When my parents immigrated to Canada from Paris, France, they each had a different experience when faced with a new white anglo saxon protestant community who spoke English, a language neither spoke well. And, even though my Romanian father was somewhat of a linguist, able to speak at least ten languages (including impeccable French), he was the one who had the most trouble picking up and mastering English. By contrast, my German mother, who could hardly speak French when she lived in Paris, had no problem picking up English and speaking it with hardly an accent. Aside from the obvious language differences (e.g., German is so close to English as a language vs Romanian and the romantic languages), I think one of the reasons that my father had more problems acquiring the English language with the usual ease he picked up Italian, French, Spanish, Russian, etc. was how the language was used. Language is, after all, much more than the spoken word. It is an expression of culture and biology.
