Learning about some Rats' singles with Spanish titles (see https://www.theboomtownratsofficial.com/forum/the-boomtown-rats/boomtown-rats-vinyl-what-do-we-know-part-9 ), I wonder which languages Citizens of Ratland speak. I'll go first: I speak German (native language), English, a bit of French, about ten words of Spanish.
What about you all? What are your mother tongues? Are you bilingual? Did you learn and forget a language? Is there a regional language that you maybe understand but don't speak?
Having been spectacularly bad a school, aged 40 I was asked to learn Greek when posted there with work. I loved it and became operational’ in the language, building strong relationships because of my Greek. I’ve been living in Spain for 4 years now and my Spanish is ok ( No me gusta el Lunes!) and dabbled with French for a year. It taught me learning languages are not about intelligence, but motivation, hard work and necessity!
Also native English in UK but like others French was mandatory and could probably get by reading basic French if not comfortably conversing. Also did some Italian at school but primarily did Latin and (ancient) Greek. Sad to say not really looked at any of that since university but agree it gives a great basis for understanding or guessing other languages. Always loved the structure of languages and even name equivalents (John/Jean/Juan etc etc etc) but despite my name unlike Senora Kath I can’t even make double figures in German. Unless we’re allowed counting bitte?? 🙂
I’m American, specifically I live in Tennessee, but I was born in Indianapolis and I’ve lived in quite a bit of the country parts of America. I speak English, I’ve tried learning French off and on during my teens, but I’m not the greatest at it, I only know a few words here and there♥️
I was born in the northern part of the Netherlands called "Friesland", where the official 2nd language of the Netherlands "Frisian" is spoken. However my parents spoke a somewhat different dialect from their city, so I was raised with "Stads-Fries". At primary school the language was Dutch, with a few hours of Frisian lessons per week. I already learned some English at an early age, from music and TV. At secondary school, English, German and French were mandatory in the first few years; I dropped French and German as soon as I could and stuck with English for the full 6 years. By that time, Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats had entered my life and I remember reading Bob's book with the English-Dutch dictionary at my side, wanting to understand every single word of it. And the rest is history as they say 😀
My mother tongue is British English. I’ve learned French, a bit of Spanish and Italian. Also did Latin at school. Sadly forgotten most of it, due to not making use of any of them.