“I speak Spanish in addition to English and I would rate my proficiency as native but I don’t always have the chance to practice it, so there are months of the year where my Spanish falls into disrepair.I always look forward to practicing it when I can, so having people here who not only speak Spanish but are from Spanish-speaking countries has made a big impact on my ability to practice the language even when I’m not home in L.A. where there’s an abundance of Spanish speakers. I learned Spanish growing up, from both my parents.”

“I started learning Hebrew when I was maybe 3 or 4 because I go to a Jewish school where we do dual curriculum, so half our classes are English studies and the other half are Jewish studies. It’s Jewish classes but they’re all taught in Hebrew, so we all have to know the language in order to learn in it. I’m pretty conversational.I’m learning to be fluent, now I can hold conversations with people.I go to Israel and I am able to talk really well with the locals.”

“I’ve been speaking Mandarin since I was born, so I learned it at the same time that I learned English. Both my parents speak it because my dad was born in China and my mom was born in Taiwan. For a long time, I had babysitters who would only speak Mandarin. It became harder and harder to maintain that just because all my friends would speak English so I started speaking English more and more around the house. I can understand a lot and I can hold a conversation with someone but on the radio when there’s a newscast, it’ll be really fast, and there’ll be some words I don’t know. But whenever I go to Taiwan, after a week, I’m basically snappy with it again.”

“I speak French, Spanish and German. I take Arabic in school, and I can functionally work with Italian and Portuguese, and a little, very little bit in Russian.I have a general interest in languages. My family is very international — my mom’s Dominican and her father was Italian, and my father’s French-German. [Of all the languages], Spanish and English are definitely by far the best.”

“I speak Korean. I was born in Korea, so I grew up with the language. It’s my first language, so I speak it very fluently. My English and Korean are definitely at the same level.Sometimes I find that one language can express something that the other language can’t express, but either way, I think I’m at the same level.”

“I speak German and Spanish. My parents are both from Austria so German is my first language and I’ve grown up speaking it at home with them. I also went to a German international school in Montreal where all of the classes except for English are taught in German. When I came to the U.S. in 2009, I started taking Spanish and got up to AP Spanish sophomore year and have just been keeping it up ever since.I’m totally fluent in German, I speak it as well as I speak English.In Spanish, I can understand everything and hold a conversation, but I don’t speak at the pace of a native Spanish speaker. I learned to speak English when I was four when we first moved to Canada.”

“I was born in China, so Mandarin is my mother tongue. I spoke it for 12 years, and when I was 12, I went to Vancouver and started speaking English at school, but at home I still spoke Mandarin.I think I learned English from my peers and from teachers,...by getting involved in the environment in school. I’m still better at Mandarin than English.”

“I speak Spanish, and I learned it because my family comes from a Spanish country.I go to an American school in Paraguay, South America. I think my Spanish and English are about equal.”

“I speak Chinese and English. I learned Chinese first, and then I learned English when I moved to Canada in kindergarten. My parents kept speaking Chinese around the house.Speaking-wise, I’m probably the same in Chinese and English.But my writing in English is probably a little bit better.”

“I learned Korean when I was ten. I spoke broken Korean when I was younger, but that’s when I officially learned Korean because that’s when I moved to Korea from the U.S. I’m very fluent in Korean because I spent my teenage years there.I do translation for a job, so [English and Korean] are practically equal."

“I am a native Korean speaker, so when I’m home, back in Korea, I use Korean every day. In Boston, I sometimes use Korean to speak to my parents or Korean friends.At the Medill Cherubs program, I largely used Korean to talk about other people without them knowing it. I’m a lot more fluent in Korean since it’s my first language, and it was the only language I spoke until I was 12.”

“I speak Chinese and some Spanish, but I’m only fluent in Chinese. I’ve been fluent since I was born in Toronto. My grandparents lived with me so they spoke Chinese with me. I’m better at English.I understand Chinese pretty well, but speaking-wise and writing-wise I’m not as good. I learned to speak English and speak Chinese at the same time. I’ve learned how to write and read English since I was born, like at school, and I learned how to read and write in Chinese starting in second grade.”

“I speak Korean. I kind of learned [English and Korean] at the same time. My parents speak Korean, but I spent up to 3rd grade in American schools. I moved back to Korea in 3rd grade. I think I speak English better, because I can’t imagine writing essays in Korean. I can speak conversationally and I’m comfortable communicating with people in Korean. I have a much more sophisticated vocabulary in English.”

“I speak Mandarin. I don’t remember when I learned it — from when I was really little, I just knew English and Chinese. I used to be better at Chinese, but now I’m definitely better at English. Chinese is the one we speak at home.One good thing about being bilingual is that when you’re shopping or outside somewhere that doesn’t have very many Asians, you can talk Chinese to your mom.”

“I live in Turkey. I learned Turkish when I was born. In middle school, my Turkish was good, and the hardest part was to write.I started learning English when I was 7, but it was high school when I really started talking in English.My Turkish is better than my English.”

“I’ve learned Mandarin ever since I was born, because my parents are Taiwanese.At my school, it’s mandatory to take Mandarin from kindergarten to 8th grade.I learned English at the same time I learned Mandarin, because at my school it’s all English. Generally, it’s about the same, but my English may actually be better. I speak [English and Mandarin] about the same, depending on who I’m talking to.”

“I speak Italian pretty well because I lived abroad for six months in the second half of sophomore year. The first time I started learning Italian, I was in 8th grade, I think, and me and my friend learned basic phrases for a project for school. And then two or three months before I went to Italy, I started meeting with a tutor once a week and using a book and a little bit of Rosetta Stone, but that was pretty much useless. I showed up being able to say ‘pen’ but not much else. After I arrived, It just kind of happened.I went to an Italian school and lived with an Italian family, so for about 18 hours every day for six months, I spoke Italian.When I left Italy, I was basically fluent, and now, I still read novels in Italian and I can carry a conversation but I definitely have an accent. I’m getting worse and worse at speaking because I don’t have anyone to practice with.”

“I’ve been taking Chinese at school since 6th grade. It’s been a journey. It’s not the easiest language to learn but I really enjoyed kind of struggling through it, finding the best techniques. I wish I spoke more outside of the classroom but I don’t, so hopefully that will increase in the future.I don’t speak Hindi as much anymore, but I grew up understanding it completely and my parents have spoken it in the house as well.My parents will speak to me in Hindi, or a mixture of Hindi and English, and I’ll respond in English, but I do watch Bollywood movies and I can fully understand them. I sing in Hindi, so technically I can understand that, but I feel uncomfortable speaking it sometimes.”

“Mandarin was actually my second language, I technically spoke English first. I always grew up understanding Mandarin because my parents spoke it and it was always present around the house.I also lived in China from when I was 4 to 10. I went to a bilingual school in Shanghai and studied Chinese.”