this made me feel so much better about my tendency to pick up and throw away languages. also nice to see you are getting a lot of comments!

the first language i ever tried to learn was russian. in sixth grade i had russian once or twice a week, but i only managed to learn the alphabet and basic travel phrases. both long forgotten. two years later my eighth grade teacher had a french-canadian neighbor and would try to teach the class french as she learned it herself. again, i didn't learn much.

in ninth grade i started spanish which i took for two years. then i decided to study abroad for a year in germany. i got a good handle on german and came back to the states to finish up high school.

in college i continued with german and started hebrew. i took hebrew for two quarters (mind you, today all i can say is i want to drink beer with friends) and studied yiddish in my free-time. i also started practicing reading dutch. then i decided to go to switzerland to improve my german and give french another try. i quickly discovered that i would rather have construction workers outside of my window at night than engage in conversations with french speakers. i really just don't like french.

then i decided to teach english in japan, and now i am studying japanese with a teacher.

after all of this i would sum up my language skills so:

english: mother tongue

german: proficient

spanish: basic level only

hebrew: idiot's level only

dutch: basic reading level

japanese: basic but improving daily

russian: when i hear it on the street i think it is polish

french: i have a rough time ordering a cafe o'lait

my goal is to travel around until i achieve proficiency in a few languages. i really want to learn norwegian and arabic but have recently decided that i can't pursue any new languages until i improve at the ones i have a foundation in. so my dabbling is on hold.

if you're interested you can follow my travel endeavors on my site: www.sheenasays.com---