When did you start to learn a second language?

[klassiter]

I started to learn a second language in the second grade.  My second grade teacher spoke French.  Every morning he greeted the class in French and he taught us how to respond.  I didn't have anymore experience with learning a second language until I got to middle school.  In middle school I also had French.  Middle school was my last experience learning French.  When I went on to high school I had Spanish all 4 years.

[btatro]

I believe we required to begin learning a second language in middle school (junior high). I seriously loathed the Spanish instructor so I chose French at the time, and ended up sticking with it for several years!

[sayitwell]

I was about 13 years old when I began to study French.  My parents chose the language for me over Spanish.  Looking back, I wish I had studied Spanish because that is a growing language that has some utility to it.  Very few people in the world speak French.  It does sound beautiful in comparison to Spanish but that does not justify learning it as a second language.  In fact it was an incredible waste of time as I never used it in any sort of conversation outside of the classroom. 

[TimmyToo]

I unfortunately did not have the chance to learn until my first year of high school! I really would have liked to learn sooner, but it was not an option. I learned Spanish by the way!

[p0gy0]

I probably learned a second language even before I started going to school.  My parents thought me Chinese when I was young then learned English in school.

[GetFresh]

I started learning Spanish in 8th grade when I was 15 years old.  I've forgotten most of the content i've learned, but i'm hoping to learn it again.

[pftsusan]

American English is my native tongue. In grammar school, my parents bought me, "The Three Bears" in English, French, Spanish and German. There were four books.  In each of the books, the top line the sentence was written in the language to learn. The second line was the translation of it in American English so that you can the other language. I had fun studying how to use the verbs.

Then in high school, I was required to take a language for credits for graduation. We had the choice between French and Spanish.  I took Spanish I and II.

[Abanks1000]

My introduction to French occurred in junior high school and I continued studying French through graduate school.

I spent my junior year of college in Paris living with a French family in the Latin Quarter just down the street from Notre Dame Cathedral.

My interest in French began when my uncle, stationed in Paris for a period, brought home a bride from France.

My new aunt brought so much excitement to the family that, when my mother allowed me to name my baby sister, I chose my aunt’s name as my sister’s middle name.

[H_Bachman]

I started to learn Spanish and Esperanto when I was in ninth grade (Spanish was part of school curriculum; Esperanto was my own endeavor).  I wish I had started learning them earlier.

Schools that teach foreign languages in elementary school really have the right idea.  Think about it.  How many of your peers who took two years of foreign language in high school (followed by two years of the same language in college) hardly speak a lick of it?  It doesn't stay with them.  Investing in language learning in early childhood would be so much more effective.

[xlzqwerty1]

It may surprise some of you guys, but I started learning my second language when I was in kindergarten. After immigrating to Canada, English was indeed my second language that I had to learn. For the first few months, I practically knew nothing about English, but being the little kindergarten boy I was a long time ago, it was quite easy to adapt and learn.

Today, I speak English as if it was my mother tongue, but it's still the second language I started off with. I guess if you were to consider English as my first language, then I would have been introduced to French when I was in Elementary school (grade 3). Again, being young does have its advantages as learning both English and French was a breeze for me, but I've dropped French for now ever since high school started so I might have forgotten a lot of vocabulary and lost some French skills there.

[SueA555]

I started learning French in the 9th grade, and continued through my first year of college. I also took two years of Spanish in high school. The other options we had were German and Latin.

I always enjoyed learning languages. Now that I live in California, which has a large hispanic community, I would like to go back and improve my Spanish. I remember a lot more French, and can carry on a limited conversation in French.

[Trellum]

I started learning english when I was just 16 years old.  I had english when I was going to the junior high school, but my teacher didn't really seem to know what she was doing.  The educational system in my country is not the best, I heard most students are still revieving the verb ''to be'' in High school, lol.  So yeah, there is no way I would have been able to learn english that way!

I heard they're working on that tho, now they have specialized teachers in most schools.  According to them, by the time the students finally graduate from High School... they'll already be 100% bilingual.

[caparica007]

Here in Portugal we start learning English when primary school begins that is, at age seven and we keep on learning it until the 9th grade, so it's nine years of learning English! Apart from that a lot of contents on TV are in English, so that is also a good help.

[terryse]

I started to learn English when I was in school. From elementary to college, it was the language of instruction being used. It is a second language to us here in my country.

[mh57]

Originally, very crudely in the fourth through sixth grade grade but it was the six following years of immersion where I became fluent.

[MyDigitalpoint]

I wanted to learn a second language when I was about 10 years old and in love with a singer who doesn't speak my own.

It was a child's dream and a self-didactic startup. I used to write him letter using the paid-post cards that came in Popular Mechanics, my father's favorite magazine.

It was funny because I was so fool to believe this type of cards would be delivered to the addressee just by changing the address by myself, and then the "love letter" was constructed with the aid of a dictionary.

I never thought that I needed to conjugate verbs, make structural phrases and the like, so it was a sort of Tarzan language instead.

However the motivation to write a letter to this singer helped me too learn his language with easiness once that I reached 12 and started with it at secondary school.

[leahcim132]

I started to learn a second language when I was in first grade. I attended a French immersion school in Canada. I love French and I am still learning a lot about the language to this day.

[pxyc]

In 8th and 9th grade in my area, it's required that we take either French or Spanish for at least 3 years, and then you can choose if you want to continue with that language further into your High School years.

[Miya]

I had to learn English when my family immigrated to America. It was tough at first, but I (more or less) got the hang of it and now it's the language I'm most fluent in.

But I learned my first non-English language in high school. Foreign language study is required to graduate from high school and my school offered French and Spanish. I picked French and loved it! 

[polybus]

I grew up in Canada and we start learning French when we are about 9 years old. The truth is I really did not like my French class and I didn't really do that well.

I really don't consider that I started learning other languages until I was about 18 and for various reasons decided to learn Spanish. I found it very enjoyable and much easier than French in school. After that I went back to French on my own and found I could do a lot better and enjoy it just as much.

[heaven]

When I first started watching tv and going to school. My first language is Spanish and I eventually learned English.

I learned English really quickly. Learning the language was really easy for me, for the most part.

Ever since, English class has always been the class I succeeded in and loved.

[melisapink]

I was at school when I started to learn a second language. I didn't get to choose which language, I was given French to learn for 3 years. After 3 years I was given the option to also learn German or simply choose one of the languages alone.

I choose to do German on it's own. The class only consisted of 6 people as most people decided to stick with the language that the were already doing.

I found that German was much easier and more like the English language.

[mareebaybay]

I started learning my second language in middle school. Middle school is the average age someone will learn to speak another language. I still study Spanish to this day, just not as frequent. I believe in the next two years I will become a fluent Spanish speaker.

[mackie]

My first year of high school, it was compulsory for us, I did French because everybody was doing Spanish and I wanted to try something new. Also, I have always wanted to visit Paris and speak the language of "love".

[DiesIrae]

English was taught to us since we first start learning in school. It's hard to really think of it as a second language when it's almost everywhere. Not all Filipinos would be good at it although if you have the right resources (libraries, books inherited from relatives xD), you can naturally get better at it.

As for another language we're not really required to learn, my tuition fee was very cheap, I just took introductory French. It was fun especially when I enrolled in it with a friend.