Muzzy Spanish

Has anyone taken language lessons as an adult? French.?

I'm 40 years-old and contemplating taking French lessons! I've been listening to my daughter's dvds and cds (Muzzy, zozo, etc) and picked up quite a bit. . . but that's with children's-level learning (i.e catchy songs!!). I do love it! Have any of you "grown-ups" taken a language course and stuck with it . . . and had the language stick with you? Thanks for your input!

Public Comments

1. My most fluent foreign languages learnt as an adult are probably German and Spanish. I reached a stage close to being bilingual with the German and did a degree using texts in German without translation (MA Continental Philosophy) without any trouble. I don't think i'm unusual - anyone could do it. I think it's a myth that children are better at learning second languages than adults. However, i did have a German girlfriend at the time, i got to know her friends and family and that really helped.
2. I took French in college, but I'd already had 5 years of it in High School. I can still read French middlin'ly well, but not as well as I could have if I'd kept up with it by subscribing to Frenh language magazines, etc. I have learned some bits of other languages, but not enough to be very useful: German, Swedish, Spanish, Japanese, even Portuguese. I do intend to get back to learning Spanish, using the many on-line resources. My nephews, though, put some more effort into it. One learned Russian via the internet, aged in his mid to late 20's. The other, in his late '30's,early '40's, learned Spanish quite well. Both were because they were exchanging emails, etc., with single women, so there was that extra incentive... :-) If you go to the CBC home page and look up a radio show called C'est la Vie, you can sign up for a nice weekly 'word of the week' newsletter, and download their weekly show. Link: http://www.cbc.ca/cestlavie/ Bon chance, et 'Laissez le bon temps roulez!' Good luck, and let the good times role.