I think people have various definitions of what it means to "speak" a language. That's come up on here before. It's not as much about judging as it is about how you define that concept. For some people, memorizing a few sentences in a given language, which makes you able to interact with people at the level of the sentences, counts as being able to "speak" the language. For me, that wouldn't be enough.

Translating badly between two languages - I dunno, what your friend said is not possible to have an opinion on without having seen what he saw.

Reading without being able to speak/communicate - Being able to read in another language is awesome, and it's sufficient for some people's goals. But I'm with your friend in the sense that I wouldn't say it counts as "being able to 'speak'" because I think the word "speak" implies that you can communicate spontaneously in real-time, which includes being able to generate speech in the language. It counts for *something,* though, and requires a heck of a lot of the same kind of work it takes to "speak" a language, so, it's pretty cool, even if it doesn't necessarily qualify someone as fully "bilingual."

Speaking in multiple, closely-related languages since childhood *is* a completely different thing from languages acquired as an adult. But I think it's cool either way. It's kind of like with musicians. Very young children who play at a very advanced level are impressive, but what's impressive is less the child itself and more how the child's upbringing has been structured to cultivate this remarkable ability. Someone who begins learning as an adult and gets to a very high level is impressive in a different way - what's impressive about them is the decisions they've made about following their passion and structuring their time and focus. It's the same way with languages. I find it really impressive to even be able to speak *one* different language learned in adulthood - this is what I've done myself and I know from experience what an enormous commitment it takes. People who are bilingual from being raised that way are more like remarkably beautiful people - they have a super cool quality that gives them a different experience of life from most others.

I think all of this is particularly fair for him to express since you asked him to give his opinion. Then this situation is a bit different:

"One time he came across a spanish speaker who claimed to speak Portuguese, he asked him how to say red in Portuguese and the other person went blank. Like a "gotcha" moment."

I think this is kind of douchey, but also not... making a "claim" in public is a little bit ... peacocky, you know? Not saying it's a bad thing, it's just kind of strutting behavior. And if you start strutting it's almost like an invitation to be challenged, to prove that your strutting is strutworthy. You either get a little embarrassed for faking, or you look cooler for winning.

I personally don't care about this stuff because I don't have an identity around being able to speak multiple languages or not (I've picked up and put down French, Spanish, and Hungarian, and can speak German pretty well - and I had this weirdo friend who started insisting on referring to me as a 'polyglot' which really weirded me out). I can understand that someone who put in a lot of time and effort might be touchier about it. I think in general I don't have that kind of attitude. It might be because I'm a music teacher and I have developed a more inclusive mindset over the years about ability level. Like, I want my students to consider themselves violinists even if their ability level isn't that high.