I live in Sweden, which means I've had to study English since I was nine years old. Disregarding that, I also speak fluent Dutch (with a Flemish accent). The w

I live in Sweden, which means I've had to study English since I was nine years old. Disregarding that, I also speak fluent Dutch (with a Flemish accent). The way I learned Dutch came from having a long-distance relationship with a girl from Belgium. When I was visiting her on vacation her family would speak Dutch with one another at the dinner table and I would sit and listen. In the evening they would watch TV. Sometimes we would sit with them and I'd look at the subtitles in Dutch and try to map that to the English audio. At this point I didn't intend to learn the language; I simply saw it as an intellectual challenge to see how much I could make out. At times I'd even join to watch a programme in Dutch. I found that very helpful since they always had subtitles turned on and this helped me with one of the more difficult parts of learning a new language: parsing the steady stream of sounds into words. Through this simple manner of absorbing the language I started recognising an increasing portion of the vocabulary. Once I felt comfortable forming a few simple sentences, I asked my girlfriend's mother to speak Dutch with me. She was all too happy to use her own language, rather than being forced to use English. Once I felt able to speak in a limited manner about a few everyday topics (and I was living in Belgium as an exchange student) I took a course called "Dutch for foreigners". This was great for learning grammar. Finally, after a year of living in Belgium I moved back to Sweden and my girlfriend soon followed. Since she had to speak Swedish all day at work I suggested that we would speak Dutch at home. That way she got to use her own language and I got to practice my Dutch. We have now lived together in Sweden for five years, we're married and since Dutch has become the language I use at home I've found it difficult to remember to use Swedish when speaking to our son.