At what age did you start to learn foreign language?

#22

I was talking with my teacher this morning, and was doing perfectly well. As soon as she said, “Okay, let me change subject and ask you a question.” I got nervous and blanked out (I lost concentration and froze and did not understand her question). I tell her she makes me nervous. But of course she is really nice. I think it happens to all of us.

I mostly agree with learning what you feel like the most. For me, I would add that I have a primary focus (Spanish). When I finish with that (1 hour of listening or reading each day), I reward myself with listening to another language (it’s been mostly French, but sometimes Italian or Russian).

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#23

I grew up in a bilingual location and picked up a few words in the other language even before I went to school, and my father taught me the numbers in a language closely related to ours, but to call that language learning seems to be an exaggeration. At the age of 8, I began to actually study the first mandatory foreign language in school.

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#25

I know what you mean. I am 30 now and I’m realizing that it’s not so easy as it used to be when I was 13 or so.

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#26

Nice idea to reward yourself with other language. I usually reward myself with food :smiley: during pandemic it’s not a good thing :smiley: I will need to do more sport.

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#27

@Rina I am having the normal classes of Spanish in language school. As we are in lockdown now, we have the lessons on Zoom. I am enjoying it, the teacher is nice etc. But we are in 10 people, so we can’t speak a lot. So I’ve been thinking about having also some lessons on Italki just to have a conversation.

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#29

I can really recommend it. These 1 on 1 lessons have helped me so much, I can’t believe I haven’t tried this earlier :joy::see_no_evil:

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#30

I was rewarding myself by learning how to cook Italian food. My stomach agreed, but my pants say otherwise.

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#31

I’m in the first year of high school.

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#32

@Johnny15
So you started early and now you have still a loooot of time in front of you to enjoy the languages :slight_smile:

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#33

I started at 11 years old French at school
Then at 14 I took German as well.

I hated school and didn’t do very well in the exams.

I lived in Kathmandu for 6 months when I was 21 and studied some Nepali but didn’t get very far because most people spoke English in the school where I worked.

At the age of 30 I started learning French, then a little Arabic and some Italian from friends.

When I was 39 I studied Spanish at university level.

I didn’t study languages again until I was about 52!! Since then I have been studying languages constantly. I improved my French and Italian and started learning some Russian. Then Croatian, Polish, Greek, Turkish and Chinese. I am 59 years old and still dabble in language learning but my Chinese has improved a lot.

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#34

I started as a bilingual since I could remember myself, until the age of 10, I was speaking only French and Arabic, then I begin to learn English at the mentioned age. So Until 19, I was trilingual, then I learned Russian, and I use it until now on a daily basis alongside Ukrainian.
At the time I am writing this I am 27.

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#35

I started my first foreign language in Junior High School, 7th grade. At the time not everyone was taking languages but I had an opportunity and took it. I choose Spanish rather than French because my mom spoke a little French and well, I was 13 and a bit of a rebel. :wink:

I loved Spanish, but quickly found myself going beyond what high school could offer of it, I picked it up so quickly. So I only had a chance to take harder classes at university. While working on my BA, I decided to add Russian. I exhausted the Spanish classes available there too - even the grad level ones, and as soon as my Spanish started interfering with my Russian I stopped. Meanwhile I also took a year and a half of German to prep for a solo trip to Europe.

In graduate school I was working on an MA in Slavic Linguistics so we had to take at least 2 other Slavic languages plus Old Church Slavonic. While I detested OCS, I took Polish and Bulgarian, and especially loved Polish, but they only offered one semester’s worth and I was too busy with my other coursework to continue. We were also required to take one Non Indo-European language, and convinced an adult student at the university who spoke fluent Finnish to teach that for a year. That was alot of fun. I even got to use a few phrases when we travelled there after spending a semester in Moscow.

And then I got married, moved north, had no exposure to Russian or Spanish speaking folks and promptly began to lose most of what I had become mostly fluent with. It wasn’t until years later when I spent much time in Québéc at music festivals that I decided I needed to learn a little French. I took one semester of French at Bennington College, and if I could have afforded more I would have, but it was enough to give me a bit of grammar ‘glue’ that I didn’t have just picking up vocab at the music fests. Personally I’d love to be able to afford the time and $ to spend a summer up there in an immersion program.
But then I moved again and no longer had my neighbor to practice with.

Finally 3 yrs ago I was fed up after attending an Irish singing workshop and not knowing what to do with the spelling of the lyrics that I decided to attend a local Irish language class… and I fell in LOVE with the language. Plus finally I have access to a relative local number of Irish speaking/learning communities between Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and NY. I get to speak Irish for about 4 hours a week now, even during Covid, thanks to Zoom.

But I would love to bring my Russian and Spanish back once I’ve reached a solid B2 level with my Irish, and then work on French again, especially since I have more chances to use that with friends north of the border, and I love Québécois French, its’s so… earthy (ha, maybe because I often visit farms up there). :smile: The irony is that I was able to understand a good portion of the Spanish presentations, and the Russian presentation, and during the conference had a chance to attend a Russian practice session, so there’s still hope.

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#36

Nice :wink: I envy bilingual people. It’s basically 1 more language for free. Are you planning to learn some more languages? Or you are fine with these? :slight_smile:

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#37

I am planing to add more.
Now, I am more interested to learn German.
I am thinking about learning some slavic languages since I have solid bases in Russian and Ukrainian.

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#38

I started learning English at school when I was 10. When I was 15 I really liked one finnish band, so I decided to learn Finnish by myself, it didn’t go well though :joy: Later I started learning Japanese and I think Japanese was the first language that I learnt by myself. I remember having japanese friends and our looooong emails, more like poems. My love for languages fully started around that time.

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#39

Hi Michaela,

I believe I learned my first foreign language at my first day in elementary school. Although, it was not supposed to be foreign as it is my national language, Bahasa Melayu or Malay language; I am a Malaysian Chinese descendant so we didn’t speak it much at home. My parents wanted me to learn the correct native pronunciation in school and we speak other languages within the family.

For your information, Malaysia is a multicultural country. The major race is Malay and the rest are non-Malays such as Chinese (2nd largest), Indians (3rd largest), Iban, Kadazan and more.

So there I was first day in school, not knowing a single word of Malay. Fortunately, I met a truly great Malay teacher who not only have the patience with the non-Malay kids but was ingenious in her teaching method. For the first two weeks, we were taught how to ask permission to drink water and to go to the toilet. That was it. Both very essential items for boys of 7, and we were talking and asking a Malay friend when we forget.

She also taught us other subjects such as mathematics and civic and science. Imagine explaining to non Malay speaking kids just after 2 months of learning Malay, mathematical concepts.
She did it brilliantly. I dare to say, that Malay was the first “foreign” language that I learned but it was also the easiest and I owed it to her.

Today, I try to write Malay poetry (pantun) whenever I am inspired to do so.

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