How did you get interested in languages?

[Lord Fon Fabre]

^?
I didn't care too much about languages at first (I spoke a different language than English at home so I tried to get better at that, but otherwise, I didn't really care at all), but I had to take either French or Spanish in high school--for 4 years (Pre-IB and IB high school). I decided to take Spanish since almost everyone else decided to and I still didn't really care much. Like a month in though, I started liking Spanish, and later tried learning other languages. So now, I'm in my 2nd year of Spanish, but waayyy farther ahead than the class. (They won't let me go up a year since I gotta be on level with the other people in IB class of '12 x_x).

So, how did you get interested in foreign languages?
What was your first foreign language?
How many years have you studied foreign language?

Edit:
Yea, now that I think about it, and judging from the other responses in the thread, I think that this really is the case:

kyuuketsuki4

When I look back, I can see that I was always interested in foreign languages, though I didn't realise it until much later.

 

[Daionii]

I've been interested in language from a very young age. I remember my mum buying my sister a box of paints when we were kids and the box had all of these symbols on it (which I later realised was Chinese >w<) and I was SO fascinated by them. I copied them all out and made up my own secret language xD

As for foreign languages, I guess when I was a weeaboo I ended up more interested in the Japanese language than in all the other stuff. After much thought I decided I should try to improve my Welsh rather than learn Japanese. After a while I got bored of that and went in search of more languages, found Cornish, and fell in love. And from there sparked my interest in minority languages :3  

[Prince Rilian]

I was interested in phonetics from as young as age 6, maybe younger.
Combine that with the fact that my mom is a linguist who was getting her Ph.D. when I was a kid, and it makes sense.
I took German in high school, and then in 11th grade, I added Latin, and my ex-bestfriend got me interested in Japanese, and I'd say it really took off when I was about 18-19. And now I study like 10 different languages.

I actually can't remember exactly when my interest in language branched out into "every language I can get my hands on". It's nagging me. I know it was some time between 17 and 20, for sure.  

[Lord Fon Fabre]

Nice nice. I dunno if it counts for anything, but according to my parents I used to go around reading like everything; like whenever I used to go to WalMart as a kid I would read like all the labels and stuff for no apparent reason...similarity? :O
@Dai- I made up my own conlang too! I used to like all the fantasy names from movies and stuff so I drew a map of like my own little ffantasy world, wrote a story about it and made up my own lang for it whee
@Rilian- So I'm guessing you want a career in linguistics/translation/etc?  

[Daionii]

Lord Fon Fabre

Nice nice. I dunno if it counts for anything, but according to my parents I used to go around reading like everything; like whenever I used to go to WalMart as a kid I would read like all the labels and stuff for no apparent reason...similarity? :O
@Dai- I made up my own conlang too! I used to like all the fantasy names from movies and stuff so I drew a map of like my own little ffantasy world, wrote a story about it and made up my own lang for it whee

Haha, that's so sweet :')
I couldn't speak any real language for ages and for a long time I used to just make up words XD and I used to copy logos by writing them down before I knew the Latin alphabet properly :3 kinda similar!
Conlangs for the win! That's so awesome! :'D  

[Prince Rilian]

Lord Fon Fabre

@Rilian- So I'm guessing you want a career in linguistics/translation/etc?

Not especially. I want a job that's about 10 hours a week and pays at least 20.000$/year. And preferably one with autonomy.  

[Lord Fon Fabre]

@Dai-Gemela!! whee
@Rilian-That's cool. That would be one chill job :] I wanna be a doctor personally so language/communication would be incorporated there too =)  

[Dragonfire Goddess]

I've always been interested in expanding my understanding of English. I started reading and making up stories really young, and I always wanted to understand why words were the way they were, for example why it's house - houses and not mouse - mouses. I also apparently used to annoy people when I found a word I liked and repeated it over and over and over again.
As far as my interest in foreign languages, I suppose that really started about three years ago when I just happened to get the idea that it'd be really great to learn another language. It took me awhile to come to the conculsion that I had a very strong desire to be bilingual, but after that I decided to focus on one language in particular (at first, anyway) and then for other various reasons German was just the logical choice for me.
When I think back on it I can see little things that should have been indicators that I would enjoy learning another language, but no one really paid attention to them.  

[Lord Fon Fabre]

Dragonfire Goddess

When I think back on it I can see little things that should have been indicators that I would enjoy learning another language, but no one really paid attention to them.

Yeah I think all "linguaphiles"(lmao...is that even a word?) language-lovers showed some signs that they would enjoy learning languages, but I guess no one really realized it until later on. If only I figured in middle school...even elementary school lol, I would have started learning languages so much earlier :/  

[frozennight]

I became interested in languages in sixth grade when taught myself to read Egyptian Heiroglyphics. It slowly turned into an obsession from there as I became interested in Nepali the next year, Quenya the year after that, and then linguistics.  

[Im A Little Pea]

I've always been interested in language.
My first foreign language was actually English. I started studying it in school when I was 10, and I remember being very anxious to start. All adults around me could speak it and I wanted to understand what it was I was missing. It was pretty easy to pick up and I enjoyed learning it. I still do.
Two years later I started studying Arabic in school (they're both compulsory). I was looking forward that as well.
Also, since I was little I found it very interesting to think about words and where they came from. It's just the way it's always been to me.  

[Moonlight_Naida]

I guess I've always been interested in languages. When I was 4 years old, I learned some English at preschool. When I was 8, there was a teacher at my school who gave free Spanish classes during lunchtime so I took those. That's also when I started learning English for real but I wasn't really interested back then. I became really motivated when I was in 8th grade. Then, I had Spanish classes the following year. I really liked it at first but I lost some of my motivation with time. It was only two years ago that I got a passion for Spanish and languages in general. Last year, I decided that I wanted to learn German too so I tried to learn it by myself at first but then I took German classes this year and I love it so far! Two years ago, I decided that my life goal was to become fluent in 5 languages so it's probably at that time that I became interested in languages in general.  

[Dragonfire Goddess]

Lord Fon Fabre

Dragonfire Goddess

When I think back on it I can see little things that should have been indicators that I would enjoy learning another language, but no one really paid attention to them.

Yeah I think all "linguaphiles"(lmao...is that even a word?) language-lovers showed some signs that they would enjoy learning languages, but I guess no one really realized it until later on. If only I figured in middle school...even elementary school lol, I would have started learning languages so much earlier :/

Same here. I'd probably be C1 in at least one other language by now if I'd started studying when I was a kid. But oh well, I'm studying now and that's the important thing.  

[Caotic Crys]

i had to take 2 courses of a language and my first was german. i fell inlove. ive taken a course of spanish as well  

[Lord Fon Fabre]

Dragonfire Goddess

Same here. I'd probably be C1 in at least one other language by now if I'd started studying when I was a kid. But oh well, I'm studying now and that's the important thing.

That's true. But uhh..I probably sound retarded saying this, but what how advanced is a C1 class? (Still in high school, and I'm clueless about college classes).
Woah, it seems like I'm the only one who's only taken 1 foreign language (in school). Lol I thought words were interesting too...but in a different way. Like when I would learn a new word (in like elementary school) I would repeat over and over...but to the point where it just sounded weird. lol