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.
my high school Spanish courses were taught by 1) the school's serial assaulter who would neg his female students openly in class, and 2) a glassy-eyed weirdo who once a week would play his favorite sketch from Saturday's SNL