Number of languages?

[PlanetF]

Being from a bilingual country, I'm really interested in other people's experiences with learning languages, be it from school or travel or watching anime (I know you're out there...). Even though the main AVEN site is English, I know we're spread around the world and there are probably some impressive polyglots amongst us!

For myself, I speak English as a mother tongue, but learned French from such a young age that I more or less consider myself bilingual (grammar aside...). I would say I had 2 get-by languages, German and Spanish, and I'd probably consider Norwegian to be my only real point and grunt language.

[Palovana]

I'm thoroughly fluent only in English. I'm pretty good with French and German, though I tend to be able to read both languages much better than I can speak and understand them, especially because people often talk very fast. As far as "point and grunt languages" (I love how you referred to these...), I can say a few things in Italian, Swedish, and Finnish, but not nearly enough to even get by.

Funny thing is though, often times I'm able to understand a good part of written Dutch because of how similar it is to German. Swedish and Norwegian I can read some, too, because of my basic knowledge of Swedish and because of both languages' (somewhat more distant) ties to German.

I find languages extremely fascinating. I'd like to study linguistics in gradate school at some point.

[Mx.Jekyll]

I'm fluent in English (I know, so impressive).

I speak conversational German, but I'd love to learn French and Italian.

My "point and grunts" would include Spanish, Japanese, and Italian.

["""]

My mother language is Spanish, second language is obviously English.

[jsx0]

I'm a native Portuguese speaker but loved learning English and feel like it's the language of my soul. I'm OK with Spanish and might just avoid starving to death in French and Italian, all of these Romance Family freebies. I studied some German but not enough to reach advanced anythings, which I regret, and I can feel my grasp of German receding even as I write...

Now learning Chinese (read that as 'having my ass handed to me by Chinese').

[.lannah.]

English is my first language since I was born in Australia, my second language is Tagalog and Bisaya. I am also familiar with Spanish.

[Guest]

I speak conversational German

Wow German ... All I know in german is "tag". I was learning a while ago but I just give up on the language.

[ShyFeather]

I had a handful of deaf friends growing up so I'm familiar with ASL. I took Spanish in high school but I don't remember much of it. I studied abroad in Japan and I'm pretty comfortable conversing in it. And, no, I actually don't like anime. It's annoying when even Japanese people are surprised to hear that >.>

[little_bird]

I speak English fluently, can get by in Welsh (it's compulsory at Welsh schools up and including GSCEs, so I did nearly eight years of lessons), know tourist-y words and phrases in French.

Oh, yeah, and I suppose I should include Italian as a 'point and grunt', but I haven't spoken any in nearly three years. I forgot to put it in my answer to the poll...

[Mycroft is Yourcroft]

Perfectly fluent in both French and English, raised by English, schooled by French

I could get by in Spanish

Point and grunt in Japanese :P

[Hooded_Crow]

I'm a French native speaker, fluent in English.

My German is a bit rusty but it used to be quite good and I'm sure I could get by.

I know a few words of Spanish. And Latin, but I gather that doesn't count...

[marki]

Yo....add zero as an option. You can't do the survey if you don't fill in all the spots but I don't have anything for the second section. I am able to speak English fluently, French at an advanced intermediate level and am learning Turkish but don't know much of it yet.

[PlanetF]

Yo....add zero as an option. You can't do the survey if you don't fill in all the spots but I don't have anything for the second section. I am able to speak English fluently, French at an advanced intermediate level and am learning Turkish but don't know much of it yet.

I didn't add 0 originally because... well an absence of something didn't necessarily inform. But as requested, please find 0's included!

[❅Snowflake❅]

Number of fluent languages:1
Number of get-by languages:3
Point and grunt languages:4+

[iamphoenixfire]

I speak english, I know enough spanish to get by. I also know enough italian to say a few words and awkwardly say goodbye. I want to learn German, Japanese, Sanskrit, Latin, and Arabic, though.

[K!m]

My mother tongue is Filipino, but I'm actually more fluent in English.

I'm not sure I have any get-by languages to be honest. My best point and grunt language though is Japanese, which I learned from ~watching anime~

I studied Chinese for a short while when I was little, then I tried learning Swedish, Italian and Latin on my own, but I never made any real progress with any of them. I've memorized a whole song in Latin though. (It's from an anime, haha.) I also know/understand a little bit of Spanish, French and German.

[RoswellValentine]

I'm fluent in English, but I have taken German in high school, so I can get by on that (in addition to having a few family members that know German).

My point-and-grunt is Japanese, which I tried to learn in middle school, but I can still remember some basic stuff and numbers (I learned some Japanese from a karate class I used to take for a few years). I may have been taught some Greek and Italian from an overseas trip last summer, but I probably couldn't point and grunt with either (tour director gave us everyday phrases like "Thank you").

[Dirge]

Only fluent in English. I can get by in Italian and Spanish, better while reading/writing than while holding a spoken conversation. German remains a 'point and grunt' language, most of what I know was learned by growing up around people who spoke it.

[SquirrelCat]

Fluent: English, German, Swedish, (Norwegian and Danish). Scandinavia is fascinating in that regard, it's a know one language get two for free kind of situation.

Get by languages: French, Polish, Latin(no idea what those lessons were supposed to be good for, but I was 9 and did what the teachers told me to do) and Icelandic.

Point and grunt: Japanese, Czech, Spanish, Mandarin and I can swear a lot in Finnish.

[5_♦♣]

Not sure whether I consider my French to be 'get by' or 'point and grunt'.

Spanish is definitely 'point and grunt' for me, as all I know is hola, gracias and adieu. Oh and Feliz Navidad.

[noparlpf]

I'm fluent in English, formerly proficient in Spanish (currently super-rusty, but if I were in a Spanish-speaking country I'm sure I'd pick it up again fairly quickly), and know a smidge of Italian and Japanese (want to learn more of both).

[Snusmumriken]

I am fluent in Spanish and English.

I have decent German, I think (B1 level)

And then I can express myself in Swedish. And some words in several languages (I'm a big fan of languages!).

[Guest]

Fluent in German (native) and English. Point and grunt in French and Latin (not that Latin were to get put to the test that often... :lol: ).

Dutch is somewhere between "get by" and "point and grunt"... I understand it very well, but don't actively speak it; it's a result from growing up just ten minutes drive time from the DUtch border in a time when their TV stations still came in over aerial. I watched a lot of comedies and cartoons in Dutch, or with Dutch subtitles, as a kid and young teen. :D I guess I could babble something that a Dutch person would be able to understand, somehow, but it'd sure be full of leanwords and grammatical mistakes. ^_^

[A Perfect Square]

My first language is English, and I feel pretty confident with Spanish, so that makes two languages that I can use without encountering any real problems. I am learning Catalan and Japanese, and I can do basic touristy stuff and possibly throw in a few thoughts about things. I have to say though, French, Welsh, Russian and Lithuanian are definitely my 'let's play Charades!' languages.

[kiaroskuro]

'Point and grunt' language - I'll have to remember that. :D

[PlanetF]

What a bunch of polyglots! Amazing!

I came up with "point and grunt" language because that's how I feel when I'm in some countries... I didn't even count Chinese as point and grunt because I know exactly 2 words in Mandarin, and the rest of the time I spent in the country I had to use the international languages of mime, Pictionary and calculators. Useful skill, but definitely not linguistically capable without those three crutches.

Also, Latin TOTALLY COUNTS as a language. Even if you won't be using it in everyday life, but the skills you learn through learning a second language can be applied to other more "useful" ones. Also, scientific nomenclature is much easier for you, as are the romantic languages. Totally counts.

I'd love to learn Brazilian Portuguese (well, Portuguese, by Canada does more commerce with Brazil so learning the accent and slang from there would make most sense), and improve my Spanish. But at the moment I have to focus on French classes... yes, yes, I'm fluent in it, but oh dear my poor grammar :( It's atrocious.

Merci a toutes et a tous pour vos reponses!!! (I can't seem to do accents here...)

[LaMaestra]

Native languages Irish and English. Also speak Gaelic, French, Spanish and Italian.

I can get by in Swedish, thanks mainly to my admiration for a certain gentleman!

'Point and grunt' languages German, Afrikaans.

[deltaX]

Sadly, unless programming languages count, I am only fluent in English. I took Spanish classes for 12 years in school, and at one point I was kind of decent at it, but after I finished my last required Spanish class most of the language left my brain. I would consider it a "point and grunt" language at this point.

[PlanetF]

Sadly, unless programming languages count, I am only fluent in English. I took Spanish classes for 12 years in school, and at one point I was kind of decent at it, but after I finished my last required Spanish class most of the language left my brain. I would consider it a "point and grunt" language at this point.

You might be surprised how much comes back if you're immersed in it. I couldn't believe I was able to bring up enough Spanish to feed myself in Bogota with only 2 years of high school Spanish over 10 years ago.

[Guest]

I speak fluent English....that's about it. I know some French (studied at school whether I liked it or not), Spanish and Japanese and a little German but not enough to get by very well. I also know a few words in Latin and even Welsh and Cornish.

I really need to brush up on all those (besides Spanish which I've more recently been picking up on) though....