Well, I’m working on Japanese, Norwegian and Turkish right now… and that’s enough of a challenge !
Finnish / Hungarian / Basque will have to wait !!
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@anon27700620. No, I really haven’t. And, honestly, I have met Americans motivated to learn languages. My experience has also been that languages are part of high school curriculum and also college requirements then people never use them. But then again, I don’t factor out polynomials or solve geometric proofs either. It was just a silly joke I heard years ago that stuck with me. 
Which is EXACTLY why I said “barring exceptions”… I know quite a few Japanese people who speak English infinitely better than I can speak Japanese, and even a few that can speak French !
French is more difficult for them, however, since Japanese has no masc./fem, no sing./plur., no articles, it doesn’t really have verb tenses, French pronunciation is problematic for them.
I’m enjoying learning Japanese, however, though it’s difficult.
There are always exceptions, right? People who grew up in a bilingual household have a neat advantage. Learning both languages while young!
I admire your learning Japanese. I think any language that doesn’t use the English (Roman?) alphabet has got to pose an extra challenge. The Germanic languages have so many tenses and the masculine/feminine is a challenge for your memory. And English?? Oh boy - the exceptions and inconsistencies.
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I have been to France quite a long time and French to my opinion don’t speak English well or want to. I was lucky to be surrounded by scientists but still then I preferred mostly when they spoke French. It was easier to understand. Maybe it was the strong accent. Or maybe my German ears are more used to German English accent than French English accent. When listening to Italian English is was completely lost as Italians speak so quickly no matter the language 
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Well, the lady is from Finland so that might be the reason 
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People from all of the Scandinavian countries invariably speak EXCELLENT English, it’s really quite amazing.
I guess that I was lucky as a kid… my parents always spoke Italian at home, they sent us kids to French school / church, and the town was mainly English-speaking ! Spanish was the only available foreign language at my high school, then I ended up learning Russian and German (and some Polish and Slovak, and even a touch of Bulgarian) at University.
Japanese is a real challenge. The fact of having to write in Chinese characters is a REAL challenge, that’s for sure ! Just remembering / recognising them is a bitch !
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This always reminds me of my two PhD supervisor in Straßburg, both alsaciens. We often had meetings, the three of us discussing the next steps and so one and Philipp was always talking sooooo damn quickly in French, I was only nodding and think wtf. I went with the other one back to our institute and asked what the hell he said as I only understood half of it. Claude said, me too as he was eating half of the words. I just love this. Foreign languages. For me it was crucial to speak French to feel okay there. Not just for a visit.
Pues, quiero mejorar mi capacidad en español, si hay alguien que quiere practicar conmigo.
I was fluent for a time, but it is accurate when they say if you don’t use it you lose it. I’m excited to get down to visit my family because my parents are helping raise my niece in a bilingual home.
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When I tried to learn Chinese we wrote the signs in a sqared/boxed paper. You know the kind you use to do mathematics, to make it easier to write. Just a tip if you aren’t already.
In Sweden we usually start learning English in daycare, most of our TV shows is either English or American. And for example Dora The Explorer Swedish dub doesn’t teach the kids here Spanish,but English instead.
Then we have Santiago another kids show that do teach Spanish.
I was lucky too, native In Swedish, English and gypsy language (even if my grandma was the only one actually using it) . Was able to pick between French and German in school I took French from the 4th grade until 12th. Spanish between 8th and 9th after that my teacher quit and they never got a new. A pair of our neighbors was from Shanghai so I nagged and begged them to teach my Chinese, and they did make an effort trying for a few years. Unfortunately I forgot a lot of it, except a few signs and polite frases, and some kids songs😂
Currently trying to learn German, but that is really hard. The grammar and non logical everything is making me crazy 
I’d love to learn some more Spanish and actually be able to speak that, but I guess its good to focus on one language at a time.
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Well, if you’re looking for an inexpensive place to take language lessons, I suggest italki.com.
You can find teachers for almost any language you can imagine !
Also, Babbel.com is good and pretty reasonably priced.
I know about the pages with the boxes, but for now, I’m concentrating mostly on trying to read / remember / understand the Chinese characters.
It’s difficult enough that the characters are Chinese, but then most of them (if not all) ALSO have one, two or more Japanese pronunciations / meanings. It drives me nuts.
German isn’t so bad !
If you want verb tenses, look at Italian… there are even more than in French !
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@anon74766472 A bit older than that 
The original:
The best known one (at least by me)
Just found this one, I like
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I wonder how many takes were needed to get that dance scene on roller skates!
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I like the first one and it is in Harry and Sally. Oh, noo, I am like you know the song in this and this ad and in the end its a world known classics from Beethoven or Mozart
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Reminds me of high school language classes. Swedish classes in particular (I was ok with learning Swedish but the boys weren’t and protested).
LOL
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My grade school was the only French-language school in town… we used to get the piss taken out of us all the time.
For the longest time, we also had NO facilities, compared with the English schools… no library, no cafeteria, no gym, no wood shop, no home economics, nothing.
And then there was the fact that mine was one of the few ITALIAN families at this French school in a mainly English speaking area !
No wonder I hated school, both grade school AND high school.
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And that’s why I bet you speak more languages today than those boys do.
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@anon27700620 Ugh, that sounds tough. For most part and most subjects, I liked school. The social side, classmates etc., made me hate it.
@Matt Yes, most probably I do 
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