FYI - English posts make up somewhere around 70-75% of the posts on the LingQ forums, perhaps less.
Alex, would that be total number of posts or total number of threads? It seems like most of the extended discussions on the forum are in English.
You’re right, many of the discussions/debates happen in English. Either way, there are not an insignificant amount of posts in languages other than English. The Lithuanians are particularly active 
I think that being brought up in a multilingual environment as a child is bound to help you as an adult learner, because it makes you aware of language from a very young age. It’s no short-cut, by any means, but I can remember the whole concept of ‘foreign language’ as something very strange. I was in my 20s when I first learnt a language properly.
One way in which this does still affect me is that somewhere deep in my subconscious, I suspect that everybody can speak English but chooses not to. Despite ten years in Japan and plenty of experience of the poor level of English, I still find myself expecting others to speak more fluently than my Japanese. And I find the same in France.
“There is a hostility toward english speakers that want to speak another language”
I’ve never experienced this, at least with Italian.
Alex, I think it’s great how active the Lithuanian community is here. Part of family comes from that area and I’m hoping to learn the language and travel there one day. Surely I’ll be able to find someone to talk to when I do so.
In other news, I’m going to have a conversation some time soon. (For Dutch) Ik hoop dat het me niet gek maakt voordat het gebeurd.
" And when people do use another language, often it is in the context of an exchange between native speakers of that language, rather than one including foreign learners"
When I was an active learner of Japanese, I posted in Japanese section quite often. Japanese members were (and I think they still are) very polite and answered to my awkward Japanese in Japanese
Although, in Russian ‘Ask the tutor’ section a lot of Russians answer in English, although questions were written in Russian… I don’t understand why. If a learner asks me in Russian, I answer in Russian. If he asks in English – the answer is in English too. I think it is a way more polite than answering in English always…
The video is incredibly impressive and the thing I really like about Richard is that he seems very humble about his extraordinary abilities. His Spanish accent was absolutely brilliant, and it inspires me to continue learning rather than some other polyglots who put me off learning with wild and downright ‘cocky’ claims.
I wrote a post about this a while ago where I noticed that people on Lang-8 and some other sites nearly always replied and corrected me in English, even when I ask them in the post to correct me and write to me in the languages I’m learning. I would never do the same to them, so it stopped me using the site in the end. I also had major problems with tutors who insisted on speaking English during the lessons when it wasn’t necessary. Problem is that English is so popular, almost everyone wants to learn or practice it. I tried changing my native language on Lang-8 to an obscure language, but now nobody will correct me :D. I’m happy with my corrections on LingQ so far, as they have all been without English, so I guess I need to pay for it.
@rank “There is a hostility toward English speakers that want to speak another language”
I agree almost entirely with your post, however I wouldn’t call it hostility, it’s more like “I don’t care if you speak my language, I’m going to speak English to you anyway”. It’s frustrating to say the least. I love it when I find a speaker who doesn’t know English. I found plenty in Spain, and also older people in Poland
For all the posts I’ve put on lang-8, I’ve never had the same problem Wiewiorka. Luck of the draw, I guess.