Its getting quiet 'round these parts.

English is a very complicated language. Sometimes people even add letters to pronounce the same word differently. Like "color" and "colour." The former is pronounced col-or, exactly how it's spelled, and the latter is pronounced with an irrelevant and unnecessary U, thus the pronunciation becomes col-our. Our as in sounds like hour.

It's just ridiculous. I guess it makes sense since color is pronounced without an accent, and colour is pronounced with an accent. I'm not sure why people even use accents to begin with. People all around the world should begin to talk like an American. America is the only way to obtain freedom, because we invented it.

I actually speak German. Lol.

Just when you thought I couldn't get any more cuddly.

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Originally Posted by Rowan

I actually speak German. Lol.

Just when you thought I couldn't get any more cuddly.

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Woah. Did you learn it? How long did it take?
You, sir, have my respect. :D
(And you still think that English is harder to learn than German? Even after speaking German?)

I want to learn Dutch or German, but I don't know which. I suspect Dutch may be easier for me.

Then Maori. The maybe Arabic, but I don't know how hard it'd be to learn how to write all over again.

My French is getting pretty good, but my pronunciation is really poor. I know what words should sound like, I just struggle to actually make several of the sounds. It's also pretty hard to practice pronuciation by itself. I have the deepest of sympathies for people learning to speak English. I have become more patient with them and I am getting a better grasp of the kinds of constructions non-native speakers find tricky. Like "find tricky".

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Originally Posted by Freya

Woah. Did you learn it? How long did it take?
You, sir, have my respect. :D
(And you still think that English is harder to learn than German? Even after speaking German?)

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Its an ongoing process. I found German 'easier' to learn because of how much of it is in fact similar to english. Of course, der, die and das makes learning difficult, but thats about it. Its taken me about 9 years of casual study. That includes learning words that you might not often hear as much by listening to german music groups, in particularly, Rammstein.

Rowan, do you have any certifications (like CEF) for your German? They offer them where I'm studying French, but I don't know if I can be bothered; it'll just put pressure on me to study it when I should be working on other things, and probably take the fun out of it if I have to "prepare" for it. It feels as if a certification would only be useful if you were applying for jobs in Europe. Elsewhere (excluding Spanish in the USA, probably) an employer would be happy to just hear you speak it, if they cared at all that you could speak something that is not English...

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Originally Posted by Alpha

Rowan, do you have any certifications (like CEF) for your German? They offer them where I'm studying French, but I don't know if I can be bothered; it'll just put pressure on me to study it when I should be working on other things, and probably take the fun out of it if I have to "prepare" for it. It feels as if a certification would only be useful if you were applying for jobs in Europe. Elsewhere (excluding Spanish in the USA, probably) an employer would be happy to just hear you speak it, if they cared at all that you could speak something that is not English...

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No I dont. I think you need to be fluent in a language if you are going to attain certification for it, and in my opinion, the only way to actually become fluent in any language is to speak it frequently, otherwise the subtleties of any language (which are important) are often forgotten if not practiced. Hell, how many native english speakers do you know that still cannot pronounce or say words correctly or without using slang? haha

The only people who speak German are Nazis! Or Germans. Or people who speak German.