English is my first language. Even though my parents were Dutch, they didn't speak it at home until we were living with my grandma. Even so, they still always spoke English with me and my siblings. Over a period of time I picked up enough of the language to understand what my parents were saying when speaking Dutch.
My next experience with another language was in my first two years of high school when German was the language being taught. A few years after that I started to learn Polish after I became close friends with a girl who had emigrated from Poland (she had only French and Polish at the time).
A language which I have always wanted to learn, but never had the opportunity to learn, is French. The opportunity has come now, and so now I am learning to speak French.
Other languages that have been touched on in my family are Italian, being taught at a previous school; and German which they are learning now. One of my sons (he lives with his father and attends school in a different area) learnt Chinese for a short while.
It is wonderful now that we can communicate with others around the world so easily via voice chat. This makes it possible to more easily practice our new languages.
Some years ago I discovered a class where I would be able to learn how to do french polishing. Some of the furniture that I was working on (i.e. chairs) required upholstering as well, and some of the pieces were in serious disrepair and required much restoring.
Internet Relay Chat! Wow. What a buzz that was. To be able to talk to people around the world and via IRC be only seconds away from them. Besides being able to chat, we can send pictures and music to one another (wav files).
I got my first computer in December, 1992. Now I am doing an Honours year in Computer Science. That is some jump from not knowing a thing about computers when I first got one.
