When I went to Egypt in 2010 I decided to lean some Arabic before I went. I used Pimsleur's Egyptian Arabic cd's and got to about lesson 18 or so. It helped a lot, and a lot of locals thought it was great that I could speak some of their language.
In 2012 I went to Europe and really did not study anything, and I felt pretty stupid. I really didn't find anything easy to pick up, although I did not spend much time in any of these places. I was only in Europe for a total of 3 weeks.
I really want to learn French, and I did not retain any French from school. I tried Assimil french program and found that it was not working for me at all, so I quit that.
I am leaving for China on April 1 and I have gone back to the Pimsleur's program for Mandarin. All it is is memorization, so I don't think that is particularly the best way to learn a language, but it helps.
I'm planning on going to central Asia, so I am going to be studying Russian along the way and may even stop in for Russian classes when I am in Kyrgyzstan.
I think one of my problems is I need to focus on one language. I think my other problem is studying consistently.
When I get back from my year long travels, I do plan to sit down and once and for all learn French to the best of my ability.
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