[Lambydude]

Can read, write and speak
1. malayalam (mother toungue)
2. Hindi ( was the medium of teaching for half of the subjects in my school kendriya vidyalaya)
3. English

Can speak
4. Tamil ( Most malayalis understand and speak tamil)
5 Kannada ( of course, ended up in Bangalore for a job)

An observation I have to make is that most south indians do learn more languages as Hindi is picked up from school or bollywood. Along with that, because of similarities in south indian languages, we do pick up 1-2 other languages.

[jkrishnakj]

1. Tamil : speak , read, write , understand
2. English : same as above
3. Hindi : same as above
4. Marathi : same as above
5. Kannada : speak , understand
6. Malayalam : speak , understand
7. Telugu : understand

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

Where are all the bengali speakers, don't see it in any of the previous posts.

The Bengali-speaking folks understand many other languages, including Assamese, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Maithili, even Nepali. They'll never tell you that they do, though. When they do speak in Hindi or English, however, Bollywood takes their warped diction and grammar, and makes memes / caricatures out of them, so it doesn't matter what they speak!

[Ithaca]

Having been born and raised in Mumbai to Telugu parents, I was exposed to quite a few languages. Since Maharashtra is a new state for my parents with its own language and we had to learn the national and international language, my parents sadly did not expose me to my mother tongue much.

English - read, write, think, speak
Marathi - read, write, speak
Hindi - read, write, speak
Telugu - understand & speak only.

Tamil - understand sparingly, can manage but will reply in English
Gujarati - can understand if spoken slowly but will reply in English.

I want to be fluent in Telugu, Tamil & Sanskrit before I go to the roadshow above.

[chiefpk]

Originally Posted by Eddy

English and Hindi- Read, Write, Understand & Speak
Punjabi - Understand & Speak.

This guy is so me!. Being a North Indian you are subject to these 3 languages only. My family being A Punjabi family speaks Punjabi 60% of the time, so I can speak a bit of Punjabi but can't write.

[dhanushs]

I try hard to learn the local language. Helps heaps. Not very successful though.

Right now,

English - Read, Write, Speak, Understand.
Malayalam - Read Write, Speak, Understand.
Tamil - Speak, Understand
Hindi - Read, Write, Speak, Understand
Telugu - Can somehow make understand. Speak words.
Kannada - Can somehow understand. Speak One sentence at a time.

[TaurusSHO]

1) Bengali - Mother tongue. Can read, write, understand and speak.
2) Hindi - can read, speak and understand but average at writing.
3) Odia - can speak and understand but can't read and write.
4) Kannada - learning to speak, read and write but can understand.

[StarrySky]

Originally Posted by 14000rpm

Where have you taken your Finnish Courses?

I took a couple of courses from Aalto University's open university program.

[whitewing]

Kannada-URWST
English-URWST
Hindi-URWS
Tamil-US
Telugu-U/2, S/2 [Thanks to some college friends, was able to understand the spoken language quite well, now I've lost touch. Now I can get the drift of a conversation and am able to ask for directions and recommendations for route, food, pitstops etc. during road trips]
Sanskrit-Used to be able to have a basic conversation during my 11th&12th grade days, thanks to some great teachers. Now completely lost touch.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by SS-Traveller

The Bengali-speaking folks understand many other languages, including Assamese, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Maithili, even Nepali. They'll never tell you that they do, though. When they do speak in Hindi or English, however, Bollywood takes their warped diction and grammar, and makes memes / caricatures out of them, so it doesn't matter what they speak!

I was waiting for your post!

Having grown up in Assam and WB, I can relate to what you mention.

No comments on Bollywood.

[BoneCollector]

This is a nice thread.

1. Hindi - Mother tongue . I can write, read, understand, speak and converse in Hindi.

2. English - Write, read, understand, speak and converse.

3. Kannada - Since I stayed in Manipal for nearly 9 years, I learnt it as we needed to speak/ converse with our patients in their local language. Although we had Malayalam, Tulu and Konkani speaking patients also, now I don't remember them. Can't read or write Kannada though.

4. Bhojpuri - A language spoken in my part of the country. I could never speak it till I came back home in 2011. My grandmother used to speak so understanding was not an issue. But now I can speak as I need to converse with my patients in local language.

5. Maithili - Another language spoken this side. I can understand it little bit but can speak.

In college, I had many friends from Andhra and Punjab so during those days, I could easily understand Telugu as well as Punjabi. I still do, but not as much as earlier.

[akash_v12]

I'm born in West Bengal to Bengali parents, but travelling around the country has advantages of its own which include learning quite a few different languages.

- Bengali (Primary Language at Home/Mother Tongue)
- Hindi (School Subject)
- Sanskrit (3rd School Subject, however have taken it up as my 2nd since last year)
- Assamese (Spent most of my childhood in Assam, so I'm able to understand Assamese, if not speak)
- English (Primary Language at School)
- Marathi (Still not very fluent or understanding, however can understand the basics)

[AMG Power]

The thread title is "How many Indian languages do you speak / understand?"

Since when did English become an Indian language?

Not to mention French, German, Dutch..

[jkrishnakj]

Oh.
Good catch AMG Power. Time to change the tile to 'How many Languages...?'

[kavensri]

Kannada - Mother tongue. Read, write, speak and understand
English, Hindi - Read, write, speak and understand
Telugu - Can understand a bit.