I speak English. In fact, my mastery of English is one of my best skills. I was never the best pianist, or the best football player, but I've got this English thing in the bag. =) My vocabulary is without a doubt the largest of anyone's on the Compendium, I know a great many idioms and figures of speech, and I know almost every hard law of grammar there is. (Try me.)
I took three years of Spanish in high school, and toward the end of it I think I might have been on the cusp of knowing the language conversationally--thanks greatly to my Spanish III teacher, Mr. Sudlow--but in the end I went to college in Seattle and never kept it up. I still remember the grammatical laws of Spanish, and I saved my notes on Spanish grammar, but most of my vocabulary is gone.
I can read, write, and speak Hebrew. I even taught Hebrew at Sunday school at the
b'nai mitzvah level in my senior year of high school. However, strange as this may sound, I have almost no Hebrew vocabulary, and almost no grammatical knowledge of the language. In other words, I learned how to read it, but I never learned what any of it meant. I also never got terribly good at reading Hebrew without the vowels, which is how they take it in Israel.
I know many a Latin maxim, and quoting Latin maxims is something of a hobby of mine, but I do not know the language itself.
In the end, English is the only language at which I am adept, let alone a master.
Sorry for reviving this post but I just wanted to sya that I speak a mixture of Olde english and American English. But my American English is starting to phase out.
I really think you mean Shakespearian or "King James" English.
Beowulf is Old English.
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