My kids asked me to teach them some French, as we were cleaning up from dinner. We were day-dreaming about our upcoming vacation to Normandy, and they knew that I had once studied French in high school and in college -- so they asked me to teach them a few phrases.

I paused for a second and then spoke: "Bon soir. Je m'apelle Eric. Je suis de Ohio. Je viens a l'école en bus." And, well, if I do say so myself, my pronunciation was trés authentique. But then, just as quickly as I had started, I stopped with the French and returned to the dishes that I was loading into the dishwasher.

"What did you say? What did you say?" my kids asked.

"Aw, nothing really," I said. "I forget a lot of the French I used to be able to speak." I was embarrassed, actually, by just how much I had forgotten. The loss was almost total. Every French word I tried to recall was covered up by a Dutch word. It was as if all of my "Language Bucket" had been filled with English and Dutch at the top of the bucket -- all of which were much more accessible -- and just a few dregs of French remained at the bottom of the bucket. After three years of French in high school and two semesters of French in college, I used to have a pretty decent handle on the language. But now I totally don't. In fact, it seems that the only French I can remember is from the first year of high school French with Mademoiselle Shell.

"Dad, what did you say?" my kids persisted.

"Umm... Well, I said... 'Good evening. My name is Eric. I come from Ohio. I come to school by bus.' And I'm afraid that's about the best I can do for you right now."