usmbguest5318
Gold Member
I'm just curious whether members here routinely and adeptly communicate in one or more languages besides their native language. I'm wondering because having traveled to and spent a month or more in about 1/5th of the world's countries, I've noticed that the people there with whom I've had to or found myself interacting usually speak at least one other language, more often two.
For myself, without question, English is my strongest language; however, when I was in school I took Spanish and French, and when my career had me working in China, I learned Mandarin. I'm not fluent in those other languages. When I graduated from school, I was fluent in Spanish and French and I supposed I'm still technically fluent (I remember the grammar rules and conjugations); however, as with English, I don't recall many of the words I used to know. That's not surprising as I only ever speak French and Spanish for very practical purposes -- shopping, giving instructions to taxi drivers, and other purposes that don't call for an extensive vocabulary. I'm also not as conversant as I used to be in Mandarin, though there again, having entered the first phase of retirement, I'm not in China and don't have much occasion to use Mandarin.
For myself, without question, English is my strongest language; however, when I was in school I took Spanish and French, and when my career had me working in China, I learned Mandarin. I'm not fluent in those other languages. When I graduated from school, I was fluent in Spanish and French and I supposed I'm still technically fluent (I remember the grammar rules and conjugations); however, as with English, I don't recall many of the words I used to know. That's not surprising as I only ever speak French and Spanish for very practical purposes -- shopping, giving instructions to taxi drivers, and other purposes that don't call for an extensive vocabulary. I'm also not as conversant as I used to be in Mandarin, though there again, having entered the first phase of retirement, I'm not in China and don't have much occasion to use Mandarin.
