If you learn french or italian or spanish, you can understand the main concept of a phrase in either of those languages, that helps a lot.CapnNismo wrote:
ThisKampframmer wrote:
Learning a language and how easy it will be depends on quite a few things.
1) Talents always helps. Some people are just better at picking up a new language. Maybe Camm's girlfriend is, so if it might no be as easy as you think to teach yourself Spanish even though a Scot could do it.
2) The language you already speak, and the one you want to learn. You can divide most popular languages (the one your most likely interested in) roughly into 2 groups (3 if your interested in asian languages). Those of Germanic descend and those of Mediterranean (Roman) languages.
If you already know 1 out of both groups (since you know English that would be Germanic although English is tricky) you should learn one from that group since it will be plain easier. More grammar and vocabulary in common. Although if youre a native English speaker it might be a bit trickier because English isnt as Germanic as, say, German, Dutch or Danish.
3) It has to be practical. If its not practical and just a novelty you'll never use it outside of you room or class and you'll never learn it properly (its what happened to my German and French). So either make sure you have a use for it, or a practise partner.
Learning more of a language than just saying 'Hi how are you?' and 'I am from ...' is harder than you might think.
I personally found German quite easy for the most part, but that might have something to do with the fact that I was living in Austria at the time. I was forced to learn it just to get by. That being said, the language itself wasn't a terribly difficult one coming from English to German. At the same time if you can speak English and German, you can understand A LOT of Dutch. I remember watching TV in the Netherlands and actually understanding a great deal of what was being said, was a very cool experience. If you know Spanish, I imagine the same is when you listen to Italian or vice versa.
My recommendation when learning a language: perfection should not be your goal at the beginning. Certainly you should be able to know the basics perfectly when you're writing something, but when you are actually conversing with someone, I would say don't focus on your grammar so much but rather focus on being understood. If people understand what you're talking about, then you can begin working on the grammar and cleaning up the language. If you can't even string a sentence together because your vocabulary is so poor, however, then you can be using perfect grammar and still no one will understand what you're on about.
