Speaking in Tongues

Nope - this isn't a religious post either. I seem to be making a habit of this... :)

I'm fluent in English and Afrikaans - which is more than some folk are - but often I wish I knew more languages. The college where I work has students from 47 different countries, many of them starting out here in our English Language school and going on to college studies. Every few months I'll get a call from someone who doesn't speak a word of English, and I don't speak a word of Korean / Portuguese / Chinese / French / Spanish / German etc. We either bumble along until I can recognize a fax number or email address or get them to email me (I use freetranslation.com to "interpret" those messages and reply in their language), and hopefully get the info they want to them. Funny enough, I can get the basic drift of written Spanish or German (there are language similarities there if you look for them), but the spoken word goes right over my head.

Planning this trek up the continent has got me thinking. Perhaps it's time to learn another language, so I can cope with the locals as we travel. It's always handy to be able to understand and speak to those you encounter! And even if we never end up travelling, it would be good to have those skills. So I've started looking for French and Portuguese lessons (though Spanish would be easier). Those seem to be the dominant ones I'd need further north of here. Trouble is, they're not cheap.

Yesterday I scratched around in a "dumping ground" of an attic above a storage cupboard, hoping to locate a box of language tapes I'd seen there years ago. Unfortunately it seems the place was recently sorted out, and the tapes dumped - the sorter didn't know what they were. There go my free lessons!

(By the way, wanna know the best method of learning a new language? Get a boyfriend/girlfriend who speaks it, and refuses to speak your language! That's how I picked up Afrikaans in high school... but I ain't gonna do it now.)

So now I'm searching for affordable classes, or audio lessons, or anything that will give me the basics of these languages. I realize you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but I'm not THAT old! :)

Anyway, if I someday start talking in tongues here, you'll know the lessons have finally worked.

::update::
As usual, the all-knowing Internet has coughed up a good few free-lesson sites in everything from A-Z! Thank goodness...