I studied both French and Mandarin before going to live in France and Taiwan for two years each in the 1980s, where I used them on a daily basis. Between those two overseas trips I studied Italian in university, but never ended up going to Italy. I still hope to do so one day though.
After my wife and I came back from Taiwan we studied Spanish because we also wanted to go to Mexico for two years. Then our son was born and those plans got put on indefinite hold. Fortunately my wife kept up with her Spanish because she ended up teaching English as a second language to mostly native Spanish speakers in her job as a high school teacher – where she also taught French,
One of her English students was a recent Chinese immigrant, who soon aged out of the public secondary school system. My wife’s Mandarin wasn’t as good as mine but I was able to tutor the student privately 2 or 3 nights a week at his parents’ restaurant for about a year. I did it as an unpaid volunteer to help the guy out, but it was one of our favorite local restaurants and his parents often sent me home with something delicious.
Now that I’m in my mid-sixties I’m coming back to those languages because I’ve always had a very bad memory, and I’m trying to both resurrect them and keep myself mentally active. I also look at other languages from time to time, just because I find them fascinating.
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