It's a well known fact:  If you don't use it, you lose it.  While recently in Malaga, we spent time everyday "practicing" our Spanish, something which although I studied for about 12 years - I am not so great at anymore (ahora yo hablo un poquito y mas despacio). To be fair, between the four of us, we could cover the basic requirements needed to get around in terms of reading signs and understanding very basic conversational language.  But as we struggled to formulate cohesive sentences and relied heavily on "Spanglish" or pointing, we reflected on the fact that it is much more challenging when you have to yourself communicate in another language as opposed to reading or even listening to someone else speak it.  It's when you can articulate thoughts clearly that you start to demonstrate command of a language.  And since then I have been considering how the same is true in many other scenarios beyond linguistics.  After all it's much easier to admire and appreciate a great work of art than to create it yourself and it's not nearly as daunting to listen to