What languages do you speak? read? write?

[pmw]

German read/write (1st language)
English read/write (exchange student + 8 years in school)
Latin (i used to be able to read/translate latin into german but i would need a lot of practice to be able to do it nowadays)

[Ikaika]

Fluent: English, German, l337speak [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I understand Thai but can't speak it very well and absolutely cannot write it. It all comes from my dad yelling at me in Thai when I was a little kid...it took me about two seconds to figure out that the things he was saying meant that he was pissed.

[Fabian]

Swedish, speak, read and write fluently

English, read fluently, write close to fluently, speak very well if you don't mind a slight accent, decent if you do mind, excellent if given a week of practice.

French: 4 years in school, don't understand a word (pretty much anyway)

Spanish: 1 year in school, don't understand a word (almost literally).

Also I guess I read and understand norwegian very well and read danish very well (don't understand spoken danish because it's a horrible devil language).

[Kimbell175113]

English: expertly (800 verbal sat, ldo)

French: and here's where it gets interesting. I've taken French every year for a million years in school, but that's it. Never lived in, or even visited, a francophone country. I can read quite well, speak and write reasonably well, but the hardest is listening, keeping up with someone who talks at any reasonable pace, I miss things. Sometime in the next few years I'll most likely do some study abroad thing, and I guess I'll just have to see then how fluent I really am.

[keikiwai]

I speak English and Hungarian fluently, Spanish conversationally, French sort of

I read in all of the above but only write in English, Hungarian, and some French

[Mr_Moore]

Swedish fluently
Greek fluently
English fluently
French semi fluent, not same level as above.
Understand Norwegian and danish.

[xxSTWxx]

English - native

Standard or 'Classical' Arabic - was very good, now slightly rusty, but could still pick up a newspaper and read it.

various Arabic dialects (which are almost seperate languages) - pretty good comprehension, speaking would be a bit rusty.

Learned Arabic while I was in military intelligence.

Speaking/understanding Arabic doesn't get you very far these days though - unless you want to get a job as a contractor in Iraq. No thanks!

[Catyoul]

Armenian and Farsi : Native speaker, but now mostly forgotten. It would come back in two weeks if needed though. I never really knew how to write/read them though.

French : Native-like. Learned it when I arrived in France and has been my main language since then.

English : Fluent. Started learning it one year after French, and it developed over the years.

Dutch : Good, but no more practice. Started learning it one year after English, when I went to Belgium and developed a good level. I've left Belgium for 9 years now, so it's mainly gone, but could probably come back quickly.

Latin : Fair and forgotten. 6 years, excellent level at the time, I used to speak it sometimes with a high school friend of mine, but I won't get back into it ever again I guess.

Arabic : beginner.

About the thinking process when you're fluent in several languages, it depends on what you're using the most at the moment, the environment you're in at that moment, and what you're thinking at. You may be thinking of one subject in one language and when switching to a subject where you have much more experience in another language just switch seamlessly in your mind as well, or even mix them.

It also appears to help a lot to have learned 2 mother tongues when learning new languages.

[Luckyspikes]

French : native language
English : read well, write / speak moderatly well
spanish : read poorly

[BCPVP]

English - Native
Spanish - Read>Write & Speak>>>>>>Listen
Japanese - Speak a tiny bit. Can't write a word.