So to Speak

A language lover gets put through the paces

- BY Emily Goodman

“HOW MANY LANGUAGES do you speak?” It seems like a simple question, but it's a tough one for me to answer. I've studied six, but I don't speak six. I can't count each language I've tried to learn as one, because my competency in each is different. And assigning fractions just seems silly. Are my two semesters of college Italian worth a half? A third? And where would that leave my 283-day streak of learning Norwegian on Duolingo?

The simplest answer to how many languages I speak is two. Eagle-eyed readers will notice I'm writing this in English, but I could have composed it in French. I took 12 years of it in school, made it my college major, and studied abroad in France. Am I fluent? Sure, but I'm fluent in English. And using that word for both implies equal levels of, well, fluency. This is hardly the case.

I can have a conversation on just about anything in either language, but my topic catalog in English is certainly larger. You want to talk particle physics?