Grew up speaking Polish at home,it is strictly speaking my first language and my 'mother tongue' but once I started school English became my best language.
French - after two years in Geneva refusing to learn French my parents put me in a French speaking school - problem solved though the first couple months were pretty miserable.
German - several Goethe Institute intensive summer courses followed by an extended stay in Germany hanging out in the archives. My spoken German is currently a bit rusty though I do speak it occasionally. On the other hand I read it on a virtually daily basis for my work.
Russian - a bunch of classes, never really took. I can make out an article if I have to or fake a conversation using what I remember combined with throwing in Polish words but I can't say I actually know Russian.
That's how I learned German :-)
Actually, my grandfather begun to teach me German at home for a few weeks, but that was of little use: spoken German (Hessen dialect) was unintelligble for me during the first few weeks, and I even had to re-learn my initial knowledge of words by then. On the other hand, I was lucky: there was a kid in my class whose parents were ethnic Hungarian immigrants from Yugoslavia, so I had a 'translator'. Yet again on the other hand, the class was already learning English for a year, and just began French*, so I had to fast-track learning three languages at the same time!
*: I was a good French student, I can also tell that now from stuff I have written back then, but regrettably, I almost comletely forgot it due to lack of usage - am currently in the process of re-learning in a language class organised by my company. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
