Observation: Still don't know what people mean when they use the word 'fluent'. Usually they don't either. It appears to mean something more than 'halting' or 'beginner level' but often not much more.
Shrank from attempting an answer to this question when it came up elsewhere some time back
. Now I'm trying to be less private and more assertive
French, German: did A level ages ago and it's all still there if a bit slow to emerge, French more so
Chinese: a BA some time back. haven't used for a while but there are few days when words and phrases come back, usually with a smile. Found I could read
Zeng Jinyan's blog ok this morning
Japanese: lived there for much of the 80s. The non-English language I feel most comfortable in. Can read newspapers and easier fiction
Latin: another A level; could still recite most conjugations and declensions; Latin comes up at work regularly but find classical Latin texts much harder to make sense of than Chinese or Japanese
Turkish, Italian, Spanish: survival knowledge, with enough grammatical background to build on if need be
Potteries-speak: mother's language; knowledge is (sadly) mostly passive; looking forward to meeting Alan again to practise
Does the publication 'Arfur Towk Rate in Staffycher' still exist?