To ask if you speak a second language?

[ethelfleda]

And if so, which language and how you learned/How long it took to become fluent?

I would love to learn Spanish but have no idea where to start!

Italian. I married one, learnt a bit from my monolingual MIL chats in holidays, did an evening course, once a week, bought myself a grammar book. completed duo lingo, listened to the coffee break Italian podcast(free and I highly recommend, they do french spanish and mandarin too). Finally took the plunge and moved to Italy. That has given me a much bigger push than the rest!

I speak Polish, English and understand a little Russian.
My mum is Polish, Dad is English, so Mum spoke Polish to us at home, and Dad spoke English so I was fluent in both from when I learned to speak.
I have a friend who’s married to a Dutch man, and she took classes for 4 years, he only spoke Dutch to her while she was learning and they watched Dutch tv at Home. The key to learning a language is using it and hearing it as much as possible

English is my first language but I can speak fluent Irish (I'm Irish) and have enough french to get by when in France but wouldn't be fluent.

I speak French, I wouldn't say fluently but fairly well - I studied at a French uni for a year about two years ago and didn't have any major problems whilst there and my skills are better now, although they're not good enough for me to work in my field over there I don't think (Law - I would be able to understand fine but the way I express myself in spoken French certainly isn't very polished). I started it in year 7 at school, continued through to GCSE, then A-Level, then I did a combined degree of Law with French which included a French language module each year and the above year abroad where I studied undergraduate Law and Political Science modules at a uni there. I am absolutely desperate to go back for some stints of time because I can feel it peeling away from me especially since I graduated in summer and no longer have French classes at uni to attend. I read the odd book in French and watch the odd film as well to try and continue but it's not the same at all as being immersed by living there.

I also speak conversational Farsi with very basic reading/writing which is another thing I want to work on but it's just finding the time and energy. I do love learning languages but I find I much prefer classes in groups and there aren't any Farsi group classes around here, and I lack the discipline to self-teach.

I speak French due to having lived there - fluent but not native standard. Kids are bilingual and trilingual respectively.

Learning a language is difficult so you need to be motivated and have opportunities for immersion. My trilingual 16 year old has 9 hours a week of Spanish immersion at school (four subjects taught in Spanish). I think this is pretty much the minimum to become fluent quickly.

Have a think about what motivates you, and whether you might have any opportunities to talk to native speakers locally. Lots of Spanish and French speakers live in the UK.

Hebrew. Useful af

Did French and German to MA Level and went on to teach it. No working in Learning Support so no real use for them any more 😕 I still have friends in Germany and visit at least once a year and have regular phone calls so my German is pretty much still fluent. My French has all but disappeared 😉

I've lived in Spain for 30 + years or so and speak fluently now. Best way I think is to emerge yourself in it

Thanks everyone. Some really helpful suggestions here! Have been on duolingo most of the afternoon and will look at the coffee break podcast too. If I feel like I am making progress with these I will look at one to one tutoring like someone suggested.

Fluent in Irish also. Learning it since age 4. Use it everyday in work (teaching). Speak to dd in both languages.

I speak cat.

I speak 4 languages and can dabble in a 5th. Not meant as a boast - learning your 1st foreign language is the hardest. Sone languages have similarities e.g. Spanish-Portuguese-French and Mandarin-Cantonese.

Go for it!

BSL, I didn’t ‘feel’ fluent until around 6 years of learning. College courses and a lot of going along to social events with users of the language helped massively.

Trilingual. English as first language, then Spanish/French. Did a languages degree and loved abroad.

good conversational Dutch. Dh is dutch and we lived there for 6 months and I did an immersion course. When with Dutch rellies we only speak Dutch.
also good conversational Russian. We lived there and learned it and worked in it. Bit rusty now.

Used to have similar level of Indonesian as I lived and worked there for a couple of years, but can barely remember any.

Rusty basic French, can understand way more than I can speak as dutch and russian words get in the way of my french!

I have conversational Spanish.

Studied it at school and have a relative who I speak to frequently who lives in a Spanish speaking country (Dominican republic so not mainland Spanish)

She's actually Irish (and grew up there) but has spent so much more of her life living in DR than Ireland that she occasionally forgets bits of English.

I'm definitely not fluent though. But using it as often as possible helps.

I speak french. I've been learning seriously for about a year, because I met DP who is french. I now live in Paris and work a french speaking job. Before this I was useless at language, I got an E in GCSE French and now I'm fluent. You can definitely do it if you have the motivation.

ethelfleda I would highly recommend the OU courses in Spanish. I did three and have a diploma in it now. The courses really are excellent.

To answer your question, I speak a few other languages proficiently.

French, did A level, got crap grade, went to live there with a non-English speaking family as the nanny. The 4 year old and lots of tv had me fluent in 6 months. Immersion’s definitely the way forward if possible.

I speak an African language and I was fluent but 15 years ago.
I learnt it by living there and nobody speaking English. It was also helpful to go on a residential course, and to talk to a lot of children (they talk slower, use simpler words, and are happy to correct you!)

I used to be fluent in French and Welsh both are now very rusty as I don't go to France and now live in England. In both cases I gained fluency by being immersed in the language, French by staying with my pen friend whose family didn't speak English ,and Welsh by going on a residential course where English was banned

German, did it for A level and at uni and studied there and worked there for 6 months, but back in the 90s so I'm not up to date with modern slang (though they use so many English loanwords, there's a fair chance that if you use the English word with a German accent it will be right).

I did Italian GCSE at night school back in 2001, and I also did French when I was studying in Germany and then when I came back and started work and did an exam which was kind of A level standard but was oral/aural with no writing or reading.

Since then I've done some of the intro courses on Futurelearn for languages like Dutch, Norwegian and Spanish.

German is the only language I speak well though.

OP - look at Futurelearn - they have two Spanish courses on there - one's a Latin American Spanish course and the other is from the Open University.

I am learning BSL, not fluent yet but can understand and make myself understood mostly!

I'm fluent in Italian and conversational in Spanish