When did you start to learn a second language?

[wrathfulgrapes]

When I was 8! My family moved to Bogotá, Colombia when I was 8, so I had to learn Spanish. It was relatively easy; all of my friends were Colombian and I went to a Colombian school, so I ended up picking up the language in about six months. My little brother (5 at the time) was even quicker, he learned in four months and didn't even realize he was speaking a different language.

[moorecoby]

Well I have learned a second language since the 7th grade in high school.

[Buckeye]

I began learning Spanish in the 8th grade. I took it several semesters in high school and up to the intermediate level in college. I do not consider it my first second language, as I was meeting educational requirements, mostly, rather than actually trying to learn the language. The first language I studied for understanding and fluency was Esperanto, a language I still speak today. After Esperanto I moved on to Kiswahili.

[mitchellgrzechnik]

5 years old was when I started learning French. I was enrolled in the French Immersion program at school which means that you do everything in French (except of course English ).

[beneditco]

I actually have to native languages, but my third language is the English and I started to learn it with 3 years. I was taught by a native American girl and British-English at school. I've been learning it my whole life and I lived in London a couple of years and I'm planning to go to the USA after college. I'm waiting for it!

[writeletters]

I learned my second and my third languages in my first three/four years. I was born in a country where people spoke multiple languages, and even after moving to another country where it is almost uncommon to speak two or more languages, I love it.

[pluser]

I started learning Tagalog as a small child.  I was probably 5 years old.  Maybe younger.  Apparently I was able to speak it when I started going to school.  Unfortunately my teachers and parents thought it was limiting my English skills, so my parents forbid the use of Tagalog and eventually I forgot it.  Occasionally I'll overhear and understand a conversation in Tagalog without thinking about it, but that comprehension goes away as soon as I consciously realize it's in Tagalog.

[emmy2points]

I was raised in a small, private school and we started learning Spanish in 7th grade, it was just part of the curriculum and we had to learn it weather we wanted to or not (I did). It was nice preparation for high school, were two years of a foreign language were required for graduation.

However, I know that in some schools these days they start teaching kids foreign languages when they are younger because they can absorb so much more. Or, maybe you grew up in a bilingual home and heard two languages from little on.

Some of my friends whom went to different elementary schools than I did had the ability to choose what language they wanted to learn starting in the primary grades. Although I think Spanish is a good language to learn, I wonder what it would be like had I learned French or German at a young age.

I began learning Spanish at school as early as the 4th grade and continued until the end of high school. I was able to place out of the required foreign language courses in college, although I would have liked to continue taking classes that would have helped my conversational skills. Nowadays, I rarely use the Spanish language which is sad. There's also really nobody around with whom I could speak and practice the language.

[Ricardo187]

I started learning french about 1 year ago, when I fixed myself at France. From there on, I try to learn the more I can online, practise whenever I go to a supermarket and such places. It's not hard, but I tend to forget what I want to say whenever I need to say it, no matter how good I know it.

[ChrisUren]

I learned Latin while in School, so about 15. I'm still not fluent in it but can use my skills to read Latin quotes. I work quite closely with a tattoo studio in my home town, I get paid £30 a tattoo to double check someones Latin tattoo before they get forever branded.

[kenthoang28]

I did start learning English as a second language when I was 6 years old. Although i did not know how to write in my native language yet, my mother still took me to the English class.

However, I gave up after a few months for going to school. At school, i started learning English again when i was in grade 6. But it could not help my English skill improving cause of teaching skills. After complete highschool, i decided to go to Singapore to study English, therefore my English skills was improved.

[ValerieAnne]

I started learning French at my school in the 7th grade. I took it for 2 years (until grade 9), before the teacher decided to go to another school. I was then forced to take Spanish for 2 years (for graduation purposes) in grades 9 and 10. I took drama is grade 12, which meant I learned a bit of German as the teacher was a former German teacher at another school so spoke to us in the language sometimes.

[Mole]

I was around 8 or 9 when I started learning English. Over 10 years later I am still pretty bad at writing it and horrible at speaking it. I'm making progress slowly I guess..

[polaroidsredwine]

I tried convincing my mother to teach me Cantonese when I was a child, but that didn't stick. I started learning Spanish back when I was about fourteen years old as an elective class in school. I can not say I learned as much as I should have, since all the teachers I had over the years didn't really teach us much of anything. I constantly need to keep refreshing my knowledge of it, but I'm getting a lot more use out of it since moving to an area with a lot of Spanish speakers.

[Permidian]

I had English class when I was in high school, however I never really paid attention and never studied.

It just bored me back then (Maybe it was just the way they taught us) and I never learned much (In fact my teacher pretty much told me I suck and I'll never learn).

What actually got me to learn English is simply having access to internet later on when I was 19. I learned the language by myself through communicating with people online.

[Lin]

My first contact with the study of a foreign language was at the start of high school (grade 7) - just like you. It was actually Spanish that they thought us. I was one of the best in my class. I always got 80-90-100% on my exams.

Today however, I believe I need to do some review so as to keep my Spanish sharp. I wish I had people in my family who could speak the language. That way I could possible keep practicing everyday.

[xxsaumitraxx]

I started learning a second language when I was in grade 8 and I learned it pretty fast, thanks to the teacher who gave me special attention. Without her I think I wouldn't be able to learn that language =)

[ValerieAnne]

I started learning my second language (French) in middle school, grade 7. I only took it for 2 years because the teacher left our school without enough notice to get a new French teacher in.

[jbepp]

When I started listening to English music (I'm a native Spanish speaker), and that was middle school I think.

It also helps that most of the movies had English audio but Spanish subs so that helped me a lot.

Thanks to this I was always ahead of my class when it came to English.

[madlibber]

We started learning Spanish in the 1st grade I think at my school. Although, throughout the years of school, the Spanish classes were sporadic or absent. I didn't really pick up the language well until I reached my college years. That's when I began to learn the language more in depth.

[erronousRogue]

Pretty early on, since it was somewhat of a requirement for the internet and technology in general. My native language isn't English, so I had to adapt rather early. Our school had basic classes which taught the language to some extent, but I think it's mostly thanks to myself being online a lot that I managed to speak English to an acceptable degree by the time I was about 14 or so.

[Christina Curtin]

I was 8 when I started to learn English. I wasn't going to school to learning it I had to pick it up from people talking around me as I was staying in Ireland for nearly a year with no word of English. I got there in the end

[Humbleman]

I was raised in a small, private school and we started learning Spanish in 7th grade, it was just part of the curriculum and we had to learn it weather we wanted to or not (I did). It was nice preparation for high school, were two years of a foreign language were required for graduation.

However, I know that in some schools these days they start teaching kids foreign languages when they are younger because they can absorb so much more. Or, maybe you grew up in a bilingual home and heard two languages from little on.

Some of my friends whom went to different elementary schools than I did had the ability to choose what language they wanted to learn starting in the primary grades. Although I think Spanish is a good language to learn, I wonder what it would be like had I learned French or German at a young age.

I started learning a foreign language from birth. I guess I could put it that way, seeing that English isn't really my native tongue. Day in and day out you hear your parents speaking creole in my country, but every now and then they would address you in English language. After watching lots of TV program and learning English from the school curriculum, I started to become proficient in speaking  the language. I started to learn Spanish in the first form of high school. 

[pipps]

I started learning my 2nd language in high school, which was French. However, I went to a tiny primary school (with only 8 other people in my year) and we never learnt any languages. And when I has my first French lesson I was shocked that all my other class mates seemed to already know everything we were learning! They had learnt French in their primary school which I think is amazing as this put them at a real advantage. This was the main primary school for our high school too. With about 100 children in a year. So most of them already knew each other and were well educated in French. I felt so out of my depth and whatever I was learning, they were always 10 steps ahead. It put me down a lot and I wish I had been given the same opportunity. I lost interest in French as I felt like I was rubbish at it and would never grasp it like my class mates.

[SpringBreeze]

I started in elementary school. I can't remember what grade I was in but I remember I was really young. Funny enough, I didn't remember much of what I learned a year later. But I guess it started a pattern.

This is a very interesting question. I had forgotten I had started that early in my life. Maybe that is what sparked my love for languages and cultures. Cool! Thank you!!!!

Oh and we, students, had a choice too. I chose Spanish. ... I can't believe I forgot that. <scratching my head>