Gregor

Pen pal = someone you correspond with by letter from another country. I had one from Italy and one from S Korea, but it was all very contrived and didn't produce very much.

Studying a foreign language should certainly be very strongly encouraged and incentivised in some way, but to make it compulsory I think is going too far.

I've never really thought about that before. A few days maybe, and having worked with a lot of homeless people who are also friendless I know that they resort to asking people what time it is just to be able to talk to someone.

I am a sucker for Bollywood movies. I watched a lot of them when I lived in Paris in the 1980s and there was an art house movie theatre that showed 3 Indian films a day for 3 months. Hadn't a clue what most of them were about but that didn't matter. Loved everything with Amitabh Bachchan in it.

Hey! Do you notice a big difference between American Spanish and Spanish Spanish? Is it as big a difference as between the two versions of English?

Hi Netra. Obviously you speak English - any other languages?

That would be cool having a subforum where I could "speak" French. I wonder though how valuable it would be if there were no native and generally competent French speakers to keep a check on things.

And I'm sure that Charles de Gaulle will be truning in his grave in Colombay les Deux Eglises when he sees that French doesn't feature at all.

Hey Ariel! Do u get much opportunity to use Japanese, Chinese where u are?

Hi Kate! Hope it all works out for you. Are u learning at university, by yourself or what?

I'm curious to know why you chose to learn Romanian. Do you travel there a lot? Do you family or friends there?

My father asked in a shop for a book on African before we went to live in Africa. That was the 60s when Europeans thought they still ruled the world.

Novels of JP Manchette are shortish and managable. Since he writes noir fiction his sentences are short, terse and tight with no great flourishes of description. The action is non-stop and fast. Try "La position du tireur couché".

"C'etait une nuit extraordinaire" opening line in Giono's Que ma joie demeure. Devastating line when you go re-read the novel.

As an English speaker I have a very competent range of child birth vocabulary in French because I had to learn it when my first child was expected in France. But when my second child was arriving in Ireland I realized I had big gaps in my English ability to discuss things obstetrical.

Americans may well be guilty, but they caught it of course from the British who as colonists just walked into countries and demanded that the inhabitants start to speak English. The French did it too of course, and the Spanish ..... maybe this arrogance is linked to something deeper.

I get that way all the time. When I have the opportunity to speak French I dry up and just let the other person struggle on with their halting English. It's a personality thing I think. It takes a lot for some of us to put ourselves out there but we have to try.

It had better be because I'm about to spend money on learning Italian and I'mm 55. I think experience can help learning, and at 55 I'm a lot more motivated than at 25. Things can only get better and as they say, youth is wasted on the young.

Oh speaking without a doubt. I read French quite fluently but plonk me down in France and it'll take me a few days before I feel at home speaking.

Well Italian of course. Anything sounds romantic in Italian even if you're being insulted, so long as you don't understand it. Girls can give you the brush of so romantically in Italian.

I think it's worth learning because I want to be able to read Spanish literature without it being effected by translation. I also want to keep up with my daughter though she considers it to be akin to stalking!

Now I feel I'm being lead into dangerous territory here because I don't want to offend! However I often feel that German in difficult to listen to - I just can't even estimate where one word ends and the next begins. I used to dislike the sound of Portuguese but I got over that and quite like it now, but the one I have most difficulty with is the Scottish way of speaking English. Maybe it's just negative memories I have about certain Scottish people!

I just love mastering new scripts - Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and Hindi I have dabbled in just because they all look so beautiful. Only once I feel confident in the script is it possible to move forward.

If someone says thankyou to you in French you can repl "De rien".

My Brazilian friend learned French just through watching daytime TV - he became a great cook at the same time!