Learning a Foreign Language

I speak few foreign languages to a different degree of fluency. My mother tongue is Romanian, I was born there. I learnt Russian at school since at that time we were part of the Eastern Block. Many of my school mates did not like Russian since it is a Slavic language and we have a Latin language, but I was different and always thought that learning a different language would make me richer as a person (not financially, purely on a personal level) Later I moved to UK and learnt English in London, on my own, listening to music and reading the lyrics and also talking to people and learning grammar on the books. I had a boyfriend from Cardiff, and this ...

English may be considered as the international language, but we travel abroad so frequently and so many Brits are moving to sunnier parts of Europe that language learning would seem to be increasingly important. It doesn't help that it is no longer compulsory for secondary school pupils to study a foreign language for GCSE; many of them don't find languages easy and are glad to drop them at the first opportunity. Paradoxically, language learning in primary schools is now much more common and will soon become compulsory. This could make quite a difference, as the younger a child starts to learn a foreign language, the easier it is. Children brought up in ...

I have been learning French for just about nine years (wow, is it really that long??!!, makes me sound so old!). When I first started it seemed like the most exciting thing I had learnt - I always went around at the age of seven saying that I wanted to learn French (I was imitating my mum!) and now at the age of nine, I finally had my chance! I was fed up of maths, science and English, I wanted to do something different, and I think that is was has attracted me to learn languages. Ever since I was very little I have wanted to travel all around the world, and I realised that I wouldn't be able to get the full potential out of travelling unless I at least learnt the ...