It's also especially difficult when the languages are vastly different. Even though French and English have Latin roots they're still way off- just the idea of gendered words is a big mind fuck and you just have to remember them because there's no real internal logic. Then you have adjectives and past participles changing based on gender or number, verb tenses & conjugations change a lot, formal vs informal, etc
I took French from I think grade 4 to 12 but I lived in rural Alberta so I never used it outside of French class. I barely remember any of it, it was hard to remember stuff being young and only having a few months between class, let alone all these years later never using it.
No, it's not. It just takes time. If you don't regularly speak the language you'll get rusty. That's perfectly normal. It'll even happen to your native language if you don't speak it regularly.
Also speaking a language fluently doesn't mean you're speaking it on a perfect native level without any accent.
Linguistic doors shut on you as you get older. Tonal languages like Mandarin become near-impossible for monotone English speakers to get right, which directly affects fluency. No amount of practice and lessons will make up for that missing neuroplasticity.
It is if you want to be fluent. After 10 years old you start speaking with an accent, and after 18 grammar becomes an issue.
I talk to my parents regularly, and my extended family notice the difference between me and my brother who rarely calls.
It's also especially difficult when the languages are vastly different. Even though French and English have Latin roots they're still way off- just the idea of gendered words is a big mind fuck and you just have to remember them because there's no real internal logic. Then you have adjectives and past participles changing based on gender or number, verb tenses & conjugations change a lot, formal vs informal, etc
I took French from I think grade 4 to 12 but I lived in rural Alberta so I never used it outside of French class. I barely remember any of it, it was hard to remember stuff being young and only having a few months between class, let alone all these years later never using it.
No, it's not. It just takes time. If you don't regularly speak the language you'll get rusty. That's perfectly normal. It'll even happen to your native language if you don't speak it regularly.
Also speaking a language fluently doesn't mean you're speaking it on a perfect native level without any accent.
Linguistic doors shut on you as you get older. Tonal languages like Mandarin become near-impossible for monotone English speakers to get right, which directly affects fluency. No amount of practice and lessons will make up for that missing neuroplasticity.