My students love asking me, "how many languages do you know?" I always tell them, that is not an easy question. What does it even mean to "know" a language? Being fluent? Being able to have a basic conversation? Being able to understand a movie? My official answer is that I can speak two languages fluently--English and Spanish--but that I have studied many other languages. How many languages, you still ask? What you read below is my answer to that question. Languages are listed chronologically as I began learning them.

Language #1: English

American English is my native language. Every day I grow more enamored by its expressiveness and beauty. Need I say more?

Language #2: Spanish

I started studying Spanish in 7th grade and continued throughout high school and college. It was one of my hardest subjects because I had to practice constantly and put in extra effort to talk to people in the language in order to excel. I double-majored in Spanish and linguistics at the university and have taught Spanish at the middle and high school levels. I have studied in five different Spanish-speaking countries not including the United States. However, as a non-native speaker, I feel like when I speak Spanish I am not completely myself. Recently, I have developed a bit more of an "American accent" because it helps me relax and feel less like I am trying to be someone I'm not. But I can speak Spanish without an accent if I really try. Sometimes, when I travel, I challenge myself to pass for a local by taking on the language and mannerisms of the region I am visiting. I have actually succeeded many times in Spain, a few times Chile, and, in spite of my Caucasian appearance, a few times in Mexico (once a restaurant waiter refused to believe I wasn't Mexican!) All in all, learning Spanish is one of the most valuable things I have ever done for connecting with people. I still use it frequently with my amigos in Tacoma.

Language #3: German

 In 8th grade, I took a year of German. I really connected with the sounds of the language and the grammar. I also discovered that I had some German ancestors, which made the language even more fascinating. Later on, during college, I would revisit the German language while performing Mozart's Die Zauberflöte​ ("The Magic Flute") with the opera ensemble. But honestly, I don't consider myself even conversational anymore. Use it, or lose it, so they say!

Language #4: Welsh

While researching my family's genealogy, I discovered I had a different ancestor who came from Wales. I knew virtually nothing about Wales, but I soon discovered that the language was called Welsh. So, after finishing my year of German, I bought a book and some tapes and spent the summer teaching myself the Welsh langauge. I studied for two hours every day, doing all the exercises in the book and listening to the dialogues over and over. I fell in love with Welsh's pronunciation and even its grammatical peculiarities. But like German, I haven't used it much since then, and I don't consider myself conversational anymore.

Language #5: French

French is probably my third strongest language. Towards the end of high school (during which I focused mostly on Spanish), I got interested in French and began teaching myself using music and song lyrics. I even attempted to translate some of my own songs into French. I actually found its rhythm and tone to be more expressive of my personality than Spanish. In college, I studied French a bit more and became pretty good at conversations limited to certain topics. Every so often a chance comes to speak French with someone, and though I'm slow to remember the words, I can hold the conversation if the other person is patient. If I were to spend a week reviewing my course notes and watching a few French films, I would be reasonably conversational again. (I took on this challenge a few years ago when I attended a French club in Tacoma and managed pretty well.)

Language #6: Hindi

India has always fascinated me. The cuisine, the sitar music, and Bollywood films--it's so colorful, flavorful, and (at least for me) spiritual. I read the Bhagavad-Gita at age 16 and became interested in learning ancient Sanskrit; however, while the alphabet was manageable enough (it's the same alphabet used by its modern-day successor, Hindi), Sanskrit grammar was too complicated and I didn't have the energy to focus on it. But later on, in college, I was told had to study a third language as a requirement for my linguistics degree; I decided on Hindi since I already knew the alphabet and liked Indian culture so much. I took a year of Hindi courses and had a blast. We not only practiced the language, we learned dances, watched Bollywood movies together, acted out skits, and enjoyed authentic food. I became almost as conversational in Hindi as I was in French, though my reading level was much lower. Someday I plan to travel to India and use the language.

Language #7: K'iche'

While in Guatemala in 2014, I became so enamored by the indigenous culture, I decided to take a course in K'iche', one of the Mayan languages spoken by about 2 million people. K'iche is the second largest language group in Guatemala, after Spanish. The words for numbers and colors were most fascinating. I heard K'iche' spoken all around Quetzaltenango while I was there. I was proud to have succeeded using it on an excursion I made to Zunil, where a local woman was so impressed with my K'iche' phrases that (after we switched to Spanish) she asked if I was interested in marrying her daughter. I politely declined, of course, but this proposal only affirmed how powerful knowing a language is for connecting with people.

Language #8: Mapudungún

In 2015, when I went to Chile, I studied Mapudungún, the language of the Mapuche people. Less than 150,000 people speak Mapudungún, and most live in southern Chile. I attempted to use the phrases I learned while traveling to Temuco (the largest Mapuche city by percentage), but I found the locals a bit more private with their Mapudungún than the Guatemalans had been about speaking K'iche' with me. As my teacher, Ms. Clorinda Antinao, described, Mapudungún has a rhythm that flows like waves upon the shore. Having experienced the beauty of this language, I agree!

Language #9: Danish

In 2016, I visited my relatives in Denmark. For about 6 months leading up to the trip, I studied Danish on my own using books, tapes, movies, music, and television. Danish is so similar to English that I picked it up really easily. While in Denmark I managed to do all the basic things (ordering food, buying tickets, asking for information, understanding instructions) without needing English at all. I connected with my Danish family really well and loved getting a flavor of the lifestyle on the island of Møn. Given my own Scandinavian roots, I wasn't surprised that I passed so well for a Dane. In fact, it sometimes confused people when I would ask if they spoke English (as if I were a random Danish stranger quizzing them on their English skills). All in all, it was the most successful language learning experience after Spanish. Danish is probably my fourth strongest language (though it would still take me a few weeks to practice in order to get my conversation skills back).

Language #10: Greek

After such a successful experience with Danish, I decided to try Greek. I took weekly Greek classes at the Greek Orthodox church in Tacoma for six months and then travelled to Greece to use the language. The pronunciation was easy and I was pretty successful using it for everyday tasks. The alphabet was actually much easier than expected! However, unlike Danish which has a ton of cognates with English, I couldn't understand longer conversations in Greek very well at all. But, for certain conversation topics, I could manage okay.

Language #11: Chinese

Chinese (Mandarin) is not an easy language for English speakers to learn. I tried to tackle learning it on my own, but without much success. I attribute this to the fact that the writing system is so complex, I could not find a quick way of writing down phrases in real time as I heard them. There is a standardized writing system called pinyin, in which Chinese words are spelled using English characters, but due to the low number of distinct consonants, it was easy to confuse words with other words that had the mostly same letters. I imagine Chinese speakers are able to tell the words apart because they can remember the tones of the word, which actually affect the meaning. My habit of using English intonation really got in the way of hearing and pronouncing the correct tones of the words. Even after studying in China, I still was not able to speak it well. However, the thing I succeeded in was finding Chinese people who spoke English and using my knowledge of their language to make the conversation more stimulating.

Dabbling in Other Languages

Over the years, there have been a number of languages I started learning but never got anywhere. Portuguese is probably the most significant one, since it is very similar to Spanish. I did an informal independent study of Portuguese with a friend in high school, but we didn't really do homework or any formal practice. Today, I can watch videos in Portuguese and understand between 20-40% (or less if it is a dialect I haven't heard before), but I can't speak it. I have had some success talking with Portuguese speakers if I use Spanish with them and let them speak Portuguese back to me.

Another one is Urdu, which has very similar words as Hindi except written in the Arabic alphabet. In fact, in 2015, I had started out wanting to learn Arabic but found it too difficult to tackle both a new alphabet and a new lexicon. So, to learn the Arabic alphabet, I found a book on Urdu and made flashcards to learn the alphabet and try to identify some of the Hindi words I knew using the Urdu alphabet. This proved to be a task I would have needed much more time and energy for, so I stopped.

Over the years I've learned a few phrases in Norwegian, Japanese, Polish, and Korean, but nothing much beyond that. I've picked up on some Russian and Ukrainian from my students (and from listening to one of my favorite Russian singer, Alla Pugacheva), but again, I can't speak it. Then there was Maa, the East African language I worked on when I co-authored a linguistics publication with my professor in college; but just because you study parts the language for linguistic analysis doesn't mean you can actually understand it. The next new language I will study is probably Japanese, since I have step-relatives there. But who knows? The world is large, and opportunities are endless :)
So, there you have it:

2 languages (English and Spanish), if you go by fluency.

6 languages (adding French, Danish, Greek, and Hindi) if you go by functional conversation ability after some extended review.
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11 languages (adding German, Chinese, Welsh, K'iche', and Mapudungún), if you count just having some formal knowledge and coursework.