Learning foreign languages. How many can you speak?

[NJ2NZ]

Bengali is my first language. English, second, having educated in English medium schools, and lived in the US for a considerable period of time. Russian, third because of a 6-year sojourn in the former USSR for uni studies. At one time or another, I've given all of the following a try: Esperanto, German, French, Japanese and Spanish - I couldn't converse in any of these meaningfully, though.

I was very impressed at the multilingual ability of the Dutch while spending a year in Amsterdam. The lack of enthusiasm for learning foreign languages in the US equally disappointed me. I very much hoped my children could learn at least a foreign language at school. But the public schools they went to weren't equipped for such things.

[Kathlyn]

I speak English, Portuguese and I can communicate in Spanish and Italian (mainly I understand but cannot speak much).

I believe that native English speakers get lazy about learning another language as they can communicate in anywhere in the world without difficults. I would probably have no interest in learning any other language as well but in my case my mother language is Portuguese and I had to learn English.

[kindn3ss]

Romanian (native language), Norwegian, Swedish, German, French and of course - ENGLISH! This is me... my head hurts... LOL

[Kath]

I speak (and teach) English, Dutch, French, German and Spanish and I'm learning Maori and Mandarin at the moment

As a language teacher I can't escape my passion for languages ...

[VileTraveller]

I've learned a few languages in my time but, as they don't really get used, they all fade away once you stop practicing. Life would be so much easier if we all spoke the same language ... I tend to speak English even when visiting my 'home' country of Germany. I find I get much better service!

[TimAck]

I can say "A bottle of red wine please" in French, Italian and Spanish. And can count from 1 to 3 in Maori.