English (I live in Canada)
Cantonese (My parents speak it)

Read/Write/ Speak fluently

English
Russian

Can understand most
Slavic tongues
and can kinda speak
Ukrainian.

French in school was a big joke, I don't think taking a language in high school helps that much, best way to learn is to live in the country

English.

That is all.

Have a rule where your kid(s) can only speak the mother tongue at home, I mean they'll learn English at school. You won't regret it.

I can understand cantonese okay... just good enough for communcation, but not good enough to fully understand tv shows.

So pretty much just English.

It's Horrbile. I'm mad at myself now.

I got kicked out of chinese school when I was around 10 because I was acting like a brat and my teacher complained, and my mom pulled me out and just gave up.
It wasn't that I was being mischevious or anything... But I was just totally not paying attention and ignoring the teacher. lol...


That is the best way. Unfortunately, my parents' English is pretty good since they came to Canada when they were around 20. They would set this rule up for me, but beacuse they can acutally understand English, they would forget to enforce it, and then they would still respond in cantonese when I speak in English. haha

English - I live here...
Vietnamese - Parents...

English - Fluent
French - Fluent (Elementary French Emersion.. Gr7 french emersion is like Gr 12 French Class.. I got skipped 2 Grades cause i was in French Emersion...In grade 8 I was taking french 10...
Chinese - Okay - I can do the basics
Thai - Okay - I would be able to travel in thailand by myself...
Viet - Foods - Trying to get the gf to teach me more...

English
Italian .. born there

English - Went to an Elementary school in HK which taught in English
Cantonese - Grew up in Hong Kong + Richmond and went to Chinese School
Mandarin - Learnt it in High School
Japanese - Learnt it in High school (but only functional enough to basically tell people to PLZ SPK ENGRISH, YO)

English - grew up here
Teochew/Diojiu/Chaozhou/Chiu Chow dialect - home, parents
Cantonese - grew up learning it, went to Chinese school, tv, friends. Though to be honest I'm too used to speaking english and will only use cantonese if I have to.

Mandarin - in the process of improving my mandarin. Can watch tv no problem, speaking needs improving though

english - learn through school
Cantonese - Mom/dad
Vietnamese (bac) - mom/dad can't speak so well but understand
Japanese - gr 9-12

Tagalog - grew up with my parents and relatives talking to me in tagalog and they still do. I can understand it 100% and can speak it really poorly.
English - I can understand and speak it 100%.

chinese school didnt teach me anything about writing or reading. speaking was done at home, so it was easy. but if you want them to learn to read n write (well...read atleast) get TVB. With the small basics they learn in chinese school, they'll follow along with the subtitles since they already understand what's being said. That's how I learned to read. and also lyrics to songs.

but for me, CBC:
English - being born in canada i guess
Cantonese - family, tv, music, friends
mandarin - extended family, tv, music, friends, taiwan, work while in university
French - basic survival french from school
Korean - survival korean from living here for a bit

Shanghainese - both my mom and dad were born in shanghai and speak it to me at home
Mandarin - Dad's side of the family since Grandpa and Grandma were from Harbin and Tianjin.
Cantonese - Friends taught me a bit but i can't really speak it, only understand it
English - Yay for ESL!


my parents had a rule at home where i HAVE to speak Shanghainese or Mandarin. I wasn't allowed to speak English at home. They were pretty damn strict about it too.