Izabella

I had to learn English because in Poland where I live, it's obligatory from the very first class of primary school. Simply, I had no choice but I liked it. Later German was another compulsory language for me to learn but didn't actually want to pick it up, I don't know why, maybe because of our national history . Now I truly regret it, recently I have stopped in Germany on my way to England and feel ashamed to remember only basic words like greetings and conjugation of the verb "to be". While I was pretending to learn German, I took up Spanish and that was it. I fell in love with it! The reason was prosaic: I thought that I was doing quite decently with English and since I've always loved codes and tongues (that, besides, are also some kind of code for me), I needed to learn something else because languages are important in job. I saw some ad of a Peruvian teaching Spanish and immediately decided to call and try. As you can see, you can have some fun with languages even if it's not your decision that you learn this one and not else.

My mother says (oh boy, I sound like Forrest Gump - Mama saaaaayzzz :grin: )that unused organ disappears. Same with muscles, same with brain. When you learn something, brain creates a connection that allows you to memorize and recall it. If you don't use it, it disappears and get replaced by another connection. And it's good for people - imagine remembering every single detail of your life... It's normal that we forget things. The only solucion is to practise, practise and practise even more. If you don't have enough time to go over the grammar, read a book, watch a film, listen to music. I can reassure you, it helps a lot.

Wow, that's interesting! I agree with most of you, guys. Human being can create an incredible variety of sounds but it's the way you combine them that gives us a language. Talking about similarity... yes, of course, tribes would live close one to another, they tried to understand each other so the tongues were mixing and spreading until they encountered and obstacle. For example, people from across the sea, the mountains have completely different language while people from the similar area sound alike. There is also Hungarian :grin:

I think Spanish from Argentina is the most difficult to understand. They pronounce the "ll" sound differently from the Spanish I've had an opportunity to hear. And I sure did listen to a couple of accents. First, I was being taught by a Peruvian therefore I don't consider it a difficult one - it was the first one and I didn't know any other. Later, I had some classes with a man from Navarra, a region in Spain that has a lot in common with Basque Country. He spoke really understandable Spanish and knew Basque as well, so I can tell you from my own experience, Basque is a totally different language. Now my teachers are from Andalucia (southern Spain) and Castilla y Leon (central part). The accent from Castilla is an easy one, nothing special but the andalusian... yeah, this is the one that can cause missunderstandings. They don't pronounce some of the "s" so it's like "Nosotroh ehpanoleh tenemoh muchah aficioneh". But if I'm honest, I love it!