re: How many of y'all are multilingual?

German and Mandarin Chinese

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My gf's family is Dutch-American

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The Dutch always told me, "Dutch is a language that is as beautiful as it is useful." With that in mind, I never bothered learning any.

I constantly work on several foreign languages. I am pretty good at Japanese, Korean, Swedish, and Danish. Most of the business that I conduct in Japan and Korea is done in the local language and English. I can understand their Japanese. They can understand my English. We just stick to speaking our own language. Same for Korea.

Speaking Asian languages is particularly tricky because of the different versions. I learned my first Japanese from a Japanese girlfriend at Berkeley. I thought I was pretty good at it. On my first business trip to Tokyo, I was speaking a lot of Japanese. Finally, one of my customers says to me, "Your Japanese is very good, but why do you talk like a girl?" I basically had to scrap a lot of what I "knew" and start over. Kanto, Kansai, formal, informal, men only, standard Japanese, women talk... Sheesh. On top of that, you have to figure out what they mean and not what they say.

I used to speak French fairly well but outside of general day-to-day type of convos, I've pretty much forgotten most of it.

My son, who was already fluent in German when he moved to Germany, had a very difficult time readjusting to English when he moved back to the states.

My daughter is fluent in German (she currently lives in Germany) as well as French and Spanish.

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Dutch is a language that is as beautiful as it is useful

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haha... yeah, this is true. If you don't have any family or marry into one who speaks it, there really is no reason as they all speak perfect english. It's surprising how easy it is to comprehend with minimal study and hearing it all day when we're at her parents.'

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Kanto, Kansai, formal, informal, men only, standard Japanese, women talk

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interesting... I knew chinese had something like this, but didn't know it was the same for japanese as well.

My son is in the Foreign Service and speaks four and can get by in French.

I speak one when my wife lets me...

Finnish and Japanese. Japanese from living in Okinawa and Tokyo region for 12 years. Just finnished level 3 in Finnish last week in school. Do not speak either language perfect, but enough to get by when needed.

Japanese and Finnish... what are you going to do with that?

Finnish has to be the most incomprehensible language ever. I deal with Finns regularly in business.

Japanese was useful when I was younger and meeting girls and building rice burners. Finnish is, well, complicated doesn't begin to describe it. Supposedly the 2nd hardest language to learn behind Mandarin. I live in Finland now, so in order to get a job here you have to speak Finnish unless you live in Helsinki. So its pretty much force fed on us foreigners here to learn it. Basically, you know how we change everything in America to include Spanish. Well the Finnish are just the opposite, they pretty say that if you are going to live here, you have to learn their language.

My grandmother's family is German, and she and her oldest brother speak it together. I took 3 years of it in college and now speak it with her and my great uncle. And you're absolutely right about Dutch being close to English. Frisian is a dialect of Dutch spoken in the Frisian Islands of Holland, and it is the closest language to English. Dutch spelling is crazy, though.

She is Frisian, actually. They speak both but fris at home.