Thanks for posting this thread! I've only ever spoken English. (And I don't even speak that any more than is necessary!) But I've always admired people who speak more than one language.

Growing up, I never knew anyone who spoke anything other than English. When I was in high school I had some Spanish classes. One day the teacher said to me (in front of the whole class): "You have a natural flare for speaking Spanish. It's too bad you never study.") The problem was... I was too busy running for my life...

I tried taking a few language classes in college (including Russian.) But I found them to be too difficult. (Rote memorization has always been one of the most difficult parts of learning for me.) The only way I managed to finally graduate was that, while I was in college, they dropped the foreign language requirement.