My paternal grandparents grew up amish. They speak a language similar to German which was spoken at home. Dad is fluent but my mom was not at all so english was spoken at my home. My parents divorced early in my childhood so I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandparents often intermingled words with english. At the time I learned them as common english for instance "rutz naus" (snotty nose) or "cutz" (vomit). Grandma always admonished us kids when caught in the act to never eat "rutz berries" (boogers).

Its not a written language. I do have a "general" understanding of it. Living in amish country with my surname while doing business many assume I am fluent. Though I may understand them I always answer them in english. This triggers them to switch to english. I have been asked if I can "shvetz datch". I have joked I know enough to be dangerous.

I took German in high school. I watch German movies at times and need subtitles but I do pick up a little. I can understand far more than I can speak.

isadore;1878949 wrote:From reading the thread most of you are monolingual, a few are bilingual, a couple are trilingual, how many are cunnilingual?

I took a couple of Linguistics courses at OSU - really interesting stuff.

Pretty sure those were the only courses I got A's in. I guess that made me a cunning linguist.

Zunardo;1878975 wrote:I took a couple of Linguistics courses at OSU - really interesting stuff.

Pretty sure those were the only courses I got A's in. I guess that made me a cunning linguist.

I took three years of French in high school and college.... and Pimsleur for Czech in advance of a visit to see a former foreign exchange student whom we hosted who lives in Prague. I could get around, but I’m hardly conversational.

SonHits, however, is in his early 30s and completely fluent in Japanese. He spent an extra semester in college to get a double major in Japanese, and as part of his college experience, he spent a semester in Japan thru The Michigan State Universities. At the time of his graduation, I congratulated him on being “fluent” in Japanese. He laughed at me, explaining to me that after all his experience in college, he spoke at kindergarten level.
Nonetheless, being able to converse in Japanese, he was able to land a business position with a Japanese company right out of college, in the depths of the Great Recession. Now with his third Japanese company and nearly ten years later, he actually is “fluent”.
With today’s business becoming more and more global in nature, the ability to speak a foreign language is a huge advantage . But as the example above illustrates, it takes more than a casual dabble in college or language discs. You need to actually study abroad for a time where you speak it exclusively.

Did 4 years of Spanish in HS and 2+ years of Hebrew in college.

Also have coached many Spanish speakers over the last 4+ years. No clue with Spanish. My mind just cannot keep up. It probably didn't help that the Spanish speakers were from Mexico, Spain, Venezuela, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, etc. So, it wasn't just one dialect to try to adjust to.

Hebrew isn't spoken or conversationally written. That's why I took it. I did fairly well in reading it and understanding it. I haven't done anything with it in over 10 years now, so it's all gone.

I wish I had the gift to learn a new language, but I just cannot keep up. I may try in the future, if I can find the time and language I'd like to learn.

Nope - New technology on phones translates in real time.

I'm an avid user of Google Translate. It's good for the most part, but also incorrect a lot.