I can get by pretty well in German, and to a lesser degree in Mandarin, and Spanish. I lived a year in Germany and three and half years in mainland China. I haven’t lived in a Spanish-speaking place yet, but many places call to me.
I stopped working on Spanish and Kumeyaay a couple years ago and haven’t worked on any languages since. I have studied and forgotten many other languages. I still retain a few phrases of Japanese, and I can exchanges pleasantries in a couple more.
When thinking about which languages I want to acquire most, I tend to go for variety and “coverage”. That is, I want to be able to increase the number of people I can communicate with and the percentage of the world I can more effectively travel to and/or live in. Thus my goal of learning 6 regional/global linguae francae by the time I’m… let’s say 70. (I’m 43 now. I’m obviously not in a hurry.)
But this goal by itself this would lead me to only learn widely spoken languages. I also want to learn a signed language (probably ASL or International Sign Language), the local indigenous language of San Diego (Kumeyaay/Kumiai), Nahuatl, Hawaiian and/or Maori, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Catalan.
I haven’t felt motivated to do much with languages for the last year or two, but I sense that maybe an ember of motivation is there now. Hoping this conference will help to fan that ember into a flame again!
If you’re interested in “regional linguae francae”, language revitalization and lesser-studied languages, and living a life of travel and language-learning, feel free to reach out and let’s chat. 