a 2 or 3 year old, somewhat work specific vocabulary. Still can pull it out when the need arises but I do better at comprehending written Spanish than I do with spoken.

It's not easy when you're first starting to learn and want to speak but don't have the confidence. Especially when people laugh at you when you are trying. :\

I wish schools in America placed more importance on language learning and did a better job of teaching it. English seems to come so easy for people from other countries. Bunch of smarties lol :)

I took two years of Spanish in high school. I can occasionally understand a few words in a conversation, but don't remember how to speak it.

I wanted my kids to learn Spanish when they were little, but didn't find a lot of options for them to learn. Everything was geared for people to learn English.

I only speak English, but am taking Spanish lessons. My best friend is a retired Spanish teacher and she has been giving me private lessons. We have slacked off somewhat due to both of us being busy with traveling this past summer and fall and now the holidays are here, but I'm currently reviewing what we've covered so far on my own and hope to resume my lessons with her next year. We're going on a long trip in January, but my friend and I have agreed to email each other in Spanish only. I've found that I'm much better at reading Spanish than speaking it.

I also find it hard to understand people for whom Spanish is their first language. They speak so fast that I can't follow the conversation, but I imagine that is exactly how people who are learning to speak English or pretty much any other language feel.

I got a program on Black Friday for languages. The guy teaches you how to improve your accent. The program I got from him on Friday teaches you the different sounds that the language has. This was you're able to actually hear the words even if you don't know what they mean. That way it doesn't sound like a bunch of gibberish. Hopefully with this even if someone is speaking quickly I maybe able to pick out more words. :)

I speak French, Cajun and regular, I took several years of German at university, and English. I don't remember a lot of the German. Our primary language as a child was Cajun French and all business my father conducted was in Cajun French. I took several years of French class in school and university.

I would like to take Spanish since I live in Houston.

I grew up speaking German and English at the same time, so sometimes we speak a mix here. I also understand a bit of dog, but speaking is troublesome. Now my dog speaks dog, English and German. Smarter than me!

Barely speak English!

I can also speak cat and dog hahaha

I speak English....and poquito Espanol.

My grandkids speak English and fluent Japanese.

English & sign language.

English is the only language I speak but I speak Texan English. I live in Yankee-ville and every time I open my mouth, someone asks me "where are you from?" and "let me guess, Georgia" ....um NO! When I was a kid, we had Spanish in third grade and I swear I remember it all but took it in high school and don't remember I thing I learned (or didn't learn) in high school. I think it's important to teach kids another language very early on because your brain is like a sponge then but when you get older, it doesn't sink in as easily or at least for me it didn't. For instance, when my Mom was a little girl in first grade, she didn't speak a word of English and no one did her any favors by speaking Czech to her, she had to learn English and learn English she did! She didn't even remember any Czech after a while and she had no accent whatsoever.

Pig Latin.

Sue

I speak only English. I have 'menu' French and can read more French than I thought. My HS French teacher said I had a good accent. Well, we'd just been in France the summer before my freshman year. I will watch movies in French and try to beat the subtitles.

English and a little french.

I had 7 years of French. And even took a couple of classes in French literature (conducted entirely in French) in college. So I was moderately fluent. But the opportunities to use are so limited that I have forgotten most of it, I'm sure. I can still rattle off some poems and a number of songs I learned.....to no earthly purpose other than to entertain myself and test my memory :-)

I wish I had more Spanish skills. I know a little just from dealing with my landscaping crews (who are mostly Latino in my area) and from traveling in Mexico. But every time I start to say more than a few words in Spanish, it morphs into French!! Mas cerveza, s'il vous plait!! LOL!!

I took Spanish in 9th grade. Then our class went to Mexico for 8 days. Took another year of it in college....and I barely speak it now.

My English is of the mid-western variety. French seems to be more Canadian in variety. :-)

Like gardengal, my idea of *any* 'foreign' language devolves into French!

I speak only English. I took Spanish in high school. I got to be fairly proficient, although my accent was never good. Unfortunately I let that skill, such as it was, slip away -- no place to practice it in white bubble suburbia of the 70's.

Speak, would be one. There are several I understand, but do not speak them.

I can sing "Jingle Bells" in Spanish.

I can curse in Italian ! It's very authentic.

I only speak English now, but after living in Mexico for a while when I was younger, I spoke spanish fluently by the time I returned to the states.

My DH is the one in our family who has the talent of being trilangual. He speaks, reads and writes Russian, Swedish and English all fluently. It’s always amazed me.

English. I took Spanish in high school but the only thing I remember is “where is the bathroom?”

I took French in high school for probably 1 semester. I could never get to a place where I wasn't always translating to English...it just didn't click in my brain to do things in another language. I feel the same way about reading music. I love music, almost every kind, but when I took lessons on a clarinet as a youngster, I could never sight read the notes and translate to my fingers. I've always theorized that whatever part of the brain is good at other languages/reading music might be the same for both those skills.

English and I used to be able to speak enough Spanish to get by but I haven't had to speak it since '79, so I am probably pretty rusty. I didn't take it in school....taught myself and picked it up when we had a friend here from Mexico.

Elizabeth, I can curse in Croatian. I can speak a few phrases, but would hardly say I know the language. DH is fluent in Croatian, but has so few times to speak it any more with so many of our old folks gone, it's takes him a little while of listening (and stumbling) until it comes back to him.

I took Spanish in high school, I wish I'd retained more of it. Really, I'd like to have been better at languages, I think I shorted myself. A young woman visiting with family from Croatia several years ago impressed me so much - she was close to fluent in 6 languages and still studying. 16 years old. She felt like she was only slightly ahead of most in her high school class knowing 6, she didn't consider herself unusually bright. When she returned a few years later, her little brother could speak three at 5 yrs old. Croatian (his mother), German (his father) and English. He would ask me for something and I'd have to remind him to speak to me in English - he was probably confused that a grownup didn't understand all he had to say ;0)

From school studies and living in Europe and traveling there a lot over the years:

French - just sub fluent but enough for business meetings and to make presentations, both of which I've done many times.Can read the newspaper, watch TV, without much strain. I don't translate thoughts from English, I can speak directly.

German - more than tourist level, less than my French. I can read and speak enough for many informal situations

Dutch - around tourist level plus, enough to make locals friendly and get them to smile (foreigners don't often study the language)

Spanish - I can communicate about most things and get by. Hard to live in California during my lifetime without finding it to be very useful.

I can make sense of a lot of written Italian because of its proximity to its French and Spanish romance language cousins. f

So compared to most people, I have a lot of language capability. Needless to say, it's also something I like a lot.

English.

One of my co-worker speaks 5. If I need anything translated, I just call her.

English of course. I took 4 years of german in high school and remember quite a bit. Several months ago I decided I wanted to learn spanish. It sure would come in handy around here! I've been using the Duolingo app on my phone. Practice just about every day. Its coming along. I've learned a lot. The app says I'm 46% fluent. I may eventually take a spanish class at the library to work more on pronunciation,

Grew up speaking Italian and only when I started school did I learn how to speak English. Worked in a Chinese restaurant for years and learned how to swear in Mandarin. Took French all through elementary school and high school.

I speak only US English and some of my acquaintances question that. While growing up, I had no exposure to other languages although after leaving home, I discovered that I was speaking my mother's version of English which was an Arkansas-Okie accent with common grammatical errors and pronunciations. My speech patterns changed after I left home and by 2 years later, I did not sound as I once did. That disturbed Mom a little as she thought I was "puttin' on airs". My speech was influenced by demands of working on college course work and employment at Rock Island Arsenal. I would describe my accent as Midwest and of the Quad City area (Davenport, Bettendorf, Rock Island, Moline). For the past 57 years, I have lived in Wisconsin.

I grew up in a community that was isolated from the rest of the world. Languages were not taught in grade schools, and only a few high schools could offer another language. I am not sure if my high school had a language teacher for every year I attended. If offered, Spanish and French were the two popular languages taught in larger high schools and finding qualified teachers for the spoken language was a problem.

Growing up in southern Illinois, my best exposure to Spanish was via AM radio. When searching across the dial for a music station. a Mexican language station, WXRF cane through loud and clear. I thought their music was great.

Two years of Latin in HS certainly helped in studying French later.

In my early childhood I spoke Danish. I can still speak a smattering of it. Never could read or write it though. There were many words I didn't know until I grew up, like dust pan, and down blanket cover; I only knew the Danish words for those and a few other words.

I can understand "bar talk", does that count?

Well, first and foremost I speak Canadian. No, I don't speak English: we Canadians destroyed the English accent and there are many words British people use we don't. So: Canadian, eh!

And I speak some Dutch, but put me in a room full of Dutch people for a couple of days and I'll speak a lot of Dutch. I'm just glad they all speak English (well, the Dutch form of English because it's not 100% but they do a pretty good job of it!). When I was in The Netherlands, I got away with my Canadian words and everyone spoke English back to me. Phew!

English and a bit of french. i wish I could speak another language. I tried going back to school to take up french again but my brain has fossilized. My great aunt spoke an interesting language - Pennsylvania Dutch. It was mostly german and interesting to hear. I know the PA Dutch can still speak it. PA Dutch, as you probably know, are descendants of germans , or Deutsch, hence the name Dutch.

umm..Russian (dereriorating. lol), Ukrainian(would need to immerse for real fluency, hadn't been there for years..reading as native though), English, Hebrew...was making decent progress in French, but now would have to work on it hard to get to even the same level I was..can read easy literature..trying to pick up on Spanish, watching basic telenovelas helps a lot..:) they repeat there same things many times. They pronounce much more clearly(to me) too..so I put on subtitles and it can be fun. Actually I watch everything with subtitles. I read fast so I like to compare..:) even when I understand perfectly well. My dream would be mastering French..learning Spanish, Italian. Yiddish, Polish. Swedish would be cool. I'll never get to that of course, but I like languages.

Some languages are very hard though. Very different from everything I heard. Say I was in Uzbekistan when a girl-usually with every new language I try to pick up on some words, but there was so different I really struggled, Not that I had to-it was a ten day visit, very fun one.

(I'm liking everybody's posts-very interesting)

Southern and cat-ese (at least with my two cats, Maggie the fluffer, and MurphyNO!)

I took mandatory French classes all through school, continued with conversational French in College. My Dad used to buy me French story books and lesson books when I was a child because his Step Mother was French Canadian and he wanted me to learn. I have been to France 4 times and I could speak French quite well back then but not so much anymore. I can read French. I often watch Fench Canadian tv shows. I tried to learn Spanish from tapes but gave up but know some basics

English, with several years of Spanish in high school and college. I took a refresher course at the continuing-ed class, but without a way to speak it, I lost it. I used Duolingo for a while last year, but I felt like I was just learning vocabulary. I can read it a bit. I guess if you recognize enough words, you can get the gist without having all of the grammar and syntax right.

I envy people who can speak and understand spoken foreign languages. I tried but don't have that ability. I read and translate several, a bit rusty now, but I find it so much easier than oral communication. I am more visual, always trying to picture what the word looks like on a page. But bad ears for deciphering speech.

English, Japanese, French, some Spanish.