French native speakers and foreign languages

Hello,

First of all: I like the French, their language, the country and the
culture, as well as the French people. I just wonder whether they are
somehow disabled in learning foreign languages. I've been living in a
student hostel in Bucharest together with 5 or 6 French students. They all
where interested in the Romanian culture, and willing to speak English
(since my French is not good) but they spoke rather bad, still asking me
questions about basic vocabulary after six month living in Romania.

On the other hand, I've had a friend visiting me, that spoke French quite
well, and after some days she already picked up lots of words from daily
life. My untrained French helped me a lot to learn Romanian as well, there
are some similarities. Then I've send some Romanian jokes to my brother,
that knows French less than me, but he was still able to figure out half of
it. So, shouldn't it be easier for the French to learn Romanian? None of
them spoke a word when they left, though they have been doing Romanian
courses.

Finally, while talking about this, some of my French colleagues told me,
they thought that the French may have problems to learn foreign languages
in general, and gave me examples. So, guys, all that wasn't my idea, please
no flame wars! (by the way I'm German) How do you explain all this? Was it
just imagination?

Philipp
.

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