Bilingual in Japan

Thats pretty interesting, I wish My parents sent me to school in Japan when I was younger, It would have been awesome.

When I was little, I could speak Cantonese fluently, but completely lost it when I grew up. I am fluent in English, only now. Know some Spanish and French. I have been learning Japanese for the past year. One of the most challenging languages I have learned to date. Wish I had started earlier.

Fluent English in both written and spoken, Mandarin is my mother tongue but I severely suck at it. I can understand easy spoken Japanese, but never bothered to try, without formal training, to speak it. I can also speak Hokkien and Teochew, never was brought up to know Cantonese. I know a few words in French, Malay, German and Spanish, but obviously just the few so hardly counted.

Me, I speak English, French and Japanese- all poorly, but English less poorly than the others. When I get a chance, I'd like to learn some Latin. I hear that it's a useful language to learn for logic.

I only speak English, and even that could use some work.
:/

When I was very young, my parents taught me Cantonese as my first language. When I was about 4 years old, my parents sent me to Chinese classes on the weekends to learn Mandarin. (did that for about 5 years or so). Now I've forgotten about 90% of what I learned back then.
I started to learn English when I was in kindergarten.
By the time I got to High School I started learning Japanese. My Mandarin slowly disappeared as I grew up. Now I can speak Japanese better than Mandarin.

So altogether I can speak English, Cantonese, Japanese and a few Mandarin words. I can only read/write English, a few Chinese words and Japanese.

My native tongue is English. I speak it, read it, and think it. Puedo hablar espanol poco, pero mi espanol es malo algunia (I can speak a little spanish, but my spanish is bad sometimes) and I can speak some Japanese (boku wa Robert). I don't think Robert translates into japanese? Does that mean I get to pick my own name?

English Read? Yes
English Speak: Yes
English Think: Yes
Spanish Read: Yes
Spanish Speak: Yes
Spanish Think: A little
Japanese think: yet to get there!
Japanese speak: A little
Japanese read: cannot read hiragana or katakana.

I speak English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay and Hakka. I can understand Japanese not read or write. Learned my Japanese from watching anime^^.

I suck in English and my mother tongue language... What I'm good at are the bad words in Chinese, Indian and Malay which are taught to me by my wonderful firneds...

I speak English and Spanish so I can talk with your partner Alfonso. Is he teaching you some Spanish Danny? I want to learn French and Japanese.

I can speak/read/write English & Korean and able read hiragana/katakana fine but have difficulties reading kanji and speak little Japanese ^^; My native tongue is Korean and I never got suck at it thruout my life here at USA. My english skill is pretty good but I cannot speak at native level, I have slight accent and I think it will be like that for good.

If we happen to run into each other in Japan, can I speak Korean to you, Danny ^^;?

I was born in the Philippines and moved to America when I was around 8 years old. I grew up with both Tagalog and English being spoken fluently in my house. Though I use English 90 percent of the time.
Though i grew up with both, im more comfortable speaking english. Which was both a blessing and a curse. Its tough being on the outside looking in, but its tougher being in the middle of two social circles. Since I didnt prefer to use tagalog most of the asian community dismissed me as another "twinkie" or "coconut." Quite hurtful growing up. It didnt help when I was the only minority on the varsity baseball team either.
Im proud to be a filipino-american and being bilingual. I dont think people realize how hurtful it can be to a teenager when theyre accused of such things, and how much it can shape/destroy a person. Its tough enough to grow up an immigrant in a new setting, but to be shunned as well by your own immigrant community is devastating. Im not sure if im the only one who felt this way, but enough of the melo drama. the past is the past, and im proud of who i am now.
I will not deny that language is a huge part of learning one's culture, but it goes far beyond that. To understand the history and the traditions also form an integral part, and is often overlooked. Thats why I loved learning German through all of high school and picked up Japanese while I was on Okinawa for 3 years. Its just fun to learn!
I hope those students do well, and hopefully learn a thing or two. Its the right step in helping them find themselves, whether or not they choose to continue learning/using the language at least they're exposed to it and I hope they learn something about themselves as well.
Sorry for the ridiculously long rant, but you can tell Im very passionate about being an immigrant and the social issues attached to it.

i speak Spanish and English,a little Japanese and i know some words in Totonaku.

I grew up speaking only English, and my Japanese family gave me no help in deciphering their language. Since reaching adulthood, with a little help I've learned basic Spanish--proven enough to get around by myself in Hispanic countries--and about as much Japanese as Spanish. My knowledge of Japanese is much more "spread out", though, so it's less immediately useful.

At the end of this year I'm headed to study each of those languages full-time for a short-but-not insignificant period of time in their native countries. I look forward to it! I admit, I'm a bit more excited about my time in Japan, but I have much more preparation to do in order to make the most of my time there.

As a teenager I also taught myself some Esperanto, but I've forgotten much of it.

Wow Danny, that's a lot of languages.

I'm brazillian, with japanese ancestry, but never learned how to speak Japanese.
Some of my grandparents were japanese. Didn't care about it... I only got interested in japanese culture when I was already 19, mainly through animes.

My native language is brazilian portuguese (which is different from standard portuguese, just so you know) and I know english.

I wanna learn Japanese. And I think that's it. Already tried several times learning by myself, but I guess this won't work... I have to start some classes or something.

But maybe instead of waiting for stuff to happen, I should just go to Hamamatsu live among fellow brazilians while forcing myself to learn japanese.

Not a bad plan, huh?

My main language is english, but i am trying to learn japanese.

hmm interesting...that quite a number speak tagalog :/

Speaking of I'm sort of trilingual, speaking fluent Tagalog, English and uhh shaky Japanese (nervous laugh). It's not easy to live in my country where in your social class, kids simply refuse to use their mother tongue. I'm comfortable with English since I was raised at a time in Australia but when confronted by posers speaking English as if they were native speakers, I answer them in my mother tongue.

Say, Danny don't you get confused with the Chinese dialects? I want to learn Chinese too but it intimidates me @_@;;

read write speak english, tagalog, and japanese. thinking about learning korean in the future.

I became bilingual at age 14 when we moved from Germany to Australia. In our family, we now speak a mix of English and German (lazy, if a word is shorter in one language, we use it). Of course, this confuses our german relatives to no end.
Became fully fluent in English in about the first five years, full immersion and all that.
While I can very easily flip back and forth between both languages both verbally and thinking, the same cannot be said for English and Japanese (at least for me). I noticed that, when I lived in Japan, I would find myself quite often thinking in Japanese, as well as behaving japanese (the first time you catch yourself out nodding an bowing on the phone is very disconcerting). At the same time, I can follow japanese dialogue I'm watching, but if someone asked me to translate on the fly for them, I have trouble, because I'd have to consciously force myself from one mindset to another. Japanese grammar rules are just one part of that, but more often than not a straight translation is not possible.

I know a little bit of Chinese(Cantonese) and took 3 years of Spanish.
My first language was Vietnamese, so I can read and write in it.. And English being my main language. Right now I'm learning Japanese.

Learning another language is fun, but very time consuming.

I have:
English
Mandarin
Cantonese
Japanese
and...a tiny fraction of Korean

I only know English as of right now but in the near future I'm going to learn to speak and write Russian and Arabic. I'd personally like to learn Japanese but I decided against it for the time being for the fact I'd probably only use it to watch anime and to play games like Super Robot Wars.

hm.. me know engrish...chingrish...hokkien (speak no write)....and..japanrish (lvl 4)..

since singaporeans are banana people, our chinrish isn't as good as compared to taiwan or chingrish people.. pai seh for all the engrish and chingrish.. LOL

I can read and write English, failed my Chinese, a bit of Hokkien from daily usage (any Singaporean will know why), Catonese, but only a small amount, just enough to order some food as a food court and am currently learning Japanese. I'm considering taking Basic Conversational Japanese in my 3rd year for lulz and cheating for freebies my GPA.

Native English, been learning Japanese the past year, and also learning sign language (bsl).

Read, write and speak English, can speak Cantonese and some manderin still working on the reading and writing...

During my earliest years, my parents only taught and spoke to me in Mandarin (They were afraid of teaching me English because I might have picked up their accent), so I learned English through my older sister and surroundings. Nowadays I still speak to my family using Mandarin. (But my vocabulary is limited, and I can't read or write. OTL Hoping to correct that soon.)

I can speak, read and write well:
- Malay Language (Malaysia one, hot the Indonesia one)
- English
I can understand and speak Japanese language fairly, but have trouble reading and writing in Japanese language, bcoz I didnt understand Kanji at all (only hiragana and katakana)

Well, I speak English very well (I would think xD), a small bit of Spanish, even though my mom was born in Costa Rica (still in the process of learning Spanish), and a small bit of Japanese, now. Obviously still in the process of learning that. I can understand both Spanish and Japanese better than I can speak them.

I only speak English, my native language, some of the Quebecois French they make us learn here in Canada and no one actually remembers, and the small bits and pieces of Japanese I've picked up over the years. Hope to learn more Japanese. Oh, and I am learning C++ currently! lol

I speak español as my native language. I can read inglés with some ease, but it's just difficult to speak it. No siempre it's possible to escribir with facilidad some phrases in english, too XD

Fluent:
Finnish
English
(C/C++ yah I can talk with a computer)
Not so fluent:
Japanese
German
Swedish

Only English for me. It just feels like it would be impossible to learn another language. I really don't know how some of you do it. I even had 4 years of Spanish classes in middle and high school, and all I can remember from it is: Megusta las papas fritas

Which means: I like french fries.

...and I probably spelled it wrong... >_>

Filipino
English
Japanese (little)
Arabic (very little)
Spanish (very little)

in my case i have to speak cantonese because my parents don't speak english so i do understand that situation. since i grew up learning english i use cantonese less and less. however it helped a lot in high school because of the boom in chinese immigrants to the school or the area anyway. at least then i could tell if people where speaking behind my back, always a surprise to people for some reason. i also took up japanese and mandarin (reading and writing) but i haven't used it in so many years i don't remember any of it.

well, i've got better xperience talking than writing english. Spanish, of course, a perfect handle. Next week, gonna start study japanese, and no one knows when's gonna end xdd

I moved to UK from Hong Kong when I was six so in terms of writing ability mine is as good as a kid from kindergarten. However since there is a chinese TV channel in UK I have been able to pick up quite a lot of cantonese from TV and from my parents, who also organized a cantonese learning school, but because I am still within a more English community I took English as a more important language that chinese (which I'm slowly regretting). I can speak, read and understand chinese pretty well at the moment but my writing ability is lacking. I'm also typing this in HK, since i havn't been back for about 7 years I decided to come back to HK for my holidays (and to pick up some cheap Gundams/Figures).

I've learnt a bit of German and French from school, and a bit of Japanese from Anime etc though I think I might actually try and learn Japanese properly when I go to University at the end of this year.

I myself am fluent in both brazillian Portuguese and English, but I do plan on learning Japaneses and maybe othe languages as well ^^'

Well, my English is very, very, very bad, I can only write a few lines. I can understand and read the English very well (yes, my favorite word is "very"). The Spanish is like the Japanese. I consider it because the two Languages work it with the same system. "Ma" sounds exactly in Spanish, just like the others sounds in Japanese.

If don't understand me, sorry, as I say, my ingles is verrrry gacho... hahahaha...

speak : Indonesian (err.. Bahasa?), Javanese
write : Indonesian, English
I never have a chance to speak English as I never really talk with native speaker before so i dun know how good (or how bad) I am at it D:

Can speak Cantonese and English.

Learning how to read and right Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. My Chinese sounds like a person with a tongue disorder... Its horrible!

Uh.. okay, interesting post. :)
I speak and write english and german on a native level. (sometimes i rather know the english word then the german)
I can understand japanese by now to an amount i manage to watch unsubed animes and the radio shows... still progressing every week though... i need to learn writing sometime.
A few words of mandarin since i was sort of forced to watch all on Ranma 1/2 in mandarin .... completly + the movies. ^^
Ah and while someone already did it...
I speak and write SQL fluently, once had a conversation in SQL with my co-worker in front of our boss... so funny... bit hard but lots to laugh.
I stumble my way truh PHP, since i am not a coding idol like Danny i use copy and paste a lot of tweak stuff i did code before a lot but usualy i get done what i want to do with PHP, no matter how long it takes lol.
CSS, HTML and such formating stuff goes on a native level for me, but it's not really a language so yea. ;)
As for my childhood, have grown up with german only, english basics in school and did improve it due daily talking online with english people in MMOs, chatrooms, TeamSpeak, watching movies in english and of course traveling a lot and business talks, i LOVE English and Japanese! German is a waste of brain space in my humble opinion. ^^v

I'm learning japanese so I could live easily in japan ..
but ..what?! .. they also know TAGALOG?!?!

yay! .. I dont need to study japanese anymore!!

anyways

the languages I know are : English, Tagalog, Japanese, Taiwanese .. and bits of korean sentences and words I learned from my korean friends XD

Living in Australia all my life, my cantonese is shocking. Speaking very basic canto is sad. Can't even talk to grandma without making her confused. However on the other hand, you dont need to be good a chinese when you live in Australia. My parents put me into chinese school and after quitting it, I gained nothing from it. There was really no need to learn the language to such a standard,barely used it. I'm happy learning off restaurant menus.

When I was a kid I knew Hebrew pretty well. I know some Japanese and my native language is English.

Interesting question, Danny.

Being born in Denmark by Danish parents, I speak fluent Danish, of course. Or maybe not, as I speak a local dialect, which is dying out. The "normal" Danish, as heard in radio and TV, is not the tongue I use in everyday life, though I understand it perfectly, of course. I just don't like to speak it, it doesn't sound right to me, and I can't express myself with the certainty and subtlety I can in my native dialect tongue.

Anyway, since I live near Sweden, I grew up watching lots of Swedish TV and going there on vacations. I am fluent in Swedish, having also worked there for a while.

We had english in school, and I use it a lot now, so I count myself as fluent in it, as I can have lenghty conversations in it about pretty much everything.

My German is a BIT rusty, but I can read it very well. I studied Spanish one year, but has forgot everything! I can also read Norwegian, which is closely related to both Danish and Swedish, but not speak it.

I VERY much want to learn Japanese (as do many folks here!), but I find it difficult, to say the least, to do it alone.

11.4% of the children population counted are almost 2,897 children attending Japanese schools are Filipinos.
Far to speak of, in my school there are classes such as Spanish, French, Japanese and other foreign languages.
All I can say is that, our native tongue is capable of apprehending and has the right way to use the word correctly, grammatically, and well heard of.
It's not hard for us speak any language that we would like to learn, we can be linguistic if we wanted to.

I speak English and mandarin fluently, I know some basic cantonese but its generally useless and I'm currently learning japanese. I also learned greek for like 3years but i cant remember a single thing from it.

Only language im proficient reading, writing and speaking is english.
Then comes canto which I speak pretty fluent in.
And then a tie between mando and french, can't really understand normal conversations unless you repeat the phrase again and slowly :P

My mother tongue is German, well...German coloured by the dialect.. Austrian German ;)
I speak/read/write English and would like to learn Japanese but haven't got the time atm .

personally i think EVERYONE should know at least 2 languages....one being English since that's becoming "universal" language among many nations...

It would have been nice if I could fluently speak something other than english. I was born in Winnipeg (city in central Canada), and my parents (from the Philippines, but met each other also in Winnipeg) spoke to me mostly in english because they were afraid I would have a hard time in school. When I got older, my parents spoke to me in simple Tagalog phrases. I can understand a bit of Tagalog, mostly my picking out keywords.

Other than that I've learned French, which is mandatory in Canada till mid high school. Then you have options to learn another language, if it's provided by your school. I did fairly well in French but was bored with it. Luckily my high school offered Japanese, so I took that for 3 years. But after high school I pretty much forgot everything, although watching a lot of anime is making me remember a lot of things :P

Obviously Dutch and English, and also some German. My mom is from Germany, but she never taught me the lingo, so I had it as an elective in highschool. And in a year from now, hopefully also some Japanese as I'll be studying that at university ^^

11.4 percent speak Tagalog? Wow, that kinda relaxes me a little. Maybe when I'm forunate enough when I go their to Japan I might be able to meet a fellow Filipino that can help me tour the city or stuff like that XD

Well I'm Filipino so I speak Tagalog. And since I studied in a private school I can speak proper English. Currently I'm learning how to speak Mandarin Chinese so I can really be proud of my Chinese heritage. Also I'm panning to learn Japanese. I'll be taking a Japanese class next semester x_x

I can speak and read Portuguese, English and Spanish, can only say some words in Japanese though. It's interesting to know that Portuguese is one of the biggest languages in Japan :P

English with fluency; Japanese with proficiency. As far as Japanese goes, I can still read and listen with full comprehension. It's writing and speaking that have gone down hill since I've been back in the U.S. The internet's scope has allowed me to get back into practice, but I've still got a ways to go (as can be seen by my Japanese posts, here ^_^;). I still think in Japanese a lot, though. ^^

As for other languages, I know a few words and phrases in Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, German, and Russian, thanks in large part to the international officers that attend the school, here.

Also, I speak fluent "Pokemon" with my daughter...

I poke around with English, Spanish, Korean, and Japanese. I'm not very good at any of them.

Native English speaker here. Know Mandarin thanks to my parents, can understand but not speak Shanghainese (thanks to vintage comedy radio shows I listened to as a kid). I can read and listen to Japanese better than first and some second year Japanese students in my college thanks to eight years of anime and galge, and I can barely remember Spanish from three years of it in high school. I can swear in several more languages, but I don't think that counts for much.

Wow... Quite a few Cantonese speakers here, including me. Been learning Chinese and Japanese recently, though still need a lot more study.

Also at one point I learnt a bit of German, French, Latin at school but have forgotten most of them.

well read/write of mandarin is same as canto ...

anyhow i speak Portuguese, mandarin, cantonese, and english

In most aspects it is, but Cantonese has differences in the written and spoken language.

Also there's simplified and traditional Chinese, which can be a pain because you might know the character but not its simplified /traditional equivalent.

I can speak/read/write fluently Romanian (native) and English.
I can speak/read/write advanced level French.
I can speak/read/write intermediary level Japanese, Italian and Spanish.

I wish I could be fluent in all those languages...but I sometimes mix them up...especially when I try to speak Spanish I always end up saying demo instead of pero...not good at all >_<

If anyone needs help with either of these languages, I can help!

i speak english and cantonese.i only can read a bit of chinese.speak a bit on mandarin,japanese,spanish

I was raised American, so am fluent in English. I know terribly basic Chaozhou, which we use at home, but nothing else. My parents also speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and would speak using these when they did not want me eavesdropping. I regret that my parents never instilled in me the value of learning languages. And they wonder why I'm a shut-in and have no friends ^^;

I attended an impromptu school to learn some basic Mandarin before, but quit early into it because progress seemed none, and I was sort of old by then and did not pick up much...

As for foreign language education in my part the U.S., it makes no sense. I stand by the belief that as a child your brain is more conducive to picking up language, be it social, musical, or artistic. Foreign languages in the educational curriculum were done during middle school, and high school, which at those points I think are "possibly learnable," and "lol memorization", respectively.

I'm hopeful though, that learning language later on can be done with dedication; a life goal of mine is to learning another non-programming language before I die ^^;

As for me I can speak/read/write german (my mother tongue as you can guess^^), english and frensh (but my frensh abilities got worse since I'm out of school and I'm not forced to learn it anymore).

i can read & speak arabic french perfectly english as well but not as good

My native language is portuguese. Being from Porto, I also tend to speak with a northern accent - we tend to switch "v's" with "b's" and give some strange accentuation on most words, but if I concentrate I can speak with no accent. Oh, and I can speak brazilian portuguese too! I pick up vocabulary from my uncle that lives there and the TV soaps.

I can speak fluent english since I was in 4th grade or about 8-9 years old (self-taught by watching TV and playing videogames), I did attend a summer school to learn english, but ended up being the translator for our scottish, non-portuguese speking teacher... Also, when I speak english I also think in english.

Being our neighbour country and me liking to learn languages I also picked up spanish and can speak fluently, but not as fast as a spanish person (they speak FAST). Also think in spanish, but there's a lot of words I think of in portuguese and have to think about the translation.

My second mandatory language I learned in school (1st is english) is french. I really don't like french, but i like it more than german, hence my choice. I actually learned more by reading french manga translations (the most common here a few years back). So, I can read and speak french though I do make a lot of mistakes...

Other than that... I can understand the main point of a phrase in japanese most of the time and I know a kanji or two, but can't read and can only say a few catch-phrases...

I usually communicate in a mixture of English and Mandarin. but if you want to, i can use them exclusively.

learning Japanese now. here's hoping JLPT goes well for me this year

being a full fledged singaporean, my spoken languages are English and Mandarin although i am hopelessly inept at the former when it comes to sentence constructions. i intend to pick up the japanese language during uni through a private centre. i can understand cantonese albeit vaguely.
i cannot attest to my english speaking skills, but i am confident i can strike up a conversation with anyone in english. as for chinese, that's a bit of a mouthful for me and that's coming from a dude who took higher chinese
argh the irony!

Hmmm....let's see.
English - speaking and writing
Malay - speaking and writing
Mandarin - speaking only
Hokkien - speaking only
Cantonense - speaking only
Japanese - few words learned from drama and anime.

It seems that I need to learn to write Chinese as well as learn to speak and write Japanese. I still have a very long long way to go (-_-")

I went to a french school within Canada instead of English from childhood.

I teach at a kindergarten here in Japan and 2 of the students are american born. They've been in Japan about 1 year with their parents. It's pretty funny that I teach them English :3

This was mentioned in a game mod forum so I will jump into the crowd. Btw how do you read/write Mandarin as a dialect Danny? o_O

Native Cantonese and English speaker, but I am rather inept at Chinese writing these days. French and German are now history. Recently picked up Japanese with very basic knowledge. Kanji sometimes help but I still have a very long way to go.

I know a lot of people who moved away to the UK or to North America and didn't take up much Chinese dialects due to lifestyles or the lack of resources, just as seen from people's comments here as well. My cousins cannot speak Cantonese or write Chinese, but they can listen to conversations pretty well, which is rather interesting.

English, Chinese, and bits 'n pieces of other languages.

hmm as for me:
C++, Java, HTML, VB, some assembly, CShell, KornShell, SQL...

those are the computer languages..as for human language
english (speak, read, write)
malay (speak, read, write)
cantonese (speak brokenly)
hokkien with Penang assent (speak everyday)
mandarin (very limited)
japanese (planning on seriously learning it for JLPT next year)

German (first language), English (speak, read, write) and Gibberish (speak, write) :)

English is my main language. Took Spanish for 5 years but never enjoyed the language and just skimmed by basically. Am currently taking Japanese classes and have been self studying for 2 years, I'm at the point where I can understand it much easier then to speak it. I wish my grandpa would have taught me the 7 languages he knew perfectly when I was a young child. He knew French, English, Polish, Russian, German, Chek, Swedish.

speak and read german / english, currently learning japanese and had french for 6 years in school, but nearly forgot everything 8[

My native language is Spanish, second language is English, and still studying Japanese.

Spanish is my mother tongue, spoke English by the age of 4 or 5. I need to learn french, but currently busy with Arabic. I'd like to learn Japanese in the future, not for anime (like a lot of people seem to do), but to help people (like teach them another language). I've also seen many Japanese visiting my town, and they seem extremely lost.

my first language is Slovenian but because my parents are both Croatian i learned it cuz all my relatives are in Croatia and don't know a lick of Slovenian. its a similar language so it wasn't that hard. learned English on my own by watching cartoons as a kid and now i can talk, read, write with no problem at all...the problem i have now is that i was so and still am in to English based things: books, news etc that i can express my self better in English that i could ever in Sloven.
now I'm going to my 4. year in a trade school (Tourism and Catering) and i am learning German and Italian not to mention i still attend English classes....and that is the only class i can fall asleep and still get a A+ and the end of the semester :P
but right now i am trying to find the time to study Japanese but i just don't know to start.... any one has good suggestions?

Man, Danny, you are so very talented!

I'm full Filipino, but was born here in America, and my mom and dad never spoke to me in Tagalog, so I never learned it. Yet, my family still talks to eachother in the language. I'll prolly never understand them... :[

Dutch is my mother tongue, second language is French, then English, German (need to brush that up though) and I'm now learning Japanese in evening class.

I can speak/read English, Thai(my parents is Thai ^^), a little Chinese and Japanese. But I don't really like to talk to my parents in Thai 'cause that made my accent bad.

I speak Hungarian (mother tongue), English (quite well I guess 113/120 Toefl), German (somewhere around advanced level), French (intermediate) and have been learning Japanese for a year now.

English is my first language but my other languages are French (can read, and write, and sorta speak), Japanese (can't read and write but I can speak it)

I know pieces of a few other languages like Gaelic but not enough for a conversation

Excuse me, but I speak Jive. does that count?

My native language is enlgish, current skills notwithstanding. And in high school I took Spanish(Mexican) and actually still remember most of it. I am also working on Japanese and may move on to Chinese(Mandorin) after that. I've got a long way to go if I want to catch Danny. Plus I can talk to cats if that counts : P

I am a native English speaker.

As my wife is Japanese, we wanted to bring up our daughter bilingually. My wife spoke only Japanese to her and I spoke only English, until she was about 6 years old. This set back my Japanese fluency (living in the UK) but it let my daughter become bilingual.

As for me, Japanese is my best foreign language. I speak French tolerably and German rustily. I also learned Latin at school.

I speak French and English. French is my main language as I live in Quebec(French Canada). Japanese is the next language I want to learn but I need to get less lazy about it...

Wow I feel stupid reading some of these. English is my main language. My mother tongue is Polish and my grandparents know it but I can only manage a "Thank you." I'm going to study Japanese in the near future as well but I only know a few phrases in Japanese.

I speak French, English, some Spanish and some Japanese... Hoping to learn much more.
I also speak Cat, but it's a different dialect than "regular" Cat. My kitty taught me. She has a very complex vocabulary.

Spanish is my native language. I'm also fluent in English since I attended a bilingual school. I know some japanese as well, still studying. :)

I can read/write/listen to English and Mandarin fluently; My fluency in Japanese/ Cantonese/ Teochew/ Hokkien is only rudimentary - Most of the dialects I can only listen but aren't able to speak them very well since I didnt use them often >_< , though my command of Hokkien certainly improved these few months as my former workplace is uses Hokkien and Mandarin frequently.

My native language is portuguese, and I think my english communication is kinda OK... I'm studying japanese and plan to try a proficiency test this year.

I had a japanese teacher at college who studies this process of learning a second language early in life, more specifically the situation of brazilian children living in Japan. There are cases where the kids feel "ashamed" because of their parents' lack of fluency in japanese. In some other cases the children, failing to develop an "internal" linguistic ability because of a limited contact with both portuguese and japanese, grow up with serious communication problems...

I can read/write and speak English, Cantonese I can only Speak/listen.
I want to learn Japanese but find it hard to keep the Kanji in my head. Alot of Kanji confuse me because of many similarities.

Amazing that Danny knows so much o.O

I'm fluent in English and Cantonese, though not particularly good at reading/writing Chinese. I've learned Mandarin, French, Spanish, and Korean in a classroom at some point, but find they're at varying levels of decay as I'm horribly out of practice with most of them. Surprisingly, French is probably the one that's held up the best, despite (or because, depending on your viewpoint) it being the earliest non-native language I picked up. The little Japanese I know I essentially picked up from video games and watching anime/reading manga (looking at the pretty pictures!). How do you manage to keep so many languages current, Danny? I think that's what I have the most trouble with.

I heard of it in tv programs and researchs..the mount of brazilian imigrants in Japan is big beacause the imigration 100 years ago because of war...(dont recall wich ^^"). Look for "japanese imigration to brazil" on google to know more.. is a long history.. and my english is not good enough to tell the entire history... ^^"" sorry about that.

My mother tongue is Thai and I can read English but I am very bad at listening , speaking and writing. Because I don't pay much interest to them. (I wish I had paid more...) I also know Japanese and I think my Japanese (except reading skill) is better than English. I have passed level 3 of JLPT and am going to take level 2 this year. (I hope I will pass)

By the way , I once studied Chinese and Korean but gave them up because they confused Japanese ><

i can speak cantonese ok, can't really read or write chinese (maybe a kindergarden level of word recognition). when i was 5 i picked up mandarin easily during a long stay in beijin, but as soon as we left, it left me.
my parents didn't invest in any chinese schooling for me, they wanted me to pick up english as fast as possible. when i was in high school i had to make a special effort to build a larger chinese vocabulary to communicate with my parents. i havent written anything in chinese for years, my handwritting has completely deteriorated -___-

I speak spanish, english (not so well though)and I'm currently learning japanese.

I can speak/read/write english fluently, can also speak spanish, but I have a limited vocabulary and have trouble reading and writing, can sort of understand portuguese and a little (very minimal) of french.
Then there are japanese phrases and words you pick up from manga, anime, drama & music xD;;

hmm....well i can speak and read Malay and English. i can read a little Mandarin but suck big time at it. i know cantonese plus a little hokkien. and bow learning Japanese ^^

lol i dont know how read all my langugue xD i can talk read some word and that becuz i imm to canada but i talk french , englise ,chinese
2 3 1

My first language is Polish, I can speak/read/write English and to some extend Russian (I learned this language for like... 8 years, but it was mandatory). I can understand some basic Japanese and... that would be it.

German - well
English - well
Greek - well
French - not so well

speak/read/write/ english, some speaking of Mandarin and learning japanese

my native language is a weird mix of spanish and english (side effects of living in both sides of the border), so i can "speak"/read/write spanish and english, tried German many moons ago. actually I'm learning Japanese but some times give me headache >_<.

I was born in Shang Hai. So I can speak, read and write Mandarin and Shang Hainese.
I lived in Brazil for 2 years and learn Portuguese, I havent used it for a while so I am forgetting Portuguese, but every time I went back there I was be able to pick it up within a week or 2. After learning Portuguese, I can understand Spanish and very limited Italian. I live in Canada now, so I can speak, read and write English fluently. Also learned to listen cantonese.

English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and learning Japanese
Was born in Hong Kong and parents made me learn Chinese in general. My family immigrated to Canada when I was only 5, but somehow kept that Chinese going in me... and as of today I reckon my written Chinese is better than most of my peers.
Grew up in English in elementary and high school, so I am considered nonetheless fluent.
Started picking up Mandarin when I was grade 5, but I never get enough practise. While my speaking ability isn't considered bad, I lack a lot of the right vocabulary, since Cantonese Chinese is much more colloquial.
Japanese isn't super hard so far, just picking it up rather slow. I am well-versed in Kanji and their meanings, but knowing how to pronounce them in Japanese is something else.

Danny, I am impressed that you managed to learn so many languages! While it isn't hard to get the basics, one needs a tremendous amount of practice and time to learn thousands of vocabulary in order to be sufficient in a daily conversation...

Care to teach us Bubble danny? =)

I am fluent in English, can speak a little of Hokkien, can understand very basic mandarin, can understand a little more of Hokkien (my parents speak this language but we weren't required to reply back using Hokkien :c ), fluent in Tagalog, can write a little of Chinese and can read/write/speak level 4 Japanese. LOL. My top priority right now really is Japanese. But I aim to know both Chinese and Japanese before I get married coz that's what I'm gonna teach my kids ^^

Guess I can speak/write in both English and Chinese(Mandarin) and learning Japanese since uni days. My country is proud of itself being bilingual but personally I think it's in a sorry state of affairs. Wished my parents had taught me dialect cuz I never really communicated with my grandparents beyond pleasantries while they're still alive; kinda of a regret for me. ps: I some expertise cussing in dialect from another source thou ^_~

French is my mother tongue, and I'm fluent in English. I'd like to have the motivation to learn German and Japanese seriously...so far I'm just picking up words here and there. ^^;

Speak: Indonesia(Bahasa), English
Write: Indonesia, English, Japanese
yup, I can write and understand Japan language if its written, but I'm still bad at conversation

I can Speak/write/read fluent spanish(im native speaker), english, learining German now(im in exchange in Austria) little bit of japanese(used to learn back in argentina, forot a lot now) and cos of my spanish i can understand lots of Italian and some french. :d

Currently speak/read/write English, Indonesian, and can only speak (not read or write) Cantonese, Mandarin, Hakkanese and Hokkien. I can probably understand your Hokkien Danny, since Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian speaks similar Hokkien

I use to be Fluent in Japanese, (or at least enought to survive simple life), but over the years I have forgotten most of it because there isn't anyone to practice with over here. So right now it's English (American English). And very little Spanish. I pick up on Spanish at my job. I get a lot of families from Mexico in at my store.

Interesting news.

I've been brought up going to and English school and the only times another language was spoke in my house was when I was being shouted at.
I'm fluent in English. I'm not sure if I remember any of the French and Spanish I learnt in school.
Finally I can read and write Ukrainian. But I can only understand a little. If you were to start a conversation in Ukrainian with me I'd understand a few words and try and answer. Otherwise it's just a o_o look.

i need to stick with learning Japanese for now :)

I speak english fluently, and studied French for 5 years (this was about 4 years ago and I've lost alot of it but when I was actively practicing I was fairly fluent) Spanish for 1 Year, Portuguese for 1 Year and Latin for 1 Year (althought it's a dead language). I want to get back into practice with French and also become fluent in Spanish and learn Italian. Im facinated by languages.

Currently learning Japanese i can speak a little bit i have all the basics down and i got all the numbers down too now all that's left is to learn all the meanings and get used to Japanese ^^ i can read a little bit of Japanese right now but i currently don't know how to wright it yet my native language is English ^^ and all i want to learn is Japanese as my 2ed language XD

I currently know 3 languages: English the best, Spanish, French(a little), and learning Japanese.

i could speak, read and write 3 languages for now which are Chinese, English and Malay and learning japanese currently, i think it would take me ages before i could fully master japanese.

I can speak read and write English very well, I'm 50/50 with Arabic I can have basic conversations and understand what people are saying but cant read or write it. Learning Japanese at the moment and i have a head start already having watched anime for a while I have picked up alot of words and terminology, It's so hard because the three langauges I have under my belt so far are completely different from one another. English is my native language, Arabic is my dad's native language I was never taught I just picked it up myself and I've always had a passion to learn Japanese just never got to it, I wish i got started earlier.

what is the manga called in the picture

Indonesian : Fine
English : Ok
Javanese : Just some important words and no writing at all

Indonesian : Fine
English : Ok
Javanese : Just some important words and no writing at all

Cool.

11.4% are Filipinos.

Not surprised.

I'm kinda scared of having kids study there in the fear of bullying, being foreigners

I can speak/read/write French (native language ^^), Creole(my parents are from Guadeloupe ^^), English and Spanish.
When i was younger i wanted to learn German instead of Spanish but my mom wanted me to learn Spanish, like my elder sister...
I can also read and barely understand Greek, i didn't wanted to learn it, but i was obliged to choose an optional subject (this was one of the biggest mistakes of my life xD, maybe that's why i stayed only one year in that school xD).
I started to learn Japanese since a couple of months (that's a bit hard but i won't give up x3)and i only know few words in Finnish. =D

Wow that's the first time that i realize how many languages i had studied so far. oO
*astonished*

I can speak/write/read English and German but I can only understand a nano amount of Japanese speaking and not any writing yet. I will study Japanese this summer and take it along with maybe German in college seeing how I would like to have a job involving foreign language. When I go to Japan, I will not speak my mother tongue(English) unless I can't avoid it or someone is asking how to say something in English.

Fluent in English, Romanian and German. I understand a little bit of Japanese. :)

Even though i hail from the Philippines i find it hard to understand Tagalog most of the time, in fact id' say that English is my main Language

I first learned English when I was 3 when I was boarding at my childhood friend's house in Hong Kong because my Mother was a Stewardess, by playing scrabble and watching South Park (which might explain my foul-mouthed demeanor nowadays)

*sigh*...childhood friend

Read/Speak/Write Spanish & English fluently.

Learning Japanese.

have to say its good to speak several languages ad good for kids to leran

Main language: Spanish.
Additional languages: English,Portuguese and a little Japanese.
Langauge looking forward to learn: Turkish.

I wouldn't say I'm very good in English, since i started speaking it when i was 7. But i still manage to get above average results in class, and the school I studied in is a considered a 'very good' school by many parents. I can speak English and Chinese, but speaks English more often since school teaches most lessons in English.I can write in English and also Chinese, although my (written)vocabulary pool for the latter is smaller than most people in my class. I grew up speaking Chinese (with parents) and Hokkien (with grandparents)and as I said before, i speak English starting 7 year old. I'm 13 this year by the way. I can understand very little Japanese but can somehow read them due to the kanji thingy

I can speak Whale...

i am good at Arabic (my mother tongue ) ,English , some German and little worser in japanese than german ......at high school my secondary learned language was german i wish there was japanese :(