Foreign languages

I took three languages over the course of the years. I struggled with some but today I would whiz through them, I think.

i would love to learn how to speak japanese. its an interesting language but seems really hard. i did take basic spanish in school which taught me no ore than the basic i learned at home when my grandmother would occasionally insert a spanish word when she spoke.

Spanish was easy, but then my husband (boyfriend at the time) and I decided to take Latin one semester. Okay, a LOT of our problem was that we both fell asleep through 80% of class. Granted. But, the sentence structure for Latin seemed so arbitrary that at some point I just started putting words together in random order. I still, for the life of me, can't figure out how I ended up with a "B" in that class . . . .

Requires some effort for most of us,while some people seem to have a knack & can learn 4 or 5 languages in their lifetime.Then there's the ones who never even master their native tongue.

I actually really enjoyed learning French and Spanish at school. I wish now that I'd taken Spanish GCSE than French as Spanish is a more common language than French. It would have been great to try other languages as well like German or Japanese.

I started taking Spanish in 9th grade (14 years of age). Baaaaad idea. Not only are the old hormones demanding an exorbitant amount of attention at that age but, it's way past the age to introduce a new language and expect it to take. I know there are exceptions but, basically it's like ballet - in order to really get it - you have to start early. I'd say at least by the age of 4 or 5. And then, for the love of communication - try to engage the kid don't just conjugate verbs and memorize dialogs. The lowest, most useless event I recall was my last year of Spanish which involved about 6 weeks of watching the movie El Cid (in English too for god's sake - that was helpful!) while the teacher was working on his own projects. What an educational sham.

Once you learn one foreign language, they all become easy and even though you may not know the words, it certainly isn't jibberish.

Wouldnt have to learn a foreign language if we didnt have so many fucking mexicans hopping in this country

It would be tough if you took a course where you had to learn them all.

German was pretty easy

It's not that bad. I mean Chinese and Arabic would be hard to learn, but Spanish or English are much easier. I guess it depends which language you want to learn.

It's true that it depends greatly on the teacher's ability, the only subject that that matters to as much would be Math IMO. Have forgotten a great deal of Spanish since school.

A good teacher can make it easier, a bad one can make it truly hard. I had a good Spanish teacher my first year in high school, and I had a good time. I had a bad one my second year, and she made life hell. I then took Japanese in college and I had this nazi woman as an instructor. She was good-looking, but I swear she did S&M; in her spare time. The first day, she made us introduce ourselves in Japanese...WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION, IN 101! I have heard the Japanese are poor language teachers, so maybe that explains the poor Engrish they use. I had better instructors over the next three semesters, so it helped...but the key is to always get good teachers.

Oh gosh, yes. Could never get the hang of languages back in school. Of course now I regret it somewhat...

Not at all! I took 4 years of Spanish and 4 years of French, just to raise my GPA. I always had a knack for languages, and once I actually spent several years in each, I learned to love them for what they taught me, rather than for the grade that they could get me.

I say a cinch because I never took a foreign language in school! The older we get though the more difficult it is to learn a foreign language. In Europe they start kids at five and six years old and they learn like a sponge. What French I know I learned from the natives while living in France for awhile.

I had my first foreign language class in high school, which was Spanish. Since then, I have never received any grade lower than a B in any foreign language course.