Snow gates in Scotland

All of them. I used to work with a professor who spoke 11 languages fluently.

I learned 10 times as much French on holiday in France than I did at school. Main problem was the French teacher expected us to know what nouns and verbs and those more complicated ones were.

In retrospect, Spanish would have been a good choice. Or perhaps Arabic, although that wasn't offered at my high school.

In message snipped-for-privacy@ryzen.home, Commander Kinsey snipped-for-privacy@nospam.com writes

Here, Latin certainly helps us to understand what things like nouns, declensions, verbs, tenses, adjectives, singulars, plurals etc, etc actually are. These are generally learned at your mother's knee, and with certain exceptions we tend to use them more-or-less correctly without knowing what they are.

Problems arise when it comes to learning a foreign language. Yes - if you're totally immersed in a language, you might soon pick up enough stock phrases to repeat parrot-fashion, and eventually you might be able to parse them, and adapt them to suit a variety of situations (which, after all, is sort-of what we do instinctively with our own language, even if we don't know actually what the various parts of speech really are). Nevertheless, it's probably a lot easier (and quicker) if you are also able to call upon your 'technical' knowledge of how the foreign language should be constructed, and what the rules are.

In message <CaUvL.125939$ snipped-for-privacy@fx45.iad, Cindy Hamilton snipped-for-privacy@invalid.com writes

Given a limited vocabulary, Spanish is probably easiest to read, French easiest to understand, and Dutch easiest to speak.

Dutch?! You have heard of "double dutch"?

Indeed, they just aren't needed. I do past, present, and future tense. I do noun and verb. After that, no idea.

And why is it no words have a future tense?

Most foreigners don't care if you f*ck up the grammar. I've said things like "I be loving to get bread loaf" instead of "I would like a loaf of bread", but who cares?

German was the 2nd language choice in my high school. Some of my neighbors are native Spanish speakers. They know English well enough but it's easy to tell English isn't their first language. South central Nebraska.

Dutch always struck me as German with a southern accent. I once belonged to a group that discussed the lowland languages. They're dying out but there were quite a few of them.

Then there is Swabian. There's sort of a joke in Baden-Wurttenberg, an area with many high-tech companies, that they can do anything -- except speak Hochdeutsch.

French has always escaped me. I grew up in an area with quite a few French speakers, but it was Quebec French. I'm told that resembles 16th century French with a lot of modifications.

In my high school the shop/business kids took Spanish. The college entrance group had two years of Latin followed by 2 years of a modern language. Those headed toward a STEM future took German, the others took French.

The vast number of people don't have the ability to learn (and retain) more than one (or perhaps two) foreign languages. And then only if they use it (or them) regularly.

My father's mother spoke seven fluently. I spent quite a bit of time with her at her shop, and was impressed by how she could instantly switch to whichever language her customers spoke. My grandfather died before I was born, but I'm told that he could speak even more.

We get the weird result of Italian immigrants who only have quite poor english having to communicate using that poor english to other italian immigrants because the bulk of them only speak an italian dialect that isn't understood by other italians.

Everybody has the ability., very few have the time or the inclination. I made more money out of the C language than I ever did out of French...

My sisters family brought up with Afrikaans as a second language, had no trouble absorbing Swedish, Dutch and German. My other sister speaks fluent French, Italian German and Greek, and einstein she aint.

I did Latin at school for 3 years, and French to O level. A bit of both has stayed with me, probably helped by holidays in France and inscriptions. SUch as the Harry Potter motto "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus".

My wife probably also helps. She is good enough in French to have been asked where she was from, as her accent couldn't be placed. And also speaks German and Spanish, not to mention a bit of Latin and a smattering of Swahili. Oddly she can't manage American English!

But everyone can learn? I had a colleague who had worked in Germany for

Andy

I had two years of Latin. Recall very little from it as I did not want Latin so probably had a poor attitude. My grade level was too high for Spanish that the lower levels got. Over the years there have been many uses for Spanish but never met anyone that speaks Latin on a regular basis.

Huh. I didn't have your advantages of a parochial education, but there was no restriction on who could take Spanish, German, or (IIRC) French. Latin was discontinued just when I came along wanting to study it.

In my high school college entrance kids might have been able to take Spanish if they whined long enough. I didn't know anyone that did. Going with the flow, 2 years of Latin followed by 2 years of French or German with German preferred for people headed toward STEM subjects in college.

College was more German on the theory that if French engineers ever did write anything you were better off not reading it.

I opted to take Latin in the first half of the 1980s. Two of my sons have taken it in the last few years (the middle son could not, as they weren't offering it for his year).

I was scolded for insisting I did not want to take Latin - kids in the advanced stream were supposed to take Latin. I was finally allowed to do Spanish, then German and Italian.