Do you learn languages easily?

[Ian]

I learnt French and German at School years ago, but I've spoken only a handful of phrases since. I can pretty much only talk about the most basic things ("how much is that", "where is xxxx", "turn left" etc...)

Does anyone here find learning languages easy, and can you speak many? I'm trying to re-learn both French and German now, but its proving harder than I thought!

 

[G~MAN]

im doing french for gcse and it i just dont get it! ... really hard and confusing ... all them tenses!!

 

[itsme]

I can whistle in French, German, and Italian well all languages actually!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Only language I ever learnt a little of was French at school.

I was hopeless, I failed GCE O Level no less than 3 times.

I can still remember little snippets though, like 'fermez la fenetre' means 'shut the window'. Useful, eh?

Apparently, the older you get the harder it is to learn another language, 5 year olds can pick up a language real quick, so they say.

 

[itsme]

Oh to be a five year old again time flies by when you reach 40+ Shut that door!!!

 

[Quadophile]

My father was posted to Mombasa, Kenya in 1962 and a year later my mom a I joined him and stayed there for 18 months before we all came back. I could speak four languages, English, Urdu, Gujrati and Swahili! I was the key interpreter in the household and all servants and my mother had to go through me to get anything done in the house Today I cannot even imagine I could speak swahili as I do not remember even a single word.

Tis true that 5 year olds can pick up languages very quickly but only continue if they stick to it all the time. I tried to learn french back in mid 70's since I had a pen-friend with whom I communicated for good 5 years, but later gave up, now it is very difficult to learn again.