[jerf]

Yes. I "learned" French for four years in high school with no constant background exposure. Of course, I can't actually speak it, or read it, or write it, or understand more than very basic conversation in it (though as it turns out I have actually understood a smidge of French "in the wild"). But I did pass a test in it, once.

On my eternal TODO list is to use a spaced-repetition drilling program to buff up my French vocabulary since I do pretty much have everything else I need to at least read it, but, well, like many around here my TODO list is quite long....

[dextorious]

"""Yes. I "learned" French for four years in high school with no constant background exposure. Of course, I can't actually speak it, or read it, or write it, or understand more than very basic conversation in it (though as it turns out I have actually understood a smidge of French "in the wild"). But I did pass a test in it, once."""

That maybe happens with Americans and high school foreign languages.

In Europe --and certainly in my country--, most people speak the foreign language they were taught just fine, without "constant background exposure". It could be a cultural / motivational thing. I don't think many Americans care to learn foreign languages, despite being forced to do so at high school.

(As an aside: how many foreign language movies do American's watch? We do tons --and not only Hollywood films).

Here where I am, the median family actually PAYS for extra-school language courses. It used to be just english, in the eighties, but since the nineties most children study TWO foreign languages.