It turn out there's a label for how I, and a lot of other San Franciscans, go through life in our multi-lingual city. I'm a receptive multilingualist. That is, I understand a very substantial amount of Spanish and often hold conversations in which the other party speaks Spanish and I communicate in English. I'd feel better about myself if I could manage to actually speak Spanish, but I'm happy I can often get by pretty effectively, as the Spanish speakers I interact with also seem to be.
Can't say I have any of that capacity in any of the Asian and other languages spoken here, but it's not rare at all to come across Asian-language natives who understand Spanish as well as English.
If curious about how this works, read about an Australian island where nine different languages are spoken and widely understood, but no one is giving up their own tongue to talk with speakers of other languages. We're an amazing species generating amazing cultures.
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