rgaz83

Good link! I'll have to see if I can find anything that interests me there.

I don't think German sounds aggressive, exactly, but I do think it tends to sound rough. Like they ran out of vowels and had to make do.

I also agree that Rosetta Stone isn't really the best, especially for how much it costs. It's both too simple and too complicated for the task it claims to do, as well as being quite uninteresting. Perhaps it works well for some people, but I cannot see really using it myself.

I know that Ukrainian isn't Russian, but how close is it? Is it like Spanish & Italian (very close) or is it more like French & Spanish (somewhat close, but still very different).

If you enjoy keeping up with the news or like a particular TV show, then read news sites in Spanish or find fan sites for that show in Spanish.

One thing I remember reading is that English itself was considered a "peasant" language for many hundreds of years. Even after the "foreigners" were pushed out, French or Latin was the cultured way to speak and English wasn't considered fit for books, poetry or anything like that. IIRC, The Canterbury Tales helped change that impression, but I could be wrong. Another thing I recall is that English wasn't actually what we consider to be a language-language for a long time. It took a while to "standardize" it and figure out what words would be what. You might order "eggs" for breakfast in London, while ordering "eyren" in Kent, or something along those lines. I forget, precisely, but there were a lot of dialects for some time.

I think it depends on where you're from as to which pronunciation you use. There are a couple other words like that (which escape me at the moment), where neither pronunciation is "wrong". But, to my English-speaking ear, both ways of saying Caribbean are equally valid. If you actually go TO the Caribbean, they'd probably pronounce it one way or the other, but I don't know which way that'd be. :grin:

I don't really have anybody to speak Russian with, or even a good reason to be learning it. I can inflict Spanish, Dutch, German, French, Esperanto, Japanese & Italian on other people I already know, but I only know one or two Russians from the internet and I don't have much contact with them. It's an interesting language to be sure, but Spanish is probably the most important/relevant to me.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend Rosetta Stone unless you have a lot of money to burn/spare. While it may be an okay program for some people, the truth is it's not really all that great of a system and there are very similar things around the internet for cheap/free. I'd try one of those before spending hundreds of dollars on Rosetta Stone.

The trilled Rs are difficult! I've gotten to the point where I can do a "fake rolled R" that I'm told is a reasonably close approximation of a true trill. But even I can tell the difference. I take comfort in knowing, however, that not everyone who is born into a language with a rolled R can ACTUALLY properly roll their Rs. I guess it's kind of like having a lisp.

Exercise just distracts me. It would probably help if I had a stationary bike or something where I wasn't moving around. Less distracting!

I have dabbled in a couple fictional languages. I even still have a Klingon language CD! But I have never known more than a few vocabulary words; never progressed to anything like grammar.

I can't remember ever hearing a language that I really hated the sound of. Some sound harsher, sure, but I find German as equally interesting and tolerable to listen to as Chinese or Japanese or anything else.

I know one person who knows/speaks 4 languages almost every day and is studying a 5th. Local dialect, national language, English and German. In addition to those, they know/have studied another 2-6 (I lose count, honestly; not sure how many they 'know' and how many they just know the basic greetings, etc. in). From what I understand, it can be a lot of effort to maintain that many languages. However, it also get somewhat easier somehow. It helps if you're able to start early in life, too (which I, sadly, didn't really).

I have a lot of motivation to learn another language, in that there are better paying jobs if I can speak Spanish. There is also the 'fun' factor, of course, in that I think it would just be plain fun to be able to communicate in something besides English. I just can't seem to remember to study every day, even when I schedule it.

I also agree with (most of) the rest when they say the earlier the better. I've read before that studies have shown that a child understands/prefers his native tongue by 6 months old, if not earlier. Around 18 months, IIRC, they start to lose the ability to distinguish sounds they're not exposed to. It's not as much an issue with your intended target languages, but the earlier the better. Many of my (English speaking) coworkers have problems with any Spanish accent while I, typically, do not. Although I am nowhere near fluent in Spanish, I credit my understanding to early exposure to the language. It also helps with other languages, as I understand most (even fairly thick) Asian accents as well. Asian-Canadian accents are still difficult, though.

The easiest language to learn tends to be the one that you can have access to most easily. English tends to be easy for many because there are a lot of websites in English. There is a lot of material. On the other hand, if you wanted to learn something like Hawaiian, that would probably be one of the hardest to learn. There simply aren't as many Hawaiian websites and unless you actually live in Hawaii, it's probably very hard to locate anybody who actually speaks Hawaiian.

I finally got around to actually opening this app and poking around in it. Unless you upgrade to the paid version, the free version is mainly a phrase book and dictionary. Useful, but somewhat disappointing. If you upgrade for $3, there is apparently more. But you don't get a sample of the learning side, so I can't tell if it's even worth it to upgrade.

I think Spanish is relatively simple-ish. It's the sheer number of words that need to be learned that does it for me. Just when I think I'm getting somewhere, I suddenly find I can't spell or read half of what I thought I knew.

My mom has been trying to teach me (some) Spanish since before I can remember. Unfortunately, she's not exactly fluent in it and I'm still struggling to learn it myself. It doesn't help that I have difficulty staying focused on the challenge.

I speak "accentless" American English. That is you can't really tell what state I'm from, just by accent. It's the same accent that most newscasters tend to use in the US. Unlike some of my coworkers who have strong regional accents, I rarely get called out as not-Canadian by Canadians who call in. I sometimes talk a bit fast, but I otherwise communicate fine with almost anyone in North America.

I will be really good about studying and practicing for a week or two, then I will get distracted and not study again for a whole month. This doesn't help with fluency at all, obviously, and makes the next round of attempted learning to be extremely boring as I try to figure out what I've forgotten and what I've retained. So how have you/do you stay focused enough to actually learn anything?

I don't know which is the most difficult, but my mother has had a lot of Puerto Rican coworkers and said that they're the easiest to understand.

Any children of mine wouldn't get a choice. It's easier for a child to learn languages if they're spoken to it in that language as infants. So by the time they're old enough to actually "decide", bilingualism would be normal and natural for them.

I would hate for all languages but one to go extinct. Every time a language goes extinct, a small portion of the way that people once viewed the world is lost. Who is to say that one worldview is better than another? If everyone spoke a language + a worldwide language, that could work. I also agree that something like Esperanto would be best for this, even if it isn't the ideal solution.