I took three years of Spanish and got an A every semester. Even when it was still fresh in my mind, I was nowhere near able to hold even a very simple conversation. And now just a few years later it's all totally gone from my brain.
My mother's native language is Spanish and she never taught me, which I resent her for. But I still find it incredible how shitty my public school education in Spanish was. We really should be teaching kids a second language from kindergarten up.
I'm stupid and went with French in HS, then went to work in factories for a few years in northern Indiana that has a large Mexican population that works in factories. I don't remember any of the French I learned. Like at all. But I probably could have at least used broken Spanish to communicate better with my co-workers during that era of my life.
I hate my brother but one thing that impressed me about him is that not only did he take Spanish in HS, but he is actually fairly fluent in it now because he never left the factory life.