I think it will be cool to see the diversity of people on nairaland by knowing how many languages they speak. As I believe the best way to understand people is to learn their language if/when appropriate.

All languages including foreign and local to Nigeria in order of proficiency (speaking, reading, writing) Highest proficiency to lowest proficiency.

1. English
2. French
3. Chinese Mandarin (Putonghua)
4. Yoruba
5. Igarra

I speak:
English
Igbo
Pigeon English
Yoruba(Little bit)

Three, IGBO ,ENGLISH AND FRENCH .

FRENCH
ENGLISH
SPANISH
NORWEGIAN
YORUBA

and i dabble in CHINESE/JAPANESE

Esan ( a little)
English
Italian
Pidgin

Fluent: English, Spanish

Semi-Fluent: Igbo (forgot a lot, and can only understand verbally)

Learning: Portuguese (very easy to learn if you know Spanish)

Plan/Want to Learn: Swahili, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic

In terms of speaking, Mandarin Chinese is easier than English and definitely easier than french.

No tenses, like future present, past participle, nothing like that.

But if you want to learn to read and write, well you need patience, reading can be picked up gradually. I am not good just doing ok.


Spanish is the next on my list. After that i think I am done. lol

I plan on learning :
Spanish
Portugese
French

Cactus:

In terms of speaking, Mandarin Chinese is easier than English and definitely easier than french.
No tenses, like future present, past participle, nothing like that.
But if you want to learn to read and write, well you need patience, reading can be picked up gradually. I am not good just doing ok.

is that one of your jokes?!
it is definitely easier for a person who knows "the alphabet" to learn to speak french/english than chinese,  have you forgot the tones in the chinese language which are the barrier to most and the fact that there is no visual references to go about.
in french , if i wrote JE PARLE, you will be able to know what to SAY just by reading the letters, in chinese you are in the zone!!!!! mandarin has 5tones (cantonese 9), and their ALPHABET has 13000 characters!!!!!!! but  once you've learned about 2200 characters, you can comfortably read mostly anything (should take about 5yrs).
in chinese (pinyin) MA, can be 5 different words depending on what tones is associated with it, thus the phrase: ma(1) ma(4) ma(2) ma? which means "did mother scold the horse?"
and then wherever you go in China they have different languages!!!
first i lived in Beijing for close to a year and i learned to speak PUTONGHUA and i was semi fluent (i would say) then i moved to Shanghai and it was like i had move to another country and had to learn everything again, they spoke SHANGHAIHUA. it's mandarin but Different grammar, different phonetic system, different vocabulary, 
examples:
Hello: NI HAO(putonghua)  NONG HAO(shanghaihua)
Goodbye ZAI JIAN(putonghua) JIE WEI(shanghaihua)
thank you: XIE XIE(putonghua) YA YA(shanghaihua)
i love you: WO AI NI (putonghua) WU E NONG(shanghaihua)
C R A Z Y!!!!
i feel that even japanese is easier than chinese!!!!

@MRbrownJAY

I was not referring to reading, or writing I was referring to speaking only.

I said speaking chinese is easier than speaking english. My ease is not referring to reading and writing. Of course it is more difficult to read and write chinese than it is english. The tones in chinese is not difficult at all.

I understand how you feel and i felt the same way before i started taking classes in chinese. Putonghua is the official common standard. Yes there is shanghai hua, beijing hua etc. But there is a standard version. Though most places you go in china, people wouldnt even care. They still speak their own dialect. Just like yoruba. go to ibadan, ogun etc different versions.

In english you say. Yesterday I ate lunch.     the original verb is EAT. the form changed from eat to ate. But in chinese there is no form change you can write. zuotian wo chi wufan. or zuotian wo chi le wufan. There is no verb change that is what makes it very easy. unlike english you have eat, ate eaten. eating. Nothing like that in chinese so part of the learning process is already taken care of.

Oh yea, till today I only speak with my friends because I know if I say something they can laugh and correct me. If i dont know you, I hardly speak because it is a delicate language. like you said if you want to say mom

妈 = mā  = mother
骂 = mà = to scold

one should be careful but it aint difficult. practice makes perfect

yeah but i would have thought that Mandarin being the official language thought in school that most people in China would speak it. WRONG!!!!!
the further you go from Beijing, the harder it gets to understand people.
You are a special person, i can tell you that,  the first person i hear telling me that chinese is easier to speak than english or french /german etc.
i guess some people have it and others don't. i can imagine you traveling to Guangzhou or Urumqi and being  just like a newly arrived tourist in china.

Ich red schwizerdütsch
Ich spreche Deutsch
I speak english
je parle francais
io parlo italiano
hablo espagnol
naloba lingala
m na asu igbo ntakere ntakeri


U got me :-)

Fluent: English, Korean, Japanese

Semi-Fluent: Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish

Learning: Yoruba

Fluent English Urdu Punjabi and Hindi and average in Flemish

aap kaise hai?= how are you?

yorubalove:

Fluent: English, Korean, Japanese

Semi-Fluent: Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish

Learning: Yoruba

You've got to coach me in Japanese!!!!! PUH-LEASE.LOL

I speak English and German.

Learning Japanese

All of you that are writing Chinese,korean,spanish,portugese,french,german, can u speak your own indegenous language?

All of you that are writing Chinese,korean,spanish,portugese,french,german, can u speak your own indegenous language?

In my case, that's the sad part. I speak four other languages but I can't even speak my "own" language. It's ok though because I'm making an effort to learn it right now!

english

Urhobo and Isoko

5 million

         mmm, baby you supprise me ooo ,Only U?

I can speak;

Yoruba
Spanish (I am getting proficient in it soon, I am pretty happy about that)
Pidgin English
Some French.

Hausa
Igbo
Yoruba
English
Arabic
Slovakian
Swedish (little)
French (little)
Czech
Qatari

English, french (perfectly bilingual)
Spanish (beginners level)
Yoruba (learning beginners level)

Languages I want to know, Every one on this planet!

Igbo

English

Huasa

Pidgon English(Naija grammer)

Twi (a little)

Putungua (still learning)

French and Spanish but am not really fluent in speaking but i do understand

@TroEEEE, you no speak any Naija language?. Taaa gbafuo nwatakiri a.

I speak Anioma,Ikwerre,Igbani,Ngwa,Mbaise,wawa etc

I speak : German, Russian, French, Latin, Italian, Spanish and English. I really want to learn urhobo but my hubby has to help me with that!

Languages are awsome!!!!!