Bulletsponge0, on 08 June 2015 - 01:00 PM, said:
yeah..I took some latin and some spanish...but 25 years of not using either = no skills at them.... except ordering beer...lol
I'd love to learn Japanese, but the time and the motivation just aren't there right now
yeah we had a bit of french in grade school then i added latin in high school which was a breeze after taking french. forgot most of the latin but still remember a decent amount of french- i kinda lost my way when we reached the difference tenses though as far as that went.
i did pick up rosetta stone to try and learn some japanese. made some progress then stopped about a year or so ago- need to pick it up again. still remember some bits and pieces though.
but yeah in the US taking a language was always a "do i have to?" thing. we only had french/lation in grade school to pick, then spanish and portuguese got added in high school but already started french at that point so stuck with it. but in my school days it was pretty much:
only need french for some parts of northern new england (and new orleans)
only need spanish for florida, california, and the states along the mexico border
any other language was limited to a few small areas here and there or if you planned to go overseas.
now spanish is turning up all over and would have been the better language to pick back then.