[wjholden]

I learned a little Spanish growing up in the USA.

As I learned French as an adult, when I didn't know a French word, the Spanish word would often come to me.

Now I'm learning German, and often the French word comes to me when I don't know a German word. However, I've also struggled to speak French again because the German often comes to my head first.

It has been amusing to observe that one doesn't learn a third language as a strict subset of the second. For example, I know a lot more French than German, but I know the German "Tierarzt" (veterinarian) but not the French equivalent.