A knack for languages?

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I have been learning/speaking Spanish since I was 11 (sixth grade). Nearly ten years later, I'm minoring in Spanish. I also found it easy to pick up Hebrew and some German.

My sixth grade Spanish teacher said it would be a tragedy for me not to study languages, because I was so good at it.

Rather than turn this into a "Wow, Cait sure is smart!" thread, I have a question for you all. How many others find foreign languages to be fairly easy? Or enjoyable?

While this may not be AS-related, I have a notion that perhaps it could be.

Wow, Cait sure is . . . not dumb.

But to address the question:

I took French for 2 years in highschool. I could hardly speak a word of it after all that time. So I assume I am NOT good at learning languages. But, my French teacher was nothing short of a lunatic, so that might have been the problem.

I mean, how many times can one watch 101 Dalmations in the French-dubbed version before losing one's mind???

Pffffffft.

We were cool and watched "Aladdin" instead.

(edited because I spelled Aladdin wrong and it bugged me)

I speak Spanish very well. I passed my state's proficiency exam. My 8th grade Spanish teacher called me to tell me that, and she was very happy.

I sucked at French as I would just memorise the current stuff and forget it right after the test. Japanesse was even worse as the teacher had a hard accent to hear and wasnt that good at English.

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Me gusta el español. No estudio el español ahora, pero estudiélo cuando estaba una estudiante del colegio. Pienso que no hablo español muy bien, pero siempre sacaba buenas notas.

I also took a year of French and a year of German, and I got A's in both classes.

I have an excellent ear for the pronunciation of languages.

However, my learning skills are average. Well, they are above average, but only because I can memorize things very easily. But if this is taken into account, average.

Je pense que c'est très facile à apprendre une nouvelle langue comme le français. J'ai essayé apprendre le latin, mais les inflections étaient ennuyeuses. Le latin est beaucoup plus différent à l'anglais que le français. Aussi, la langue latine ne ressemble pas la langue espagnole. Il y a beaucoup de changement entre le latin et toutes les langues romanes.

i speak a smattering of up to 14 languages, ranging from simple greetings to being able to have halting conversations. i only learned french at school, so the others were picked up either on holiday, or from people from that country.

it's a crying shame (if not a crime) that i don't speak any other language fluently, as i'm very quick to pick them up. i think it's to do with being musical - i pick up the rhythms and speech patterns easily. and having a prodigious memory helps, of course.

Si. Muy bien.

I can understand most Spanish, Italian, some French and a little bit of Latin here and there. I was helping my friend with Japanese homework, even though I've never taken any Japanese (or other Asian languages), whether formally or informally. I can't speak (proficiently) any languages other than English and sort of Spanish, but that's okay with me. I've also been able to pick up a heck of a lot of Sindarin Elvish from LotR.

I understand a lot more than people think I do, and can understand everything that's been said in this thread so far, no matter whether it's Bec talking in Spanish or Neant talking in French. Couldn't translate, but I can understand it, kind of like it's a native tongue, but not *quite* that well.

Yeah, I'm very good at languages, though I do say so myself.