1 . Very few of us become fluent in another language by learning it in high school.

I went to university and then moved across the country to seek a________ job, married and raised children. I made an effort to keep the little bit of French I learned in school, but eventually I realized that this was really________. I was quite aware that new languages are best learned when young, and that our abilities in that regard decline with ________.

However, just before my 50th birthday, I ________French classes. After I was tested to see which group I belonged to, I was placed at almost the introductory level When I looked around at my first class, I was ________that many of the students were learning French as a third, fourth or even fifth language.

Contrary to my ________ that learning a new language was impossibly difficult, there were people who learned new languages as a matter of course.While I had always thought of myself as a ________ learner, that was no longer the case. I ________ new vocabulary rather slowly.What I learned one week seemed to ________ as soon as I learned the next skill. I had to look up the same words and language structures over and over. Now, after several years of learning, I can listen to the news in French and ________90% of it on the first try, read a novel if the language isn't too ________ and hold up my end of a conversation if it doesn't go loo fast. I've learned so much beyond grammar and vocabulary. I've met people from around the world and all walks of life who have the ________to make fools of themselves in order to learn something new. I've been taught by patient and inspirational teachers from many comers of the world. Listening to the news as it is ________ to the people of France, I have a renewed understanding of how something can look ________different from another viewpoint. I've learned that a language is not just a set of words, but a way of thinking. But most of all, I've learned that it is never too________to learn something new.