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 took 4 years of college French and can't speak or understand a lick of French, but I can still understand basic Spanish (both spoken and written) due to one year of middle school Spanish. I remember going to Peru in college and being worried about how I was going to get around, then stepping out of the airport and realizing holy shit I know what all these signs say. Not sure why that is but I'm always surprised at how much Spanish I can understand having never really studied it save for one year in middle school.