i met a cunning linguist

I was at a party Saturday night at a friend's house and met a nice gentlemen. He's smart, witty, has a Masters degree in linguistics and speaks 12 languages. If ever there was a person who could be described as a cunning linguist, I'm sure it's him.

I've always been frustrated by my inability to speak another language. I learned french at school, but didn't start until Grade 6, at which point I was about 12. I think that's just too late. Also we took french for two to three hours per week. At the time, they were just beginning to offer the immersion programs offered at school today.

Two to three hours a week over six school years is not enough to teach a language. When I was asking the CL about his language skills, I discovered that he grew up speaking five languages, three at home, none of which were the official languages of the two countries he lived in while growing up. Hence, five languages.

He said, that once you have learned more than two languages, learning another is inevitable, while if you have only grown up speaking one language, learning another is almost impossible.

I have gone through countless numbers of failed attempts to retain and/or improve my french language skills, but with little success. Short of total immersion, I don't think I will be able to.

In addition to learning more than one language as a young child, I think it takes a certain kind of person to master languages. Up north, I tutored English as a Second Language to an Armenian woman. She learned two languages growing up, Armenian and Russian. Within a year, her English was incredible, through no help of mine. She just took to the language naturally and has set her sights on learning French. What amazed me was how quickly she could think in a different language. That's something my brain can't do. I'm constantly putting thoughts together in English then translating them into French all in my head before saying anything. For some people, they simply can think in another language.