I’ve studied language for most of life, even before I declared at the age of 10 that I wanted to be a writer. But decades later I’m unable to list all the languages I’ve studied, both formally and informally.
My go-to number is 14: I’ve studied, I speak 14 languages. It might be more, depending on how you distinguish among related languages, among vernaculars.
I’m going to attempt to list the 14 languages I know. (Though, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say the language that at one time I knew.)
- English
- Spanish
- Russian
- Polish
- Czech
- Japanese
- Ukrainian
- Latin
- German
- French
- Classical Greek
- …
Hmm. Maybe it’s only 11 languages. God, what a loser! This is why that stupid test I took told me I live in a bubble.
I’ve studied quite a bit of Sanskrit, a little Hebrew and Yiddish, and I spent a couple of months teaching myself Serbian, but I don’t really count any of them.
The 11 languages listed above I consider my research languages: I can communicate in them (at least in a basic way), I can read them (though I never really developed literacy in Japanese, having only about 300 kanji under my belt), and I can translate from (most of) them, especially Spanish, Russian, Polish, Latin, German, and French.
The language I wish I spoke much better is Spanish. I adore Spanish. I studied for two years in high school, at least a year at the college level, and for a handful of years on my own or with a tutor. I’m always proud when my high school Spanish saves the day, which happens much more frequently in Germany for some reason.
Speak my language.