Lingua Franca

I agree if you have to make yourself understood then you will find any means possible. Anyone can learn another language if they are put in a situation were it's the only way to communicate. It doesn't actually take that long before you start picking up on words.

Latin is still alive, even though there aren't a lot of people that speak it as a first language, I don't know if there are any to be exact. Latin was the language of science a short time ago so there are still plenty of resources out there to learn it.

I think that the hardest language to learn would be a language that is the most distant from any language that you might know. So for instance if you spoke Khoisan, you would find it very difficult to learn Aleut. Not only that but what plays a very important role in learning a language is our environment, so if it is completely different it would add to the learn curve.

Nahuatl and varients of it are still spoken in Mexico to this day. So if you are interested in learning it, it's still possible.

It's not only the students that are being tested, it's the teachers too. If they give very high marks, they have to justify why, but if the marks are too low once again that also has to be justified. Teachers are under as much pressure as students are.

Easter Island had it's own unique writing style but as yet it hasn't been deciphered. It does resemble hieroglyphs even though there isn't a connection between the two.

I agree with you completely, even though it might seem that you can keep the two separate it's very easy to end up mixing them. Both are very complex languages and special care should be taken when learning them.

i think that the only person that can make that decision is you. It's all good and well saying that one language is more important or more useful then another but if you are in a classroom wishing that you had picked another language, it's going to make learning it all that much harder.

My sister tried and she said that it was simpler then what most people think. Unfortunately she wasn't able to finish the course due to her work scheduled. i personally am interested in learning it but at this point in time it's not possible for me to go to classes.

It's not impossible but it's very easy to get side tracked. In a class room you have other students that you can practice with while at home even if you make a mistake you won't know that you did it until you try to speak to someone that knows the language.

I can imagine it would be in French. It's considered by many as two different languages. The spoken and the written language, since they still haven't modernized the written language it can be quit complex.

It's a tricky question. I think that most people assume you only are fluent in a language if you speak it with out a foreign accent, but I wouldn't go that far. Just as long as you can understand everything that a native speaker and can answer him/her with hesitating and they can understand you then you are fluent.

That is a tough one, there are so many interesting languages. I don't know if anyone could ever learn how to speak it fluently though since there aren't any audio recordings of them. I think that I probably would choose ancient Egyptian. It would be great to actually be able to read hieroglyphs.

that is exactly the problem, more often then not you end up doing something else with the time that you had put to the side for learning. If you are in a classroom you know that you are there for that and nothing else.

If you have the money and nothing to hold you down then it's a great idea. There is nothing that comes close to actually going to the place and speaking to the people with the language that you are learning.