I can hold a limited conversation in Spanish, and pretty much try to practice it whenever I am aware that my opponent speaks Spanish.  In fact, I have one American friend who is fluent in Spanish, and even with her I use Spanish more than English.  But of course if my opponent wants to practice English, and lets me know this, then English it is.

The conversation I can hold in Chinese is even more limited, but I can get my point across, at least in person (I cannot read or write).  I can say a few words in many, many languages, and I almost always try to greet opponents with a "hello" in their language, if I can.  This is not to show off (I am quick to point out just how little of a language I know), but to try to build bridges instead of walls.

Now then, is it really fair to be so critical of Americans or Australians not speaking other languages as well as Europeans (at least when one compares one group to the other)?  In Europe a day's travel may take you to several nations, with several languages, yet connected by the fact that pretty much all use Euros as their currency.  This would not be the case in the US or in Australia, so there may be less opportunity and/or incentive to learn other languages.  OK, once again I fully confess my ignorance -- I have never been to Europe, so what I just wrote is based on my understanding of the situation, which certainly can be mistaken.  Fair caveat?

I have learn since a while and practice with my friend Knatted my first language is french and i would like to learn spanish.

English Maori French Oromo (a bit) Somali (a bit) Latin, some German.

Good: Dutch, English, Frisian

Decent: German

A few words (not just hi and how are you): French, Latin

Planning to learn Japanese as well.

I can speak English (or American, never quite sure.....) and I can read Hebrew and Koine Greek.  I tried to learn to speak Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.  Unfortunately none of it worked and I can't speak any of those at all.

I am an American and I have taken Spanish and German in school (long ago).  I also learned a bit of French when I travelled in Europe.  I'm not fluent in any of them and I am always impressed by people who can speak several languages easily.

The problem for me is that anyone I meet from another country probably speaks English way, way better than I can speak their language.  I just don't get enough practice to stay proficent.  The reality is that English is a very common language that most of the world uses to transact business.  So please don't be too annoyed with me -

Also we have Shakespeare .

Hebrew and English.

I can also get along in Spanish, Arabic and Russian.

I can speak norwegian and english fluent. I also speak ok Swedish, and some danish. Also understand bits here and there from Spanish.

English, Hindi, Marathi, tamil, French and very lil Spanish..though i admit i can read and write only 4 of them.

English coz I'm from there, Japanese because I live there (though I can read it better than I can speak it), survival Italian because I lived there (only for a year), bits of French and German from school and coz my father lives in France.  Every time I travel I try to learn a bit of lingo.  I'd quite literally like to learn every language, but obviously its not going to happen, even if I had the time and the aptitude for it.  I'm certainly not a natural language learner.  I put in the hours but the return is never as impressive.

I can speak a little French, (stayed there for a few months and nobody would speak any English to me so I had to speak French and found that the surest way to learn so far) and some Italian; ( swapped languages with Italian Girlfriend- she taught me Italian, I taught her English). Currently I am trying to learn Arabic through Rosetta Stone and my Arabic speaking pals. I do think you have a point though Queenie. It seems alot of people in the UK simply can't be bothered to learn any other language since they assume everybody speaks English. There are numerous books that are not translated into English (and i'm not sure it could be adequately done anyway, since some languages contain words/concepts that are untranslatable), and if you want to get to know another culture then learning the language is a sound beginning.

After writing that, I feel I need to learn a language called 'minimalish'!!!!

My first language is English, and I can speak accented German.  I can't speak it flawlessly, but I am perfectly understandable.  I definitly need to learn some French though, since it an official language of my country.

I speak English because as an American, it is of course and obviously my native language. Foreign languages were not introduced to me until I was a freshmen in high school. My journey with French started at age 14 while a freshmen in the 9th grade. And when I first heard it, I fell in love with the sound. When it was time for me to go to college, I knew that I didn't want to abandon my study of French, so I decided that I would major in French. I attended the great Berea College (most of the professors graduate from Harvard/Yale) and as a requirement to be a French major, I had to study another foreign language. I chose German because of my German ancestry. I loved it too! So I majored in French and minored in German. I have since become a teacher of French/German at an American high school so that I can be apart of the solution instead of the problem in terms of Americans being largely monolingual. 

The same.

Well, I had French in school for four years, and it's still abominable. So that doesn't really count. Can understand it when on holiday after a few days.

But I grew up close to the German border, and when I read books they're almost all in English. So I'm fluent enough in the other two foreign languages.

Have tried to learn a bit of other languages when visiting other countries as an adult, but that is so hard... just a few words doesn't count :-)

I would thoroughly enjoy learning a non-European language, as I only know English and everything from this continent feels a little too close to home. However, I do not have the money, and learning online is difficult for me, especially with no real feedback on pronunciation.

I don't think it's just because we are lazy, I believe a lot of other countries start teaching English in schools at a very early age as a second language.  I couldn't study a second language in my public school until I got to 7th grade, just none were offered in grade (now called elementary) school.  So I know a very little of German too.  Wish I had known I was going to move to Texas when I was older as I would have studied Spanish.

I can speak and write German, and I am currently learning Spanish.

Sometimes I wish I could speak a little bit of Russian. You know, so during a post mortem against a Russian-only player we could exchange ideas at least a little bit.

My lifelong pursuit is to speak Beer fluently.

I know some French, enough to get by.

German and Dutch are hard to learn, simply because you can't immerse  yourself in the language. Ask a German or Dutchman a question in German/Dutch and they'll reply in English!

Typical conversation

Me : Could you answer in German, I'm trying to practice.

A German : But I want to practice my English!

I've even met an Australian working in a shop in the middle of Amsterdam, he couldn't speak Dutch and he didn't need to. 

I'm working with some Ukranians at the moment, I even hear them conversing with each other in English so they can practice.

Yes, it's embarrassing. 

I know..

English, serbian, 6 years of french (in school..), 1 year of german, but i probably know more german then french,,

weird? i know right.