I start -

• Hungarian
  
• German
  
• (French)
  
• ((((Spanish))))

(I could understand a diary in Spanish if it is on railways :-))

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Finnish
Elementary Swedish
Schoolboy French (though my pronunciation has been commended)
Textese

You can't be me, I'm taken

Spanish

I know a little bit of French, German, and Italian.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

French.

Would make valiant attempt to read :

Spanish
Catalan
Italian.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

French. Though I couldn't possibly comment on it in French.

German
French
Italian

(Spanish)

French (read & write)& could read some Spanish & some German commenting in those languages would have to allow for terrible grammar, wrong cases, some wrong genders and some inventive franco/english phrasing.
 

Français
Italiano
Volapük (EU version)

"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

Spanish
Italian
French
German
(((Danish)))

In a previous life I studied Danish for two years.

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith

Participate:
French
Russian

Read:
Spanish
Ukrainian
Greek

In French , English or Spanish I'm capable of participating.

In Italian I should understand most of what is being said, though I'll miss out on the finer details ... I will anyhow be able to attempt to write some comments by adding "-tti", "-tto" and "-tta" endings to French words. (manger? mangeretta!)

About the same for Portugese.

In Russian you'll say something but I'll read something else. But I will be able to handle the basics and might  be able to write a few grammatically incorrect comments.

In Sinhala regardless of what you write I'll always answer by cursing, singing, and ordering booze. It's a fantastic language to do these things in ... hardly any grammar in the spoken form ... no tense, no determiners ... oh wait, no, it's because that's all I ever did over there :))

In Arabic I'll be able to read but won't have a clue what you're talking about without a dictionary. I'll be able to make one or two comments about the colour of my pencil and should be able to say that Rachida is from Lebanon and studies in Paris, and a few other sentences I've never forgotten.

French.  I would struggle, but it might be interesting.  l'argot, peut-etre une probleme.

but it might be fun to have some occassional french diaries.  Would we be the first multi-lingual blog?  probably not;

Norwegian bokmål
Norwegian nynorsk
Swedish
Danish
French (with some strain)
German (with more strain)

The world's northernmost desert wind.

I would hesistate to comment in any non-English language these days as I am out of practice in a big way, but I might just manage some simple banter in French.

I would read (in descending competence):

French
German
(((Spanish)))
(((((((Dutch)))))))

French (duh! = évidemment)
Spanish (not writing it)
Russian (not writing it)
I used to understand German, but it's too rusty now
I got to be able to read Ukrainian, but that's probably gone now.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

I'm fluent in Okie and Murkan, and passable in English.

Long ago in another life I was fluent in Spanish, but I'm afraid my skills have atrophied from lack of use.  I think I could still get by, and the practice would be good for me.

Two semesters of college French and one of German have long since dissipated on the winds of time, but I would find it an interesting challenge to try to follow along.  I wonder if I still have those college texts around here somewhere.

Somewhere in cyberspace, the ghost of de Chardin is smiling.

spanish
catalan
italian (never studied but catalan and spanish are enough)
german (so-so)

A pleasure


I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

A little English, a bit less Polish, and a very little Spanish.

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
Czeslaw Milosz

Scandinavian languages
Finnish (swear words only)
Some German
Less French and Spanish (reading an entry would be a struggle)

Uhm, Dutch?

Will read:
German
Spanish
(will attempt to read) French

Will participate in:
Dutch
Spanish (since I REEEEEEEEALLY want to learn Spanish, and particpation is the only way to get there)

French

Spanish with effort and good dictionary.

Norwegian for reading, don't expect up to date spelling. But that doesn't do much for ET for obvious reasons.

Limp along pretty well in Spanish, but it's American infested Spanglish, so doesn't help much either. Would really appreciate the example of fine Castilliano. Again, maybe not so helpful.

In Russian, etc. could diarists attempt a precis in English maybe? Eyes on this diary actually, it is interesting. I have no idea how many people even read here.

Some Spanish.  I know enough to sound fluent, but not enough to sound smart.  Or native to Spain.  And my pronunciation is flawless.

Write

• French
• (Spanish)

Read

• French
• Spanish
• (Italian)
• (German)
• (((Japanese)))

Can we try Latin and Ancient Greek?

Facts, selfish little bastards. They don't even care about your feelings.

Well, maybe not Polish. Slavic languages are sadly harder to get for free than Romance, or even Germanic. I was pleasantly surprised at how much formal Scandinavian writing you can understand exactly after mapping some correspondences to German roots and prefixes (didn't work so well for Icelandic, though). But Slavic is just too fertile with the recombinatorial almost-understanding.

Sadly, I speak only some forms of English, but maybe we should try Esperanto!

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

English - my de facto first language
Polish - my first language in the literal sense
French - second half of childhood language

I can read those three at the level of an educated native speaker. My writing skills in French are rusty and I never formally learned how to write in Polish but as long as people don't mind a few mistakes, no problem.

German - I can read news or scholarly stuff without any problem. Literary stuff, particularly anything older, nice to have a dictionary around. Writing - I can do it but it'll probably look a bit funny.

Russian - I can read news or scholarly stuff if I have to, but it's slow and painful. (three years of Russian, half forgotten, plus the cognates with Polish).

Once read an article in Czech - extremely painful as in ten minutes a page, wear out the dictionary, bad headache.  The same would probably be true of Ukrainian, Slovak, and Belarussian.

I can read in:

Spanish
Portuguese
French (with a dictionary)
Russian

Ich kann deutsch.
Weird that I can understand French, especially spoken with a Quebecois accent, but reading it is more difficult, and you'd not see me posting a comment. Never studied the language, but worked in New England in bi-lingual shops.
I can follow an article in Spanish or (with more difficuly) Italian but wouldn't consider a comment.
 

Think this through with me, let me know your mind.
Hunter/Garcia

German is my only other functional language

... leider

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

I'm learning to read German now...but far to go
Know many Spanish words from childhood...but very sketchy...

Half the population is under the age of 18. Tanzania's future is NOW...join the 50% campaign!

1. French
   
3. I can say "I love you" in German, Italian, Korean and Chinese, whenever it helps.

I will become a patissier, God willing.

1. French
   
2. will try to read,  but not write in, Spanish if fascinated by topic.

Cheers

Besides English only German, sorry.

Could read Russian (and might even understand some words).

Am trying to learn Bangla, though ;-) (my brother-in-law is from Bangladesch).

_______________________________________________

"Those who fight might lose, those who don't fight have already lost." - Berthold Brecht

BTW, Colman, thanks for a little html lesson :-)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Can participate in

• English
  
• German

Can read/decipher

• French
  
• Swedish

english
german
spanish
french with some difficulty
portuguese with some difficulty
hollandese with difficulty
plattdeutsch *)
schwitzerdütsch *)
viennese *) +)

*) count as languages because there exist written literary works published in these variants of the german language
+) whether viennese is to be considered a dialect of german or a language in its own right is debatable as it draws from many more cultural roots thsn just the german influence

i have in the past also tried to learn russian, croatian, hebrew, modern greek and mapudungun but with limited success. diaries and postings in more languages than english can only be beneficial and will help to strengthen the "european" character of this site.

Only some limited English and German (MT) I am afraid

greatest regret, no French and no Spanish - will at somepoint hopefully

(had latin and greek at school and hebrew at University - no great help here...)

French
English
Spanish
(Italian)
(German)

In French, English, Polish and German I am capable of participating and making proper translations if necessary.
I can read and understand pretty well Spanish, and, to a lesser extent, Czech.

When through hell, just keep going. W. Churchill

I can read & comment in French & Spanish, and can read, if sufficiently motivated, most Germanic, Scandinavian, and Romance languages. Slavic languages or those written in non-Latin orthographies are more of a problem. I cannot speak or understand Fourchelangue.

Personally, I think that if a story or comment is sufficiently important, the language it is written in is secondary. That said, it appears that articles written in languages other than English should at least have a brief summary in English.

Greg Shenaut

... but I'd rather avoid the horrible italian political scene, with such poor "debates" as to be completely empty of any idea whatsoever.

French

My high-school and college french is not still with me after all these years except in very elementary form.  But my husband is a citizen of Germany and could translate the German postings to me.

Karen in Austin

p.s. when we fulfill our dream of living on a barge in Europe, I'll get my French up to speed.

Thence comes our true nobility by grace, It was not willed us with our rank and place. Chaucer

Greek

1. French
   
2. Rusty German (Ich war ein Berliner...)
   

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

fluent in english, french, italian, understand german and spanish.

would prefer we stick to english, as i feel we need to master one language for better euro understanding, while enjoying others for charm, philology, linguistics and etymology.

and as for italian politics, the reasons stated above for not having more diaries on the subject are the same ones that make me crave more.

the darker the pit, the more light needed!

special props to hannah and degondi for the kind of view i can never find here, and to jerome for his superb english.

Peace is not the absence of war -- peace is the absence of fear. Ursula Franklin

I could read diaries and comments in

German
Dutch
English
Italian
French
Spanish
Frisian (Stadsfries)
Haitian Creole
Miskito (colloquial)
Ladino

"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819

Sure it would be great to read an article in Yiddish and Letzebuergisch (national language of Luxemburg since 1980)once in a while!

"The USA appears destined by fate to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." Simon Bolivar, Caracas, 1819

can read:  french, german if not too technical

can guess/read/skim:  italian, spanish

language skills too rusty to participate in discussion by writing other than in my native tongue (english), I am embarrassed to say.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...

Can read and comment in Greek.

Can read French and Spanish.

If my life depended on it I could read something not too technical in Italian.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

French

English
Portuguese
Greek