> > I find it interesting that people who speak several languages often carry on conversations in two or three languages all at the same time. As an example, my daughter, who speaks mainly English, but can also struggle along in Spanish and understands a little French, was on a cruise with her husband who is fluent in English and Spanish. They met a couple from Brazil, and as often happens on cruise ships, they quickly became friends. I asked her what language they used in conversation she said that she was speaking English, her husband Spanish and the Brazilians were using mostly Portuguese. She said it was no problem.
>
> The same happened to me when I visited Norway. I speak Swedish fluently, but do not speak any Norwegian. Fortunately, Swedish and Norwegian are so similar that I could speak Swedish in Norway and the people could speak Norwegian back to me.

That one of the handy things about Europe. You don't have far to go to find another culture or another language. Around here, until about ten years ago, you could travel 1000's of miles in any direction before you found people speaking another lanugage. Now we have a good Hispanic population and people in business are slowly becoming bi-lingual. If you hire laborers around here, you almost have to speak Spanish. In the long run, it's a good thing.
Howard