Quote:
Originally Posted by Abelturd
I'd like to ask people who fluently speak more than one foreign language - how do you maintain your skill in an environment, where you don't come into contact with that particular language? Because it always leaves my mouth hanging open when I hear of people who fluently speak and are capable to read books in 3 or 4 foreign languages; it has to require a great deal of effort and time to maintain prowess in all of them, hasn't it?
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I believe most of them are from the "lucky" group. Western Europe.
English, German, Swedish, French, Italian, Spanish....if one of them is your native language, it is easier for you to learn another because they have many similarities.
You will not find many people who can fluently speak and read books in ..let's say English, Japanese and Hebrew.
Even for Eastern Europeans(xUSSR, Bulgaria, Poland, etc.) learning English or German is a lot more difficult task than for any Western European citizen.
My first language is Russian, at the age of 18 I moved to Israel and learned passable Hebrew, I used to study at university and take notes during lectures...and the last one is English. I read books in English since 1999...
but if I had a choice, I would trade in my Russian and Hebrew for fluent/native knowledge of English without any shadow of doubt.