Are there any skills you wish you could have acquired?

It gladdens my heart that so many wish they were fluent in foreign languages.

I used to teach German, French and Italian and was upset when the government decided that it wasn't necessary to carry on learning a language to age 16. Most European countries teach English from Kindergarten upwards!

I wish I could crochet and play a musical instrument. My gt-gran taught the piano! My daughter learnt the clarinet and my sister learnt the flute, but I'm not naturally musical, although I love to sing and sing in a choir.

To be able to follow a knitting pattern. I can knit, but patterns are too mathetmatical for me and I just can't follow them.

I wish I could crochet. I've tried it but just end up with lengths of grubby string! I'm not especially keen on crocheted items, would just like to be able to do it. I can knit though.

1.) I can't swim. I so wish I had learned to swim.
When I was about 4 my mother (who was scared of the sea) wanted me to be scared of it too to keep me safe, so she threw me in the shallows. Of course I was terrified and she succeeded in her plan. In secondary school there were swimming lessons every week, but Mum refused to let me take part. As I got older a few friends and eventually my husband all tried to teach me but I still can't swim. I just can't relax in the water. When we went to the beach with our children I always worried that I couldn't help them if they got into trouble in the water. I feel I have missed out on a lot of fun with our kids and now our grandchildren.

2. I wish I could ride a bike. I never had a bike because I grew up in a first floor flat in London, and my Mum said "I'm not having a blooming great bike stuck in the hall when you can walk everywhere or get on a bus!" I sometimes tried to ride other kids bikes but after a few painful falls I gave up. But it would have been nice to go out on rides with our kids. I'm too old to learn now and I don't want to risk breaking any bones!

I woud love to be able to do anything with a true skill. Jack of all trades..

Another one for piano here. I am devoid of many arty skills. I have started some minor carpentry though and really enjoy it. Only made garden planters so far. Would like to do a sewing course.

HillyP. Me too. Also to tell a good joke.

Welding . MrM knows this and is keeping quiet. He's just bought a new TIG welder (nearly £1000).

Someone mentioned typing. One skill I have is touch typing . Such a useful skill.

Would love to: -

Swim properly, never had a lesson
Play the piano, ditto, and couldn’t afford them
Sing
Play the guitar
Make pottery
Fly, both gliders and “proper” planes
Be more assertive and hide my introversion
Win the lottery (is this allowed?)

I long to play the squeeze box but my arthritic hands won’t let me so I took up the treble recorder again as it is much more portable. I already sing in folk sessions so will be able to join in the music sessions. I wish I could read music proficiently, at the moment I learn by ear but it means I can’t learn new tunes from sheet music. Also learning Welsh (what a battle). My husband is a fluent Welsh speaker and it comes in useful when you get nuisance phone calls!

I would have liked to have learned to:
Swim - 10 years of school lessons twice a week failed to get over my fear of water and hatred of the cold.

Play the guitar
Crochet
Ski
Ice skate
Win the lottery!

Like many others I would love to be able to play the piano but would also love to be able to swim well. I had lessons many years ago and can do the breast stroke (just about) but that's all and wouldn't dare swim in the sea. Horse riding would be another dream.

Tightrope walking. I have balance issues.

wish i had been encouraged to back into the water when i was at school. had jst learnt to swim when some boys decided to push me under the water , that was it i lost my nerve for swimming and only just manage to paddle now in pool or the sea have tried lessons in my 3o's but still had that fear

I would love to be able to play the piano, sing, swim well and be fluent in a foreign language.

All my imaginary children could play the piano as well

I would love to be able to speak another language. Over the years I have tried to learn Spanish and German but I just don't seem to retain it! It was the same with French at school, 4 years learning and I can only say a few words!

I would also like to be able to play the piano but I really don't have room for one

I wish that I could do shorthand; I was sort of banned from the shorthand and typing classes at school in the late 1960s as I just couldn't grasp shorthand (I'd already been forced to go back to the beginning of Pitman's book at least twice but it still didn't sink in with me. My typing was all right except that I wouldn't touch type but always looked at the letters, so that was me banned.
I also wish I could have learned to speak in different languages.

Knitting, crocheting, ice-skating, fluent in a foreign language, learning to dive

The ability to make instant witty comments.

Well, I can do simple equations in my head, and use that almost daily, calculating for crafts or cooking, or making sense of statistics on the news - and I expect many of us do, without thinking.
I have no interest in learning a dead language - i have learned a coupe of modern ones, but find it takes longer and sticks less as I get older.

shropshirelass, it’s true that I wasn’t quite a complete beginner when I went back to the piano, though after 50 odd years and only ever grade 2 anyway, it really wasn’t far off - I couldn’t play even the easiest scale with both hands, and my sight reading was non existent (not that it had ever been up to much anyway.)

We had a very old keyboard (later replaced with an old piano) and I got to work with Carol Barratt’s course for adult beginners - that was classical piano, but there are other courses - plus some other beginner books I found 2nd hand online.

Progress was reasonably encouraging for a few years but I seem to have reached a plateau now.

At the group class I joined after a year or so there was a woman in (I should imagine) her late 40s who’d started as an absolute beginner just a very few years previously, and had recently passed her Grade 3.
As someone who’d been far too chicken to go for exams, I admired her enormously.

I would like to be able to sing well, in tune and to play a musical instrument.

I would like to be able to play the guitar. We have an old one in the house and I picked it up a few times last summer but l lack the staying power for day to day practice.

I wish I could use dpns for knitting and also circular needles.

I have just changed my user name but have been on GN for a couple of years!

Mamissimo

It's strange that no one yearns to be able to solve equations in their head or translate Ancient Greek into Latin.......are we being taught the wrong things in our skills based education system?

A friend of mine retired recently and is now studying Egyptian hieroglyphs at a very advanced academic level. Will that do?

It's strange that no one yearns to be able to solve equations in their head or translate Ancient Greek into Latin.......are we being taught the wrong things in our skills based education system?