Learning Foreign Languages

Over the last week or so, I've been trying to brush up on my French. I took four years of French in High School and have tried to maintain some minimal comprehension throughout the years.

In the past, I've purchased numerous different tapes and CD courses. Now I'm evaluating some of the "learn a foreign language" software, and reading Le Monde.

One of the thing that has stricken me lately, is that I'm amazed at how hard it is to hear a foreign language (That's "hear", as opposed to "read & write") if one doesn't have the opportunity to talk with a native speaker on a regular basis.

I never felt this way when I was younger, but by the same token, I was only hearing selected French speakers on "Learn to Speak French" CDs, and didn't have the ability to effortlessly watch a French-language program or newscast, whenever I felt like it.

But there definitely seems to be a certain malleability in the young mind which enables learning a new language. And I'm rather pissed that I didn't have the opportunity to learn other languages sooner than High School. While playing around with the software, I've noticed I can pick up languages that are similar to English, French or Spanish much more easily than those which are not. (Japanese seems easy; I can't even begin to retain basic vocabulary in Mandarin; Dutch=easy; German=ridiculously hard given how much of English is derived from Germanic tongues.)

Suddenly, I'm thinking about the deathless controversy over making English the One and Only Official Language of the USA. When I was younger, I was firmly in the camp that argued: "If you want to live here, you'd better learn the language." Now, I have to face the fact that it would have been nice to have grown up multilingual.

Damned smarty-pants Belgians. And Swiss. And...well, a pretty huge chunk of the rest of the world, I guess. grumble, grumble....