&gt; I didn&#x27;t learn my second language in a way an adult would, by connecting foreign words with the words you already know from your first language<p>Mildly off-topic, but I never realised until recently how much of a difference this can make. I&#x27;ve used French numbers far more, and for far longer, than I have Japanese numbers [0], but learning that way still results in me going &quot;8 - that&#x27;s eight, so its huit&quot;. Because I learnt the Japanese numbers through usage and without the deliberate English comparison, I go straight to &quot;8 - hachi&quot; without the intermediate step.<p>It&#x27;s also weird to me that I can count backwards (say 10 to 1) far easier in Japanese than in French, probably for similar reasons.<p>[0] Note I&#x27;m a long way from fluent in either. I studied French at school, and have picked up a very small amount of Japanese through usage.