English is my first language.
I’m learning Beijing Mandarin Chinese at Uni. I had been been studying it already for six years at school. (I also went to China, which was really interesting.)
Wo xihuan xue hanyu! (I like studying chinese.)
I learnt Japanese for four years at school too, but I didn’t do it in senior, and I don’t remember much any more.
So please:
ohhhh trust me to double post a THREAD… Someone please delete this… 
Spanish. Studied it for 8 years in grade school (although we didn’t even get to sentence construction until 3rd grade), 3 years in high school, and a year in college. I never really picked up the language until I moved to Spain for a summer; it’s amazing how cultural immersion makes a language snap into your brain.
Mandarin. Two years at university in the US, a year in Taiwan, two more years at University in the US to get my degree. About 15 years in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, Chinese wife and baby.
Japanese. 6 months tutoring in Taiwan, 2 semesters at Grad School in the US, one year at a language center in Tokyo while working there. Used to get by okay, but have forgotten a lot of it.
French. Two years high school, three years college and one amazing summer in Lyon. Lyon est la capital gastornomique du monde!
English is my native language.
I learned Thai for a week once. I was doing an intensive four-week course, but got sick and fell behind. All I can remember is “Sawadee-ka” which means hello, and “rima” (or is it “dima”?) which means “good”.
I’ve been studying Japanese for almost 12 years now. One year being an exchange student in Japan (with about 10 hours per week of intensive classes combined with staying with Japanese families), one year of living in Australia with two Japanese girls and their friends, one year of studying Japanese at university, one year of working in Australia at an opal shop (and being one of the only two Japanese speakers), and the rest living in Japan as the wife of a Japanese guy. I’m extremely functionally fluent; I can deal with anything that daily life throws me. But I’m not able to expound on politics or economics.
As for an example of Japanese, let me sing you a bit of the famous song “Sukiyaki”.
Ue wo muite
Arukou.
Namida ga kobore nai you ni.
Omoidasu,
Haru no hi.
Hitori bochi no yoru.
A rough translation would be:
I walk along, looking above, trying not to let the tears fall.
I remember that day in spring, as I spend a night alone.
*The last three lines are kind of ambiguous. Depending on how you read them, they could be interpreted as “I remember that day in spring and that night I spent alone”, but I think my original translation is correct.
I started French immersion in the fourth grade and carried on all through high school. I’ve lost a lot of it since then but I can still carry on a conversation and understand what people are saying. My grammar is crap though.
I “speak” a little bit of sign language. I started with it when I began home nursing a little deaf girl. She taught me a lot of signs, and I bought a couple of books so that I could communicate with her more easily. I can really only do basic signs; ones that are important to her, like bath and medicine, plus everyday words like dog, sit, flower. I know enough to get by while I’m working with her. Someday soon I think I’m going to take a class to learn how to do it properly. It’s easy to learn the signs but the grammar of ASL is a bit difficult to grasp just from a book.
Native language: English. American English.
Learned:
Italian—took it in adult evening classes when I was 12.
French—took it in high school and college. J’ai gagné le grand prix dans le Concours National de Français, ma troisième année au lycée.
Arabic—started with a college course, self-taught thereafter.
Hebrew—2 semesters in college. Biblical Hebrew.
Persian—self-taught.
Hindustani—self-taught, during a stay in India. Married Indian, speak it at home (now and then).
Turkish—self-taught.
Japanese—took an evening class. Been forgetting it, got to practice more.
Lithuanian—another evening class.
Hungarian—another evening class. You know, the Fairfax County Public Schools’ adult education programs are great for lots of different languages.
Malay/Indonesian—self-taught, though I boosted it by taking a class in Petaling Jaya briefly.
Sanskrit—took a class briefly; self-taught thereafter.
Tamil—self-taught.
German—self-taught.
Spanish—I’ve always just sort of known it without studying it much, because I already knew French and Italian.
Uzbek—trying to teach myself now, listening to Yulduz Usmanova and translating her songs for myself.
Other languages I’ve made a start on teaching myself but haven’t gotten very far:
Greek, Latin, Portuguese, Irish, Chinese, Swahili, Finnish, Mongolian, Gujarati, Bengali, Telugu, Hawaiian, Armenian, Malayalam… etc.
But I did teach myself how to find Chinese characters in a dictionary, when I was cataloging Chinese books in a library. At first I asked a Chinese library student to translate and transliterate the relevant information for me. Then she graduated, and I was left on my own. So I figured out how to identify the radical, count the number of strokes in the radical (which is how they’re ordered in the dictionary), and look up the character. So I can actually read Chinese, even though I don’t really know Chinese. But very slowly.
Russian - My “official” mother language, since I was born there.
Hebrew - My true mother language. I’m in Israel since the age of 6.
English - TV, Internet, the usual.
I can express myself in the bext way using Hebrew, then English and then Russian(I barely used it in the last 11 years).
Learned Portuguese when I lived in Brazil. When I got back to the States, a friend asked me to day something in Portuguese. “Say what?” I asked. He thought for a moment, then said, “Say, ‘The dog has a hairy butt.’”
So here it is: O cachorro tem uma bunda peluda.
ummm, English. Self taught. Example? :Where can I find the nearest station? 
German. At school: Wo ist der bahnhof, bitte?
Dutch. : Hey. Waar kan it dat stomme station vinden. En rijden er treinen vandaag voor de verandering?
Indonesian: i learnt it for a few years in primary school and all i can remember is a song about a cockatoo
French: have been learning it at school for 3 1/2 years
“je suis une grosse biftek”- i am a fat steak
Italian: been learning it for 3 1/2 years
All i know in italian is a song by sash!
“Senti, allora dammi la tua mao ti farei scorprire il piu’ bel tempo della la primavera, la primaver del amore, io sono pronto”
“listen, well then give me your hand, i’d show you the most beautiful side of spring, the spring of love… i’m ready”
Japanese: i have been doing accelerated Japanese for about half a year
all i can say is “ah so deska” which means “ah is that so”
You misspelled “ik”, kaaskop.
The Queen’s English, learned in school, on holidays.
American English, learned at some deranged message board. 
French, learned in school.
German, learned in school.
Dutch, mother tongue.
… en als die pleuristreinen al niet rijden, sta je verdomme wel in die kutfile van Maastricht tot Haarlem en terug!
(…and if those fucking trains don’t run at all, you’ll be stuck in that damn traffic jam from Maastricht to Haarlem and back!)
Native language: English
Korean: I worked in South Korea from 1993 to 1999, and learning Korean from the get-go made navigating my way through the business of daily life much less of a hassle. It’s a lot easier to get leverage in a negotiation when you can bargain with the taxi drivers and market ladies in their own language.
Lessee, a sentence in Korean: ne bae apogi ddaemonae, onul pamun surul an mashinun goshi chogessoyo. “Because my stomach hurts, I’d better not drink any alcohol tonight.”
Spanish: High school, college, and several years spent living in Arizona. I’m getting a bit rusty, so I try to keep it up by chatting with the Salvadoran janitor at my workplace.
French: High school, and constant attempts to keep it by reading books in French (albeit with a dictionary)
Japanese and Chinese: basic vocab acquired through travelling
German: self-taught
I can read Russian; more accurately I can say Russian words when I see them in print, but I don’t know what they mean. I would really like to learn to speak it eventually.
I was born in South America so Spanish was my first language, although assimilating in the U.S. when I was little means I’m more functional than fluent now.
3 semesters of French in college, most of which I tried to forget, but repeated visits to France have taught me that I remember much more than I expected.
I grew up speaking English and Mandarin, although I’m only semi fluent in the latter. I also learned French at school, but I’ve let myself slip a little. I’ve travelled to China and France, which helped my language skills immensely.
Two main ones are:
French: started learning in 4th grade (a substitute teacher thought it would be fun to teach us some French songs), just totally got into it, kept on studying it through HS, majored in it in college, went to a French university, and really learned it like French people speak it when I went to live in France. Cela a été le coup de foudre quand je t’ai vu (it was love at first sight when I saw you).
Italian: spoke at family gatherings, minored in it in college, extensive travel in Italy. Credo che ci sia polvere nella lente (I believe there is dust in the lens).
Spanish: picked it up mainly from speaking French & Italian. Can read it more than speak it.
Russian: Russian S.O. and self-study. Just love love love the way it sounds.
German: German S.O. and self-study.
Irish: Ditto.
Arabic: Ditto.
Well, at least all those jerks ended up being good something.
Queen’s English - I speak it proper like what she should be spoke
American English - self taught from reading American science fiction as a youth. Subsequent refresher courses in New York, California, New Mexico, Alaska and Miami
Strine - immersion learning in Queensland, refresher course in ACT.
Estuary English - the new BBC speak, I have ongoing project to understand the correct use glottal stop.
I find all the above quite enough. None of this foreign rubbish where they actually use different words. :eek:
(“correct use glottal stop”? I think that’s an oxymoron.)
First language: Canadian English. “Jean Chrétien is such a hoser, eh, but my riding’s straight red Grit.”
Translation: The Prime Minister is an idiot, don’t you think, but my electoral district is a Liberal Party stronghold.
Second language: Québécois French - school and from first roommate. “Ben là, chais que chus pas mal tête carrée, mais ferme ta yeule ladssus esti pis on s’en ira pour d’la poutine, cossé tu penses-tu?”
Translation: Well I know that I’m pretty much of an anglophone, but if you shut up about it we’ll go for some fries with cheese curd, what do you think?"
Third language: Esperanto - from a workbook and practice on the Internet, with a language class, and with my third boyfriend Mateo. “Jes, la pasportservado chi tie jam estis tre amuza. Chu vi shatus fiki?”
Translation: Yes, staying with other Esperantists during my travels here has been quite enjoyable. Would you like to fuck?
Fourth language: Spanish - in college and university. “Estoy harto de comer cui.”
Translation: I am tired of eating guinea pig. (I swear to God, this was in one of my textbooks.)
Fifth language: Italian - in university. Almost entirely gone. “Com’è bello quello ragazzo.”
Translation: That young man is very attractive.
(POP! there goes my SDMB cherry;)
English: native
German: gleaned from small children and late-night nudie television during a two-year stay as a nanny. first sentence learned “Wo ist die toilette?”
French: various classes, travel.
Japanese: i taught english for several years in a couple of different language institutes and it was good to have some idea of what the kids were saying. never got around to mandarin, korean, or any of the arabic languages/dialects.
an intellectual knowledge of specific aspects of Hmong, Kiswahili, several dialects of Dakota Sioux, Hopi, and Cahuilla (all the result of Linguistics grad school).