True too, though some languages are harder than others, and some are closely related and some not. An English-speaking person who knows French ought not to have too much trouble reaching some level of proficiency in another Romance language, but he or she would have less advantage over a monoglot when it came to learning, say, Finnish or Chinese.

There are some people who do amaze me, that is people who have lived in another country for many years and can yet barely speak the language. Sometimes this seems to be almost a matter of misplaced pride. Personally I would hate to live somewhere and not be able to speak the same language as the people around me: I'd make every effort to learn it. (I am not talking here about poverty-stricken, recently arrived asylum seekers and other disadvantaged people but about people who have chosen, for example, to retire to another country or to live in another country to write, compose, etc, etc.)