Learning a language.
A short anecdote about learning language.
I have a German friend here in Bolivia.
He has a Bolivian wife.
They have 3 children.
When he met his wife she could not speak German and he could not speak Spanish. They both spoke English and still do.
He has always spoken German to his children since the day they were born. She speaks Spanish to them.
The children went to a school that gave German lessons.
The other day my friend said something to one of the children and his wife asked what he had said.
The boy who is 8 years old told his mother that she would have to learn German.
Today I saw the 6 year old boy doing his English homework – my friend was helping him but was speaking German.
Every time I am with the daughter, who is 9, and my friend in a car or taxi He talks to her in German and she answers in Spanish.
They all try to speak English when they are with me.
I am watching 3 children becoming tri-lingual almost without any effort.
Una breve anécdota de aprender el idioma.
Tengo un amigo alemán aquí en Bolivia.
Tiene una esposa boliviana.
Tiene tres hijos.
Cuando conoció a su esposa no podía ni hablar Alemán y no podía hablar español.
Ambos hablaban el inglés y todavía lo hacen.
Él siempre ha hablado Alemán a sus hijos desde el día en que nacieron.
Ella habla a español a ellos.
Los niños fueron a una escuela que daba lecciones de alemán.
El otro día mi amigo dijo algo a uno de los hijos y su esposa preguntado lo que había dicho.
El niño que tiene 8 años le dijo a su madre que ella tendría que aprender alemán.
Hoy he visto el niño de 6 años haciendo sus deberes de inglés: mi amigo le ayudaba pero hablaba alemán.
Cada vez que estoy con la hija, que tiene 9, y mi amigo en un auto o taxi él habla con ella en alemán y ella contesta en español.
Estoy viendo 3 niños se conviertan en tres idiomas casi sin ningún esfuerzo.
Los tre intentar hablar el inglés cuando están conmigo
Please correct MY Spanish. 
12 Answers
Interesting story Ian. I think many people fail at learning a second language because they are focusing too much on grammar rules and not enough on listening and speaking.
Knowing how to converse in a language is listening and speaking so that is what needs to be practiced.
When we learn how to drive we become experienced drivers by practicing to drive. We do not become experienced drivers by studying how the engine works. The drivers educational manual only tells us the rules of the road. It can not give us a feel for handling a car.
Children do not learn to speak a language by studying grammar rules, infact they learn how to speak before they learn grammar rules.
Learning grammar is fine but we must listen to and practice speaking the languages we are trying to learn. 
Very interesting story Ian, being tri-lingual isn't really that hard as many think, learning a language is extremely easy when being surrounded by that language, the parents were very clever with their children, an easy way to learn, without having to put too much effort on studying the 3 languages at once, when the baby is born he simply learns the language from his parents and people who most interact with, so even if the parents spoke 5 languages at once, the baby will understand and speak 5 languages.
Papua New Guinea is a country that has over 800 hundred languages. (Not dialects) This is about 1/8 of the world languages. The children there are mulit lingual and often speak about 3 to 4 languages including English.
Papúa Nueva Guinea es un país que tiene más de ochosientos idiomas. No como dialectos. Es aproximadamente 1/8 de las lenguas del mundo. Los niños no hay echarle lingual y a menudo hablan de tres o quatro idiomas, incluyendo el inglés.
I had a client with a greek father and french mother . They were living in a country , where the boy was picking up the italian,( because the country used to be italian territory) and arabish on the streets from the other kids. He was attending an english school, consequently he was speaking 5 languages without any effort. He was complaining terribly, because he was working in Switzerland and was obliged to study german, and that was for him the first language to learn from books.
Tuve un cliente, con un padre griego y madre francésa. Vivieron en un pais, donde el muchaco aprendió italiano y árabe ( porque el pais era colonia italiana) de los niños otros. El hubo ido a la escuela inlglesa , asi el conoció 5 idiomas sin esfuerzo. El no paró de quejarse, pero trabajando en Suiza el fue obligado estudiar aleman, y por el esa era la primera idioma ,estudiando de libros.
I have heard langauges get easier the more you learn, and to an extent i think that is true, I can understand more french and italian for knowing spanish, and i can figure out different sentence structures easier even of langagues I just bearly have heard, however, I think that the gift of growing up around multiple langauges is priceless and as I learned in a "life stages development course" essentially the 'biology behind psychology', children who are exposed to multiple langauges tend to do better in school, are better at expressing themselves (less likely to be recluse and/or bullies) and more likely to hold successfull jobs as adults. I always thought this was interesting, and am always trying to use spanish around small children.
Very interesting topic. These children are lucky but we must not forget that it's much easier to learn a language (or anything) when you are young. I agree with all of you who mentioned that everyday practice and contact with the language is extremely helpful.
I L O V E this story!!
The Perfect Family 
Like my sisters children. her husband is Spanish, when they were little they lived in Greece, my sister spoke to them in English and their father in Spanish. When the youngest was about they moved to Barcelona. They continued to speak English and Spanish at home but all their schooling was in Catalan and they had friends who spoke both Catalan and Castellano as first languages.
They were able to absorb languages naturally as they grew. Unlike me struggling. :(
Passive understanding of a language is easier than active usage. I used to talk in one language while my parents talked in another language because I live in a bi-lingual country. BUT understanding AND being able to use the language is NOT easy. Some people find it strange, for example that they understand the language perfectly but when they talk nothing comes out!
There are very good sites like Robby Kukur's EnglishHarmony that try to solve this problem.
Up to the age of 8 children very easily pick up different languages.And from 12 onwards it becomes more and more difficult to learn to speak another language without retaining an accent. Which means that we usually start learning a second language a little bit late . Luxemburg has opted for an immersion programme in primary school: some subjects are taught in French, other ones in German or in the local language, Letzebuergisch, which is closely related to German. And it seems to work out well enough.
As for grammar, grammar is a neglected friend. Some people hate it, usually because it is taught in a silly way. It's useless to learn long lists of rules by heart , but it's important to recognize the rules when you see them applied. And after some time you'll remember them just in time when you need to apply them yourself. 
The brain is a wonderful thing! Amazing what it is capable of when applied to a particular endeavour.
Relatively young Polyglot and Carlos Amaral Freire - 120 languages!
