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In the thread about which newspapers we read Grawrc said -

"I also read  a selection of French, German, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian papers online"

which led me to wonder about our knowledge of foreign languages.  (I'm assuming that Grawrc
speaks the languages above, and if so,  I'm really impressed.)

I was useless at languages at school, despite the fact that I was the only person in
the class who had ever lived abroad (France and Austria)

When I first met my husband he couldn't speak a word of English and neither could most
of his relations so I started picking up bits of the Sicilian dialect which they all spoke. I had
to learn it just by listening because there is very little written in it, and it varies so much from
town to town in Sicily.  Now, over fifty years later I am fairly fluent in it but it was a struggle
to begin with.

Does learning a foreign language come more easily to some people?  Would any of you
who don't speak another language, like to?  If so, which?

In school I was useless with languages...I started 'learning' English at age of 10 and carried on until I was 16. I could write better than I was able to speak...now afterwards I realize that there was fault with the teaching..they tried to make you learn 'properly' from early on. I think you need to be able to talk and understand first before you need to master the grammar...that can be corrected once you have more idea to start with. It did kill any interest of learning. I did get found out cheating in weekly tests...ONCE...I had lots or words written on inside of my hand and arm..  I would love to be able to meet my English teacher to tell her that I did end up living in UK..and now my English is as good/bad as my Finnish. I didn't pick up English until I was about 18..I worked in hairdressers next to big hotel and we used to get lots of customers from the hotel...mainly American's. When I moved to UK I had developed fluent American accent which I soon dropped and turned into our local lingo 
At age of 12 I started Swedish language in school and carried on in college until age 17...again..not brilliant but did managed with basics. In Finland Swedish is second official language and spoken commonly from area where I came from..so it helps when you hear it. But now..Its more and less all 'gone' for the lack of use...though I have been watching Danish and Swedish series on BBC4 and find that every now and then I do pick up line or two without actually reading the translations...
I find that I've got much better 'ear' for picking up language when traveling...I used to soon start 'dabbling' saying bits when I spent time in Spain or Italy...particularly Italian seem to be more tongue 'friendly' to Finns ..and lot of the words sort of 'make sense'.....I do have to admit its very sexy sounding language...Is that what 'trapped' you  Squash?

I was taught French in school and was good at it, then at 30 I went to live in  Germany where I picked up the language quite quickly - though I admit that my written German was not perfect grammatically. At 52 I moved to Spain where after picking up Castellano (although living in Catalonia I refused point blank to learn Catalan!) I was teaching English within a year or so. I spent 11 years in Spain then hopped off to Canada, spent 3 years there and then found myself once again in my homeland.

Ask me today, 13 years later, how many languages I speak and I have to say hardly any French, some Spanish and I'm still fluent in German.

Tricia

Did very poorly in French and Latin at school. In the Army in Germany learnt very, very basic German and still can't profess to be anything like fluent. I spoke enough to get a room, a drink and a meal plus my Zep, Floyd, Sabbath, Purple etc... albums from the local record store. Beyond that I'm stuck.

Noticed the Geordies and the more guttural Scots managed to get their tongues around German more easily than most squaddies. None the wiser as to why.

I have worked in Russia, Poland and the Netherlands, so I speak enough to get by in each of these countries. I know French and German from school too, which really gave me an appetite for language that has never really died. We went on holiday last year to Montenegro, so I spent a couple of weeks on the internet before we went learning essential phrases and it always goes down well with the locals if you make an effort. I feel it gives you more of an experience than just a holiday, but that's just me!!

Anyway I am interested in the development of language and I think this is an interesting story..

When I worked in the Netherlands I was over there with a lad from Hull, and the Hull accent is I think quite unique, very different from the rest of Yorkshire and my friend couldn't speak Dutch any better than I when we first arrived, but strangely when he spoke English on occasion, the Dutch thought he was speaking Dutch.
The Dutch for are you going to the pub is "Ye gaa t' Pub" which is the same in a Hull accent "Are ye goin' tet pub".
The Dutch for `is the door open` phonetically is "is de doer erpen" which is the same in a Hull accent.
The Dutch say "Nay" for "no" for God's sake, which is like classic Emerdale "Nay, Nay, Nay Mr Wilkes."
I often thought when I live in Holland that Dutch was like a cross between English and German with a funny accent, but when we looked in to this, it seems that through history Hull has been surrounded by marshland and it was cut off from the mainland by this marsh for long periods of its history. Hull's only trade for long periods was with Dutch sailors and traiders, hence the big influence on the Dutch language from it's Yorkshire neighbours and vice versa.

AFAIK Hull was also a trading post of the Hanseatic League whose common language was the Low German (widely spoken until 20th century in the Netherlands too) known as Plattdeutsch. This dialect of German also had considerable influence (via hanseatic trading) on both Swedish and Danish too so sometimes it's surprisingly easy to understand Scandinavian languages when you least expect it!

Well English is a foreign language for me which I started learning at age 12, but by now I use it more than any other.  Fluent in German including being able to understand with ease strong Austrian and Swiss accents and idioms which are very different.  My mother's side of the family is Swiss and I lived there for several years and in Germany we always lived in Bavaria.  Did Latin at school, then English and a couple of years of French.  Latin has come in handy when I had an Italian boss and an Italian colleague - I could usually work out what they were saying after a while (helps to know the context of course).  My French is very rusty indeed and I am struggling to put phrases together and struggling even more to understand the answers.  Mind you when it came to asking the way and the kids (who have done a lot more French than I) suddenly got very shy! old Mum seemed to find words from way back in her brain!  And the kids understood the answer, so we were fine.  The current project is trying to make headway in Hungarian, as we like to holiday at Lake Balaton.  Not related to any other language (other than loosely related to Finnish) and with more accents than letters in a word (slight exaggeration here), spoken at a vast rate of knots, it is a struggle.  Luckily their second language is German and when they think you are not Hungarian, they try German.  I can say some, read much more and understand some.  What I say is just mostly a lot of words strung together with very little grammar and badly pronounced (although I often check with the loudspeaker symbol on Google translate, which is a wonderful aid).

I can understand Flemish moderately well after some listening and a bit of alcohol.  Our understanding of Danish and Swedish is getting better too thanks to Wallander, Forbrydelsen and Borgen.  Yes it is a little bit pleasing to understand a whole sentence or to recognise an often-used phrase. 

I find it is getting harder to retain new vocabulary the older I get, especially in Hungarian that has no latin-related words.  Therefore it must be a good brain training to keep up existing language knowledge and add to it.  After all, two-year old kids can do it 

I think it has to do with confidence too.  Naturally outgoing people will try a new language as often as they can and re-inforce their learning with practice, whilst shy people will forget everything they ever learnt in an instant and freeze in panic in the same situation.  School language learning should really concentrate on giving confidence as much as teaching a new language. 

I learned French at school a long, long time ago, and got quite a good exam result. The following year I decided to have a French holiday, feeling confident and somewhat smug with my new abilities. However, the French they spoke over there wasn't at all like the French in my exam, and the whole time found myself repeating two hastily looked up phrases, "Can you speak more slowly please", and "I don't understand". In French, of course. I haven't bothered much since and agree with goodlife's theory that talking and stuff is more important than correct grammar, and in the village in Yorkshire where I eventually settled, there wasn't a French person for miles.

Geoff.

Quotethink it has to do with confidence too.  Naturally outgoing people will try a new language as often as they can and re-inforce their learning with practice, whilst shy people will forget everything they ever learnt in an instant and freeze in panic in the same situation.

Absolutely so! My dad who was VERY friendly and talkative with anybody did bit of traveling in his younger days but never  bothered or had opportunity to learn any languages to help him....but he did get by. After I married foreigner...he and my OH famously spoke their own language...words and sayings they've learned from songs, films and television programs on any possible language!    When my dad was visiting here he always went for walk on his own, not to be seen for hours...and then he came and told how he's been 'chatting' with 'such and such..here and there'. I can only wonder what those strangers have thought of him...
'Luckily' I've inherited his 'skill'...I've never let it upset or bother me if I 'get it wrong'..if I've been understood what I try to say, that's all what matters.

I admire and envy those multi lingual people here. I wish I was. I'm no natural linguist (no sniggering in the back seats there ladies) but I do enjoy having a bash and often ask what please and thank you is in other obscure languages. I have schoolboy French, good enough to crack a joke or two but in no way properly grammatical. I've in later life got a GCSE in Japanese, done to keep my mind alert as much as anything. But given my son is marrying a Mandarin speaker and my daughter lives in Spain, I reckon I picked the wrong ones!

Fascinating to read of everyone's different experiences in languages.  i, like Toshofthe, am envious of those who can pick up a new language easily. I was completely useless at languages at school.  Had an awful teacher as well, so that didn't help.
Our son is fluent in French, having done part of his engineering university training in Tarbes - the French National Engineering school - and the reason we are living now in the Pyrenees! But he has an excellent ear (we all should, being musicians) and he has picked up a reasonable ability in German, Spanish and Portuguese.  He has a Brazilian wife, so that helps!
Once we had kids, we spent all our family holidays in France, and gradually I lost my inability to open my mouth, and became accustomed to the sound of the language, and to want to speak it better. 
When my husband was lucky enough to take early retirement we decided to be brave and to come and live in SW France, rather thanjust get gently older in UK.  That was 11 years ago.  I started off by hardly saying anything, leaving my husband to do all the talking (not my normal habit!). However, "Je suis ténace" as they say, and I put masses of effort into learning and speaking. We were determined to integrate as much as possible, and so almost all of our friends are French.  Among the English people we know, it is clear which of them spend all their time together.  They have very little French, even after some years of being here. 
So I would never have dreamt I could become reasonably fluent in another language - but it is possible! Living  in foreign country has been far from easy but we have felt incredibly  alive and really challenged.