No Stupid Questions

English to Vietnamese or Vietnamese to English is harder than, say English to Spanish or Arabic because the sounds are so very different - I am sure I simply can't hear some of the different sounds in tonal languages, and had a friend who moved here from Taiwan when she was so young she learned better in English than Taiwanese but still she could not hear the difference between ear and year.

I don't think it's impossible but do think it's unusual. My dad was bilingual English and Spanish and I wish my parents had done the "one speaks English one speaks Spanish" language immersion but we only spoke English at home.

I believe language learning like most anything varies quite a bit individual to individual. Much of it might come down to interest. I am horrible with language. When graduating college a friend and I exchanged transcripts and his comment was. Wow. Actually you get pretty good grades (im looking at him like did you expect me to do poorly?), oh, except in spanish. When english was a subject in school it was my worst subject. Now my brother on the other hand totally geeks out on spanish and latin culture. He says he does not speak that well but in the right scenario (low light setting) it can take awhile for someone to realize he is white. I think they realize there is something wierd about his accent but figure he is from somewhere they are not or was diluted by being in the us or such.

Thing is your ability to learn language drops with age. Children learn their first language at ridiculous rate, teenagers learn fast, 30y olds learn slowly, 50 years and above have problem to ever get fluent

I learnt to speak French by living there for a year or so but I still cannot read it at all beyond short sentences because how a word sounds is different than how it looks.

As for English, I think both learning English and English speakers learning other languages is extra hard because English is such a hodge podge of random bits of other syntaxes and structures. Its a mess of a language in lots of respects making it hard to learn and hard for native speakers to get past the messiness and learn a better structured language.

I'm glad to have been raised somewhere trilingual.

In any case, if your reading and speaking is bad, you should practice that part. Get a few books you think you'd enjoy! If you are unsure about a word's pronunciation while you are reading, you can look it up online, or just ask your husband.