Anyone here Bilingual? or Multilingual?

[Jims5543]

Did you grow up learning more than one language, or did you learn a second or more in school? Or???


Our friends are and when we were in Mexico a couple of months ago, I really wished I have followed through on learning Spanish. I had been low key trying but not very hard. After that trip my wife and I decided to really put an effort in. We are using an app on our phones called Duo Lingo.

My wife's GF is English (she does not speak Spanish), her husband is Panamanian, his cousin that was there with us, she is married to a fellow from Western Mexico who owns a Mexican restaurant here in Florida.
The other couple we were with the husband is Puerto Rican and his wife is a Scandinavian and is multi-lingual. The last couple the Husband is from Albania and the wife Italian, she speaks Italian and can sort out Spanish pretty good too. He is multi lingual as well being from Europe. 

So my wife, her GF and myself were the 3 gringo's with no Spanish, a lot of the time we were left out because the staff was going straight to Spanish when interacting with our crew. Especially at dinner time.

After we got back we decided to really lean into learning, I am struggling. I would love to pick it up fast, it has been a very slow go I spend about 10 minutes every day on lessons. I think it is going to take me a very long time to become even close to fluent.

I was just wondering if anyone tried to pick up a second or 3rd more language and how long it took them to become decent enough to hold a conversation.

My wife's GF has an advantage, she has her husband to help her. My wife and I are on our own unless we practice on people we know. That is not going to be every day, we would have to go visit them.

I am also afraid to open a convo in Spanish as after Buenos Dias I am lost... LOL!!

[Red Riley]

I've lived in enough places to have had multiple girlfriends and wives who spoke other languages. So I've picked up enough to be somewhat conversational, but never enough to really stick. I have little bits of Spanish, Icelandic, German, Hindi, Korean, Italian floating around in my old brain.