Have you learned a language that you have not used for a while?

I took 2 years of high school Spanish and loved it! I even used it in conversation with clients at a most of my jobs over several years. Then I became a SAHM/WAHM and it has been over a decade since I really carried on a conversation in Spanish.

I have the same thing with my German. Since being on Edufire though I am surprised at how much I remember.

I don’t get to practice it much anywhere else – where I live everyone speaks English or Spanish.

That is true, I am surprised how much I remember too.

I took a year and a half of high school Spanish and don’t have much to show for it. I can understand some, speak less and overall not much all around.

Russian, I took four semesters in College and lived in Russia for 10 months but I haven’t used my Russian for a few years. I need to try it because I know I have forgotten A LOT! I’d probably be in a basic category now. Sad, but so true. I know I struggle reading now when I used to quickly read it even if I didn’t know what it said. I need to work on that.

I remember a lot of Spanish, but I am sure I sound like an idiot trying to quilt words together in Spanish, lol. I definitely need practice.

Definitely … Irish. I took group lessons online for several months and could hold a basic conversation, but unfortunately all of my language partners disappeared for the internet, so my Irish has dwindled.

I took Latin in university and it olny helped me to understand the structural grammar and origin of words.

I’m great at forgetting my language skills. I hardly can say anything in French, Portuguese, Catalan, Italian, or German and I took classes for each of these.

This is a painful topic for me… I learnt Japanese and even read a translation of “Alice in Wonderland”, but then I abandoned the language, and now, I only remeber case and pas tense endings… :( Then, I started learning French, Spanish, Danish, Polish, and Icelandic. I also tried to not forget German. Eventually, I fell completely in love with Swedish and Bulgarian, and I forgot the most I’ve leant about the languages listed above… Now, I am trying to refresh my knowledge of Icelandic and German, as well as learn Dutch. But the process is getting mixed up with attempts to learn Lithuanian. Head seems to go pop… I would advise myself more focus on one language at a time…
Seriously, the one of the languages that always returns to me after a pause is Czech. Every time I come to the Czech republic, I need a couple of days to restore the language, and I usually don’t have problems with my Czech.

Good question. I’m trying to bring my French back from the dead – I took five years of it in high school and college but can’t really speak or understand it spoken. I can read a good bit of it, though.

I took 4 years of German in highchool/college but havent used a bit of it since. I have to admit I don’t remember much! How sad! :(

Wow! So many languages, and I just had issues remembering one, lol. I have found that the more info I put in my brain, the more that leaks out, lol.

I think the trick is to practice. I found while living in Russia I was even starting to lose some of my English vocabulary because I was either trying to communicate in Russian or simplifying my English. A few friends and I tried to play scattegories the last week we were there and had one heck of a time coming up with the words in our own native language. It is amazing how that works. My husband watches films in his native language to keep it going because not many people around here speak Malayalam and he doesn’t talk to his family much.

I learned some Hebrew (not a very modern form) in Hebrew school, and Latin in high school. Turns out no one has used either in a while. ;)

Dave, do you still use your Latin and Hebrew often?

The Latin actually helped a bit with my vocabulary. I could usually figure out what any word means by looking at the root. Hebrew- not so much. I went to Israel and thought I knew a little bit- but turns out they don’t speak ‘biblical’ in Israel. ;)

That would have been something to be able to use Hebrew in Israel! I bet they do use some of it for religious purposes and especially the Jews.

I stand corrected- I did use it a few times at religious ceremonies. ;)

I use to speak French almost fluently when I left school and went to college. Haven’t really used it since so I now can understand quite a bit but the speaking part of pretty low. I made up for it though by taking up Spanish!

Latin, I’d love to know that! Pretty cool.

After a few tutoring sessions, and teaching some Spanish to my kids lately I am actually shocked at how much I have retained. The tutors have been great at helping me to remember what I knew and adding what I don’t. This is fun!