Thread:SusannahWithAnH/@comment-4934571-20140324133405/@comment-3493059-20140325224608

Oh, I'm somewhat of an exception. I was homeschool since Grade 1 (six) to Year 8 (13-14). I only started going to public school in Year 9. Although my mum comes from Malaysia and speaks English and bits of Mandarin and Malay, my siblings and I never mastered another language.

Here, in primary school (elementary: Grades 1-6), you usually have to study a second language. The school gives you a choice, usually of French, German, Indonesian, Mandarin and the like. When you get to secondary school (Grades 7-12), you can again choose a language to learn.

I do think that living in a small country right near a lot of other small countries helps in terms of learning languages. Even though Australia is very multicultural, it's very far from other countries and harder to pick up other languages (I think).