Do you know English?

Hi! Speak Up April 2014 issue, page 15: “to know several languages” is used twice. I learnt at school that you can only say “I can speak English”, “I can speak a foreign language” as “to know” means “to be acquainted with”. For us Italians the trap is always there as we say “So l’inglese”. Have things changed in the meantime? Thank you so much for your help! Best, Cristina  

That’s an interesting point. Technically, it’s better to say that you “speak a language” but to “know a language” is acceptable. For example, we “googled” this phrase and found over 3 billion references!