Whoops! I meant to post this at the Kitchen Table. Sorry! If anyone wants to respond here, I'd still like to hear what you have to say.

My DH likes languages and has used CDs to help him learn Italian. However, he also took a couple of semesters at the local community college. The two approaches each helped the other, but he says that the CD alone is not enough. You don't get any grammar from the CDs, for example. Even with both, he is not fluent, but he can communicate to some degree.

kath, I bet that since your Mom was teaching you when you were a child, the fundamentals are somewhere in your brain still. That would make it easier to pick it up again. It's harder as an adult to learn a new language if you've never studied a foreign language at all. Why not give it a try?

I studied four languages when I was in school, but the one that really stuck is Spanish-- and I think that is because when I was about 9 and 10, my best playmate was a little girl my age from Ecuador. The Spanish we spoke to one another was "playground" Spanish-- in other words, the sort of thing kids use just playing, kid's syntax and colloquilisms. But then when I studied Spanish as an adult, it proved to be be a sound foundation to build on.

I haven't tried cds yet, but know people who've used them to pick up basics or refresh a language they'd studied in high school before going overseas on business. I'm thinking about trying it to refresh both Spanish and Russian (which I studied in high school).

Dayle Ann

Woh! I stumbled upon this topic by mistake and I couldn't thank you enough for your "mistake" posting.

I've spoken Italian between ages 5-10. I was told that my Italian was perfect. However, when I came back to my country, I lost it totally just as I lost my native language when I lived in Italy. I'm now in my late 40's and have been wondering if I could ever speak Italian again.

With your advises, I'm going to try with cds and see if I remember it back.

One neat thing I've noticed is that my English accent is much better understood than most Asian around my age. I think it's due to learning a different language at a very young age.

Thanks for an interesting topic.

Natalie

I have tapes/cd's in Spanish, Chinese and Russian that I purchased for myself. I picked up a little bit of comprehension of the languages from listening to students and a desire to learn more "someday". Now that I am not around people that speak other languages I have forgotten most of what little I understood. The speaking part is the most diffcult for me. I found that listening in the car was a good place and kept me focused, however when I purchased another car without the audio systems in it, my progression stopped. I now spend a great deal of time on the computer so I thought that this would be the time to try the Rosetta Stone language learning system. When I had to immerse myself in anothers language my comprehension came more naturally then speaking ability. I thought that I would pass this link along to all of you. They have a good reputation and we can all sit in our small snug houses this winter and expand our worlds!

Here is a link that might be useful: Language Help

As an adult, in order to learn a new language, you need to be gifted with a very good memory. I'm fluent in 2 languages, but only because I learned them as a child, surrounded by people who spoke Spanish and English. My daughter has a good memory, and she has learned 2 languages, as an adult. She's a nurse and a teacher, but she's not THAT smart. You can do a lot if you have a good memory.