I had the same experience with French. I learned it for 10 years, I even won a national essay competition - guess what, when I was in France, I couldn't open my

I had the same experience with French. I learned it for 10 years, I even won a national essay competition - guess what, when I was in France, I couldn't open my mouth. English on the other hand - I had only 2 years of study under my belt, and lots and lots of practice - movies, programming books, Shogun by James Clavell, song lyrics, chats on IRC, and so on. I'm fairly confident in my English skills. I know Russian a fair bit, and it's just a consequence of living in Moldova, where we have a lot of Russian influence and a lot of speakers of the language (16%) - but since I don't use it every day, I tend to forget it.