zambothegreat

For those who know both, or are relatively familiar with both: which one is easier to learn? If there isn't a significant difference in difficulty in learning either language, what are some of the main differences between both?

He could tell them what his favorite food is. They wouldn't know if he was telling the truth or not, so they would have to let him go.

I'm a slow reader. I generally take my time with a lot of things. That's how I'm hardwired. I like to fully absorb what I'm reading, catch nuances that I wouldn't have appreciated otherwise, etc.

If you're the kind of person that enjoys learning in general, then you'll enjoy learning a new language. There have been numerous studies suggesting that the brain grows whenever you learn, and it makes sense. Here's one pertaining to learning a new language. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121008082953.htm

I always prefer the original language + subtitles. Hearing dubs, and seeing the lips moving the wrong way really irks me. I have seen films where the dubs sounded good, but still, subtitles are the way to go for me.

lol where do you live? I would assume anyone would be able to speak English since I live in Canada. There are any amount of ethnic groups here, so it's not uncommon to see someone who looks Spanish, African, Mediterranean, etc.

I can't say I've had the pleasure of reading either masterful work, but I have read small excerpts from both, and I think I was a better writer when I was 12. And I'm still not a good writer in my early 20s.

I can't say I have a favorite. While I like Othello and Twelfth Night more than As You Like It as a whole, Touchstone is one of my favorite characters, if not my favorite. It's between those 3 for me.

Well, it's definitely a quick read, so we'll count it. Besides, it's Orwell. Check out Clutch's lyrics for their song "Animal Farm". Pretty great stuff.

Haha. I always stroke my beard. I guess I'd be constantly sending out mating calls.

I'm glad that my native tongue is English since it's an international language. That being said, my ethnicity is Greek, and despite the fact that I'm not too good at speaking it, I still have a Greek-guido accent when I speak English. So, I wish my native tongue would've been Greek instead of English. Or even French.

I've thought about that more than a few times. For me, it would be beneficial since I have a very monotone voice, and it's hard for to be expressive, even if I'm somewhat passionate/interested in whatever it is that I'm talking about. I read people very well, so I think life without language would be better for me. Plus, I'm okay at drawing, so there's that too.

I think for the most part body language does cross over. But I know that if you try to make eye contact in Japan, it's considered offensive. Eye contact isn't necessarily body language, but still.

I don't think something like that will happen for hundreds of years. Even if there was an event that involved an Alexander or a Hitler attempting to assimilate international cultures, popular languages like the plethora of Indian dialects and Oriental dialects would probably not die out.

Nice. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and never heard of that before. Still on topic, Neil Gaiman has a book out called Fragile Things, which is a collection of short stories. I definitely recommend it.

The first one that comes to mind for me is "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. Apparently, it was Asimov's favorite story of his, so you know it's good. http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

You should never say never, but it doesn't seem likely. By today's world, do you mean your lifetime, or the 21st century, or something else? I think when eugenics and the consumption/insertion of nanomachines becomes commonplace, there will undoubtedly be multiple prolific writers on the same level as Shakespeare, or greater. That might happen in half a century, or later. But I don't think there's going to be a dude who can be as prolific and as influential as Shakespeare in the next 10-15 years.

Made a couple small fixes, but that's the goal of this thread, right?

Even though English is my mother tongue, I screw up on pronouncing certain sounds fairly often. It's mostly with words in succession. Like, on words where I need to stress a d or t sound, like in "want" or "candidate". Saying the words is easy, but if I say "I want to go to X", more often than not, it'll come out "I wanna go to X".

I had learnt in high school that a lot of English terms for food and terms related to food derive from French, but it's interesting to see them in a list like that. There's also "banana", which derives from "banane"; "dinner", which derives from "diner" (the i should have a ^ where the dot is); and baguette.

That's something that was taught to me very early on in school, either 1st or 2nd grade. I never payed any mind to it since I was never good with remembering "rules" like that, but it really is an idiotic thing to teach to kids. I wonder how many people it has legitimately helped.

It happens to me fairly often. It seems to happen when I'm particularly focused on what the next words will be that come out of my mouth, instead of just letting the words come naturally. It's hard to explain. It obviously happens to a lot of people in public speaking situations, but it happens to me when I'm in a one-on-one conversation, and with mundane words.

I was going to bring that up, in addition to "library". Library is definitely easier to pronounce than February, but many people pronounce it as "ly-bary", which makes them sound plain stupid.

In your last sentence, what does "everyone" mean? Everyone in North America, or the world? Even if it's the former, I don't think it'll get to the point where everyone will be speaking the same language. It's just not realistic. Unless there's a similar event to the Ice Age, then maybe.

What happened to your campaign against capitalization? 6 languages isn't out of the realm of possibility for most people. Learning languages that are similar is obviously easier than learning languages that are completely different in their lexicon. Learning Portuguese when you already speak Spanish would be easy. I speak English, French, and Greek. I don't think I would have too hard a time learning Russian or Spanish or Italian.