How do foreign languages work for you? (college, high school, Russia)

[TamaraSavannah]

Me, I took 3 years of French in high school and a year of Arabic in junior high and I'm not fluent in either.

One thing, though, is that since I so often play an adventurer who has traveled the world, I have a few simple phrases, such as thank you and hello, of about a half dozen languages (French, Arabic, German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese) locked in memory.......and when I need to respond in a foreign language, it gets turned over to a "random number generator" in my head. Ie, here I may respond in French but there I might respond in Russian.

The curious thing is that as I have played the part year after year, I find I more easily respond in this language or that even when I am not playing the part. Ie, I often unconsiously (but perhaps knowingly) respond in French when I am at the grocery.

So for us not so dedicated......how does it go over?

[saibot]

I'm about equally good (or equally bad) in Spanish and Japanese in an absolute sense. Ask me right now how to say a word in either language and I will probably come up with it. However, my brain only seems to really focus on one at a time. Once when I had been in Japan for about a week, living with a Japanese family and immersed in the language, I met a girl who had lived in South America and spoke Spanish. I tried to speak Spanish to her and could.not.recall any Spanish words. They were gone from my mind at that moment. I could only think of Japanese words.

(Of course I have never had any trouble speaking English, no matter where I was! But I would apparently have a very hard time being trilingual.)

[froglipz]

They are ALL Greek to me!

[Hemlock140]

I took Spanish from grades 5-8. In high school, I was a "student teacher" helping other students and grading tests and got automatic A grades because I was well beyond the senior year level already. In college I took some advanced classes such as literature and conversational Spanish. Then in my first job out of graduate school at a water district I was selected to do some radio and TV interviews on Spanish stations during the 1976-77 drought. I also helped Spanish speaking customers, at times. Since moving here to the Seattle area for the last 21 years, I have had no opportunities to speak Spanish, our foreign speaking immigrants are mostly Asian. I often get asked questions by Japanese or Chinese tourists, and have a lot of trouble understanding their poor English. Fortunately with directions you can do a lot with gestures. Just to keep in practice, I sometimes do think in Spanish, or after saying something not requiring a response, may repeat it in my head in Spanish. I really don't expect to ever use it again in real life, but it seems a shame to lose it.

[John7777]

Taking a language in school is one thing. Having to speak it 24/7 is something else again. For example, I took two years of French in grade school, three years of French in high school, and two years in college. I can read it, somewhat, but that's about it. I've also taken Latin, German and Chinese. And I know some Thai from living in Thailand. Anyway, I have trouble unless I actually have to speak a language.

[davebarnes]

I always learn the most important words first.
"One beer, please.
Thank you."

[MaxtheRoadWarrior]

Grew up multilingual. French, German, and Dutch are the primary languages spoken in my family, so of course I grew up with reasonable fluency in each (My Dutch is weak, in my opinion, due to disuse, but adequate enough where I can interact in Dutch). Because of this foundation, I was able to achieve some operating familiarity with Russian and Ukrainian due to my undergraduate studies, and my Spanish is fairly fluent after a few years of dedicated practice.

I am forever thankful I had European parents. Language studies in the US are woeful.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by saibot

........... I met a girl who had lived in South America and spoke Spanish. I tried to speak Spanish to her and could.not.recall any Spanish words. They were gone from my mind at that moment. I could only think of Japanese words..............

Yeah. That happened to me the day I met my wife.
Tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and I forget every English word I ever knew - and English is my first language!
After several moments of gulping beer for moisture and grabbing her arm every time she gave up and tried to leave, she finally figured out that I was not a "mute" looking for a handout, but that I actually wanted to dance.
Later I not only found out her name, but was able to remember mine, as well.

Language is tricky like that.
Married now, 25 years.

[GraceKrispy]

I learned German and Norwegian in high school/college. I could probably survive in those countries, but I certainly wasn't fluent. I learned another language years later and was completely immersed in the language. I became fluent. I could occasionally understand pieces of German and Norwegian, but if I tried to speak it, it became a mix of German, Norwegian, and the new language. A total mess! I could always understand English, but sometimes I wanted to use my other language to respond. I took a second to move back into English sometimes.

[Bendo]

I took 3 years of Spanish in high school and, somewhat surprisingly, I can get by pretty well in Spanish speaking countries. Definitely not fluent, but I can generally communicate fine. Understanding is a little more difficult, especially if it's an accent I'm not familiar with.