Re: Foreign Languages?
I speak genuine Yorksher, mild Yorksher for the local Aussies, French and German - and I did learn Latin for four years but you don't ever speak Latin - you work it out like maths.
French was mentioned earlier - I can speak it, but understanding what the locals say is another thing entirely!! Posh French is just about comprehensible, but normal French just goes by in a blur.
Funnily enough, I can usually understand spoken African French and I don't know why.
German is OK - if you know the German you can usually follow the spoken version. I love those long words they make up, where we use an entire phrase, such as 'weapons of mass destruction, which they call Massenvernichtungswaffen.
I'd like to learn another language through U3A. Should I learn Italian or Russian I wonder? It would be nice to be able to read the cyrillic (sp?) alphabet. My daughter in law to be speaks Cantonese - now THAT is something I would not dare try to learn.