Five years of French at school, and I don't speak a word of it. Well, maybe enough to say hello and ask for a coffee but that's it.
On the other hand, 8 months in Brazil and my Portuguese is fluent - many people I speak with don't even realise I'm not a native speaker until I tell them. You really have to immerse yourself in a language to learn it well. Nobody I met in Brazil had any English so I was forced to learn. What amazed me after learning Portuguese was when I was watching the news one day and there was an Angolan talking about the civil war and I understood every word without reading the subtitles
It's very rewarding.
Also, what's nice about learning one of the Romance languages is the ease of learning another once you understand one. I quickly picked up some Italian when I was there on holiday and understand Spanish thanks to their similarities with Portuguese.
