I know this is an International Community, so it strikes me that I must ask, "What languages do we speak?" {If you speak three or more languages, you are a polyglot, if you speak two languages, you are bilingual, if you speak only one language, you are an American}

I barely speak one. But I'm British, so just shout very loudly and slowly when I go to a foreign speaking country.

One, beside my own. English. Plus bits and pieces of ... two others.

Well, please name them! About twenty years ago, I was fluent in German, I know a smattering of Mexican Spanish, and just a tad of Italian. I figure that I can order drinks or make bail in about a dozen countries.

English,......well sort of, you see I'm originally from Buffalo, so speak very slowly and use small words. I'm also in the middle of learning Irish Gaelic,......talk about a difficult task.

I'm american, sadly thats the only language I know. Every so often my daughter will say something in French, I can't ever seem to pick up anything, other than the "if you please" and "thankyou"s in French and Spanish. :( Worse I'm originally from Massachusetts so I leave off 'r's and add 'r's where they don't belong.

Three here. Swedish, Hungarian and English. :)

Yow..go Rochr..Swedish and Hungarian are wildly different languages..most 'muricuns spend their whole lives in a single country; and rarely run into anyone who speaks anything different than Spanish and Quebequios (sp?)..
I know enough (Tejano) Spanish to settle a bill, a few phrases in French, Russian, German, Chinese (I can say 'I don't know' in 5 languages..almost as useful as 'where's the loo?'..;) I try to learn 'please' and 'thank you' in the language of every country I've been to..but that's it..

I speak a bit of Italian, and know a bit of German. And a bit of written French and Spanish.

Ang: A coworker often leaves his "cah" at his "apahtment" when he "cahpools to wark" pakled: Quebecois. I lived for a time in Montreal. I wouldn't speak French just to annoy them.

Whoo, boy. That's a tough one.... I've got a knack for picking up the occasional necessary word, but the language I know best is english. I took spanish and french in school a few years back. Other than that I know a little bit of Arabic and some snippets of german.

English, Geordie, a bit of Welsh........

I speak English, a bit of German, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Turkish, and know enough to start an International incident in 14 other languages,lol.

Natively I speak English and old Scots, with some German and a smattering of French and Italian. 8)

Oh, and some Latin. Nearly forgot that.

English is my native language, but I can speak it in several regional idioms. Gor blimey I speak souff east London, and also BBC london, don't you know, depending on the company. Can also get by in Yorkshire but have to admit that geordie is a bit difficult. Also a tad of French and German and just a smattering of Gaelic (mostly greetings and swear words)

@ danamo...........Holy Cow!!!!! 19 languages!!!! How do you keep track of them? @ sackrat........"I'm also in the middle of learning Irish Gaelic,......talk about a difficult task. " I sympathise - all my schooling to the age of eighteen was through Irish, and I never got the hang of it. I can read it now, but that's about all.

Talking to people, I do English (the british variety) and French (could do Latin if they were still around). When dealing with the dominant species on the planet, I can get by in assembler, cobol, PL1, REXX, EXEC2, SAS, DOS, Korn Shell script, AWK and Perl. Also have a smattering of Java and Python. Shows what a sad life I've led 8-)

lol@judyk. That's too funny! :o) I'm American English. At the age when most kids had foreign languages offered in school, I was in a very rural community and none were offered. However, as a small child, we lived in Germany for three years since Dad was military. In my late 20s, because of a friend's kid taking German in high school, I discovered that I can read (most of the textbook) German. Now, that was weird to discover! :o) I pick up accents nearly overnight tho'. Probably from Dad's service years.

In defense of the English language, I only speak English well enough to be understood. I know that "oodlums" is a small quantity and that youall is singular whereas all-o-youall is plural in Southern Appalachia. I know that, "good deal, We're having salad" Means yes we are having Jell-O with fruit mixed in Minnesota. I know that if I say, "I'd like to knock you up" it means come to your house for a visit in England. It gets me a slap in the face here in the states. Word up! homie. English is not a single language anymore. And incidentally, I've had to read a Glock report in technical German and translate Peruvian mineral deeds in Spanish in the last year. I'm just too slow to speak. Besides there is always Babel fish if you dont understand. Doubra dien

@judyk- oh, well, if you're going that way..I have Cobol, RPG II, Assembler, Basic, and Htmlthe hard way..in Wordpad..;), and the very beginnings of shell scripts in Linux ( I can pronounce things written in Cyrillic..but not sure if that counts..;) Ya nye guvareet russki, tovarisch..;) y dawbriye utro..;)

Babelfish doesn't count. :-) And it's no good, anyway. ! -> Dobry den'! -> Good day! "" would mean a day which is good. pakled, which Cyrillic? Russian? Serbian? Macedonian? Bulgarian? :-) And my mind must be slipping. I forgot to mention the languages from around here: Macedonian and Slovene. I can read and understand them much more than I can speak, though. And if I concetrate very much, I can read bits of Polish and Czech, too. It's all Slavic languages, like my own Croatian, anyway. :-) I'm reminded of a former professor of mine. In comparison with him, danamo, as admirable as his achievements are, is a piker. The professor spoke 29 languages. Yup, twenty nine. Among other things, he could simultaneously translate octal numbers. But was he a pain...

On a good day, I can speak (British) English. And a smattering of French, and a couple of bits in Dutch. Having been a programmer since I left school (too many years ago to tasefully state), I can "speak" most of them and can pick up any I need in a few days (except for APL - that was a strange one! - but I finished the contract) Haven't yet mastered Geordie, nor Glaswegian (they're foreign). Cheers, Diolma

English, enough Spanish to get by (read it much better than I speak it), bits and pieces of French, German and Italian (enough to know what I'm ordering from the menu, be polite about it, and how to find the bathroom). Ricky (no, I'm not done with all the tax returns yet)

I am English. I learned French and Latin at school. I taught myself Ancient Greek and Anglo-Saxon since. 2 or so times since I have had to talk in Latin to foreigners. I can get by in Dutch. I can struggle with written German and Spanish. I learned oddments of Russian (for a week visit there) and Egyptian Arabic (for scuba diving in the Red Sea, e.g. how to say "this cylinder is empty"). I have had goes at learning Sanskrit. I can more or less read the Devanagari and Gujarati alphabets.

Ricky: Just finished my taxes the other day. I'm sure some of my invictives will classify as a new language! (For example; "$$%$%^&^*&(&)$%$@#%$!!!")

I finished my own taxes early last week .... but I do a lot of taxes for corporate clients and trust clients (corporate and fiduciary returns as well as gift tax returns). I'm still pounding away on several of those as well as one individual return for a client's recently deceased father. Workworkworkworkwork ..... Ricky Oh, PS: of the two new cats, one is more or less integrated into the family. Her name: Erin. She still has some significant health problems, but I'm determined to get her well. The boy, (Brian), is still in an isolation cage in the kitchen. It's going to take more time to get him comfortable with the rest of the cats (and vice versa) ... his motor skills are poor because of the brain damage. So, I have a lot of physical therapy to do with him yet. Add tax season to my cat allergy and you can see why I haven't been able to Bryce for a few weeks. (And I MISS it soooooo much!!) Bryce on everyone ......

And Bryce on you as well Ricky! Hope all goes well with your two new feline companions, and with the end of the tax season.

pretty much forgotten my german, so some french (live in Montreal) and mostly Canadian english. Pakled - when did you live here?

I can speak English (American and British - I'm not being facetious, it can be really important when it comes to phraseology!) also German, a little Afrikaans and a little french. I will admit that I know some Klingon due to the guys I used to work with, several of whom were fluent and truly believed that Klingon would become an international language ( :-? ) I can ask for beer in almost every language in Europe :-).

Okay, I get "souff London" and "BBC English" but what is "Geordie"?

Ever seen 'Auf Wiedersehn Pet'? Geordie is a local dialect from Newcastle England. The aforementioned program, gives some good working examples of the dailect.

Yes, and Geordie is practically non understandable by anyone who doesn't come from Newcastle. lol 8)

LMAO, @ Catlin that's rich from someone near glasgow!! other scots don't even understand glaswegian :-)

I speak very polite Glaswegian, I'll have you know. It's folks from Aberdeen that have the most non understandable Scottish accent, it's a bit like Geordie in that respect. lol 8) When I first moved to Plymouth though, many folk would laugh when I spoke to them and I thought they were laughing with me until my friend told me they were laughing because I spoke too fast which tends to be why folk don't understand the Glaswegian accent, we're all in too much of a hurry. 8) Catlin

I used to work with a Glaswegian, two things I noticed were a) a lot of east london girls were 'drawn' by the accent :) and b) after about 4 pints I could understand him perfectly after about 8 pints he could understand me........

Yup, that sounds about right. lol 8)