Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, my wife speaks five languages: Russian, English, French, Italian and, out of self-defense, Spanish. I watched her learn Spanish in three months.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I grew up speaking Spanish and English. My mother can speak Spanish, English, French and Italian, and she's pretty good at faking Portuguese. I wish that I spoke more languages than I do.
The only way to learn a language properly, in fact, is to marry a man of that nationality. You get what they call in Europe a 'sleeping dictionary.' Of course, I have only been married five times, and I speak seven languages. I'm still trying to remember where I picked up the other two.
I speak Spanish because I grew up overseas in Spain, Uruguay and Argentina.
I meet people overseas that know five languages - that the only language I'm comfortable in is English.
I had one companion. He was a teacher from the Ukraine who spoke English so we could communicate a bit. I learnt a few Russian words, but it was hard to concentrate.
I was born in Eastern Europe, in Latvia, and I'm fluent in Russian.
I speak some French, Spanish, a little German and Gaelic.
After the turmoil of the Second World War, my family ended up in Russian-occupied East Germany. When I attended fourth grade, I had to learn Russian as my first foreign language in school. I found this quite difficult because of the Cyrillic alphabet, but as time went on, I seemed to do all right.
I actually speak fluent German. And I live in Vienna, and I'm married to a Viennese woman.
My first language is both English and Spanish. My mom was raised in Los Angeles, so with her we spoke English, but my father was born in Cuba, so with him we spoke Spanish.