I am from time to time confronted with the question, "How many languages do you speak?" and the answer is usually difficult because I'm not sure what level of proficiency people are asking about. I suspect that a lot of people around here speak more than one language and that many people have some knowledge of a language but would pause and say "er..." or some variant of that if someone asked if they knew or spoke it.

The thing is that I think the answer to the question varies, depending on why you're being asked. For business purposes, I list several languages in my bio because I want to get as much business as possible. Even there, though, I don't list all the languages that I've studied (and that's not restricted to the dead languages). On Facebook, I haven't listed any languages because the people who do are usually (but not always - I add that because I haven't looked at what all my friends listed ) also the same people who are bragging about this, that and the other and so it seems a bit pretentious.

Of course, I also remember when I started working at my first law firm. They had a "face book" (physical thing, not social media) for all the new attorneys, and a very nice young woman listed as her languages "French, Ancient Greek, Latin" when I am fairly certain that only living languages were requested (for purposes of staffing attorneys to particular transactions - perhaps she was angling for a nice deal with the Vatican).

I suppose there are actually several questions here, although they're variations on the same one:

1. How much of a language should you know to tell someone you know it?

2. How much of a language should you know to list on a resume or work bio?

3. How much of a language should you know to list on social media?

4. How many languages do you know and what are they?