Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I figure if I start at one of the hardest languages ever, the rest will be smooth sailing from there, lol.

Start with Icelandic Now that's a hard language!

I consider myself lucky to have English as my mother tongue, since it's apparently quite hard to master otherwise.

haha, I never even knew Icelandic was a language till my French teacher started taking a course. He tried to teach us some of it too, complete fail. Some letters are just pronounced in a completely bizarre way :S

I hated French class in highschool. LOL! I always complained about learning a language nobody spoke, unless you went to Quebec! hahaha, of course that was my teenage attitude speaking.

I speak fluent Italian though, that's good enough for me

Originally Posted by ~*Sara*~

To be honest, most of the people that hate it, do because of the way it was taugh tin grade 9 and/or the teacher, in reality a lot of people would actually like to learn it over again-that's based on people at my junior/high school anyway.

I also tried German, and although I love both, French just has a special place in my heart XD, next to try is Spanish!

I took a spanish class in grade 10. It was super basic obviously, and having french as my first language, I did extremely well. I found I could understand what the teacher was saying on the first day of class without knowing any spanish. A lot of it is really the same XD

I don't know if Icelandic is really as hard as everyone says. It's pretty closely related to the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish. etc), which are distantly related to English. I think Russian is probably more complicated, lol.

And ya, English should have accents, or at least a hell of a lot of consistent diphthongs...

Originally Posted by Taunton

I consider myself lucky to have English as my mother tongue, since it's apparently quite hard to master otherwise.

lol, I think it's because English has so many irregularities and weird things that don't exist in other languages, like the continuous case (Why do we say I am going rather than just, I go :s).

I'm sure the super crappy spelling of the language doesn't make it any easier too .

I hated French since Grade 1 - I hoenstly see it as pointless (and don't yap about learning another language, communication, etc. because if it is of ANY importance, I'll hire a damn, professional translator. No mater how good you are, you will not be fluent by "taking French class.") because I know I have no interest in ever using it. I am not going to business and would not go to live in a non_Eng speaking country.

And, figure this out, I ended up with a 6 in IB SL French (a 90 to 95 in Ontario grades).

Well, French helps in getting jobs in Canada (even when you're not in Quebec), being bilingual is impressive. I agree that taking French class won't make you fluent completely, but taking it long enough will and going to a French-speaking country. However, you don't need to be fluent to enjoy the benefits of speaking another language. You can meet more people, live in different places, get more jobs, etc etc.

Originally Posted by britb

I hated French since Grade 1 - I hoenstly see it as pointless (and don't yap about learning another language, communication, etc. because if it is of ANY importance, I'll hire a damn, professional translator. No mater how good you are, you will not be fluent by "taking French class.") because I know I have no interest in ever using it. I am not going to business and would not go to live in a non_Eng speaking country.

How very, very naive. If it's of any importance, as you say, you simply will fail. You won't hire a professional translator when the time comes for you to interview for a job, or when the time comes for you to do business overseas (as you say, you aren't going into business, but that doesn't mean you won't be sent overseas for work/won't get the opportunity because you don't know another language).

Life isn't a vacation/tour. You can't just "hire" a professional translator whenever you need one. If you don't like learning languages, fine, but don't ignorantly cry out "learning french is pointless" because it's blatantly false and ignorant. All else equal, I have double the job opportunities you do just for being able to communicate in french.

Oh, and just to add: you're in science, and while I don't presume you intend on going into research or academia, being able to speak another language allows you to collaborate with more people in your field, something that is almost essential.

I COMPLETELY agree with you Taunton.

I LOVED French all my life (probably because I was ok at it)... I only wish I could have taken it in Grade 11-12, and continue, because I honestly enjoyed it. I DO like languages, and I'm good at them, even though I'm not going into Linguistics or anything. French has been one of the subjects that, sadly, has been overlooked by school boards in a lot of place and hence there are a lot of crappy teachers our there that either don't care, don't follow the curriculum, or don't know how to teach (BELIEVE ME, I've had 6 teachers in 12 years, and only 2 of them were good, but we only realized that when they left and a WORSE one replaced them :(...).

I wish that my family remembered how to speak their native language (hindi) so I would be at least a LITTLE bilingual >.< But being bilingial is really an ability to take advantage of because, least of all, no matter WHAT anyone says, it's a FACT that it counts on your resume and in interviews .

Originally Posted by Taunton

Start with Icelandic Now that's a hard language!

Jumping on the hard languages to learn bandwagon...try Ojibwe. The dialects are very different and there are soooo few resources since the number of speakers is dwindling so quickly.

I have to take Introductory Mohawk this year...hopefully it's easier than Intro Ojibwe.

And for everyone who wants to take Spanish after learning French...I found I'd confuse the two languages often. I don't know if it was because I only took French from grades 4-10 and learned bits and pieces of Spanish when I was really young, or if it was a common thing.

Taunton hinted on this, but a lot of graduate programs require some proficiency in a language other than English...so you do need to learn more than one language in academia!

When I get a better handle on Spanish (from reading...at least that way I can "study" at home) I'm going to work on French again.

Originally Posted by lorend

Jumping on the hard languages to learn bandwagon...try Ojibwe. The dialects are very different and there are soooo few resources since the number of speakers is dwindling so quickly.

Is it hard because the language is hard, or is it hard because details about the language aren't well documented?

Both.

There are no cognates...so it's not like a lot of other languages when you know there is a similar word of but with a different spelling that's the same in English. For example night/nuit/nacht kinda sound the same and mean the same thing.

Some of the names for the animals are related to what the animals "say", so a crow is aandek (pronounced like on-deck) and chicken is baakawaan (bock-ah-wan-), so that helped me a bit.

And the fact that the entire language is verb based and not noun-based. It's really confusing. For example the word for bicycle (ditibiwebishkigan(ag) ) means 'the metal contraption you grip with your butt'. University (gabe-gikendaasoowigamig(oo n)) translates to 'the big school', and when school in itself is broken down it is 'the place where you go to learn'. The examples I gave here are a different dialact than is taught at Mac though.

We had two different textbooks and a bunch of different handouts from the class last year and they would have different spellings and pronunciations of the same words...and some weren't the same at all.

Originally Posted by lorend

For example the word for bicycle (ditibiwebishkigan(ag) ) means 'the metal contraption you grip with your butt'.

... LOL That's pretty funny... imagine if we talked like that everyday in English

Haha, so true. That's actually pretty creative though