[srm913]

I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently, but let me tell you, they are both a BEAR to learn!
All my former students in China caught on to English far more efficiently than I caught on to Chinese.
Cantonese is particularly awful. A language with seven tones, in which the slightest change of inflection changes "go fishing" to "f--k fishes" or "My shoes are all wet" to "My vagina is all wet," along with no alphabet to use, makes me thankful for English's relative efficiency.
We have a lot to be thankful for.

[srm913]

I actually made those mistakes, BTW, to my eternal chagrin.

[xJones]

A language with seven tones, in which the slightest change of inflection changes "go fishing" to "f--k fishes" or "My shoes are all wet" to "My vagina is all wet,

Note to self: never go fishing with a Cantonese.:)

[radiohead]

I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently

I took a year of Mandarin back in the days when Nixon was opening China and I thought I might want a career in the State Department. I didn't have a big problem w/the tones (I've studied several languages and seem to get the sound ok), but writing characters was my bane.

I'm in higher ed now, and what surprises me is to find that graduate programs in other countries are now being offered in English. These aren't programs geared toward admiting international students who all need to speak one language, but regular programs for natives who'll have to be fluent in English to be admitted.

Plus, nowadays, a lot of the research literature they're reading isn't in German, Russian or French anymore, it's in English, so they're all reading English anyway, even when they aren't speaking it in the classroom. Interesting.