what's so hard about learning a language?

Moodrets
Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:04:21 +0000

Haha, yeti crab’s opening comment resonates deeply… although at my school, even the Latin kids make fun of themselves!

I have a cousin with virtually no strengths anywhere bar languages (to my great dismay, lol, I’m more a math and science guy). She’s fluent, last I counted, in six of them. Suppose it might have something to do with her mum traveling with her at an early age and her picking up whatever languages she encountered. Nowadays she can learn new languages pretty easily.

I’m fluent in a measly two (Russian and English) and proficient conversationally in a third (Spanish), although eventually I hope to learn Japanese and maybe German.

Hopefully as either our understanding of the human brain or the current status of technology improves, we can mechanically alleviate any linguistic barriers by developing automatic language primers or bonafide babel fish or something similar. ;D