spacetimecontinuum

If there are roughly 230 countries on the planet, I wish to know ALL the languages, even the "click" ones. What could be a more awesome Super-Power than being able to communicate with everyone?? That even beats the ability to fly, I reckon. :wacky:

Well I know you can learn roughly a thousand Italian, French and Spanish words in 10 minutes, just by changing the suffix. Any English word which ends with TION are easily converted.

That's interesting, I did not know that about Namaste. Yes, so like you learn Sanskrit, knowing Latin is like having a key to unlock the "mysteries" of other words, which is always going to be useful.

Yes, Scio posse dicitur quasi arcana verba reserare.

Upon further consideration ,not sure outside of the Vatican what use speaking Latin would be, but in terms of knowing it so that I can read it, this would certainly be valuable.

That would be an emphatic YES! De Omnibus Dubitandum! And I feel knowing more Latin would help me understand the root of so many many languages, especially my Mother tongue English, which is an ongoing mystery, new surprises pop up weekly.

I've never heard of this game, it sounds interesting anything which expands and helps you to retain vocabulary can't be a bad thing. I think it's useful to have as many tools as possible to aid you in learning a language, audio, video, aural, oral, whatever it takes to help it sink in.

I believe they are interchangeable, however, as a Native English speaker "even though" feels more natural in that sentence, it just flows better. Sometimes with English similarities, one just has to make an Executive Decision, lol.

I would love to learn in a classroom setting, as I feel that what I'm learning will sink in better, as I will be "forced" to converse with other students and also mistakes which shouldn't be made, will rooted out at an early stage by the teacher, I would hope. Not mention that I think it would be fun, which is important, because if one feels like they are doing advanced Calculus and dreads coming into class, you'll begin to hate the language.

Well I've definitely fallen in LUST with persons who have spoken another language. For me to be truly in love, real, clear communication has to be present, a language barrier would make a relationship-which is already difficult- even harder work...for me personally.

I think there's good chance Spanish will surpass English, in the United States, in the next 20 years, but not worldwide...that trophy still goes to Mandarin.

Possibly, but I lived in Scotland for 5 years and never learned...so??? Is it mandatory for some languages to possess this skill?

Dips unto this thread to see if I will get my ESPERANTO answer here... Does on this board have a passing familiarity with this tongue, in so far as they speak it with other people?

You're weird...just kidding. I find as Native English speaker I get tripped up on the easiest(relatively)words. For instance there are two words that I literally have to think about for 45 seconds or more, how to spell them...they are RHYTHM and EGYPT, yet I could spell onomatopoeia at gun-point. Strange how our brains work...or don't.

Wow! plus I'd never even heard of the word ethnonym. Sometimes I think that English must be the most fiendishly difficult language to learn because of all the homonyms, idioms and words which contain letters which are not pronounced eg: psycho, aesthetic, phlegm...I mean the pitfalls seem endless. But then I look at at Arabic and Mandarin and my brain starts to cave in on itself. :wacky: