Or more importantly, if your nation dominated the world, I would learn yours.

Learn a nation? Say what?

And it's kinda weird that English has become such a widely spoken language btw. It's actually a freaking hard language to learn, compared to say Spanish, French or German. (most western-european languages in short) Constant exposure through media and stuff do a lot for us non-native speakers tho. And we have it relatively easy, because English is part of the same family of languages as ours, ie Indo-European. Learning English for an Asian person is a huge feat, kinda like us learning Mandarin. Mm, seem to have been drinking too much coke. I don't drink coffee nor do I smoke, so it tends to get me nervous.

Anyway, I'd encourage anyone to learn other languages anyway. When you know a few you'll start to see how all things kinda fit in. And to use a complete wuss phrase (but not untrue): each language is a different window on the world.

So sayeth the wise Alaundo. Erh, Rinox.

I don't wanna learn any more languages. Being able to speak them would be cool, but it would be too much work since I don't really have a talent for it.
Plus I got pissed off at the government who wanted me to learn languages at school plus all the exact (phisiscs, math, chemics) things I was learning, while other motherfuckers only had to learn languages because they choose them.

Ox, no way english is easier that french man. All them freaking languages have male and female, and a million and one different accents, and goodness knows what letters taht don't exist, weird pronounciations and who knows what else.

English is a simple, straight forward language (probably because we are simple people) and most words can be said as spelled and still understood by an english person.

Well, it is. French has a very clear structure, as far as languages go. It only has 2-3 different accents btw, and stress always falls on the last syllable of a word. Whereas in English it can be either word-initial/medial/final.

The sex of words might sound hard, but in the end it's just something you memorize along with storing the idiom of the word itself in your French vocabulary. Like if you were to learn the word "school" in English, you'd be storing that in your "lexicon" of English words; now if you learn the French word for school you just memorize that plus its sex. (une école) It kinda just comes along.

I have learned both, and found that French came more natural to me than English, which is bizarre cos French isn't a Germanic language like Dutch, but English is. English has become a mix of several language traditions over the ages, with influences from French and Danish a.o. things. Old English (before it was influenced by many other lingo's) is much more alike Dutch than it is now. Maybe even more alike Dutch than present day English itself, heh.

Of course, because of the constant exposure my English has become better than my French by now. But English is, at its core, a hard and confusing language to learn. I say it's about time they did a serious spelling/grammar reform.

How so?

A little history lesson the English language.

Obviiously developed in Britain, but there have been many many additions over the past hundreds of years.

Firstly, there were the native English. These people were dumb and mostly inbred. They originated from Europe as a tribe called the Celts. This was the first "english" language and i doubt there are more than a few traces in it in todays english. Then came the Romans. They influenced it greatly, as the rest of Europe did. Then the Romans left, and Germanic came to settle as the Angles and the Saxons. This is where the English language got its resemblance to German. Then the Vikings decided they wanted a piece of the action, and so occupied half of England, thus inflencing the language a little (especially the names of things and places in Norfolk).

Then the French (Normans) came and conquested at 1066 and have not been removed. Thus French is also heavily evident.

Ive studied a few languages and know Italian flunetly and and at time amazed at how English is so similar to most European laguages.

There, perhaps youve leant something today kiddies?

If you think un/une or le/la is confusion in french, start with german for instance: der-die-das, and then you got all the "naamvallen" dunno the english word RESE-NESE-MRMN depending on what stands before it (dem-der-dem-den in case of the MRMN for example) aargh not going to try to explain it all since i will mix up things undoubtedly, i haven't spoken german for 7 years. Unless i'm real drunk, but that's not official german.

Anyway, i never looked at french as a difficult language to learn, i've always been good with languages, that's why i went to do science at uni.

I agree that English is harder to learn then other European languages.
I don't think I know many grammatical rules in English, but because I hear it so often I don't need to, things just sound odd if they're not correct.
Other languages are far better structured.

I agree, English is a tough language. It has many resemblances to other European langauges, but there is such an incredible amount of rule breaking that goes on. Spelling and grammar have far too many speccial cases and exceptions. Some structures of our language are 'backwards'. Bleh...anyway, it's a rough language. Latin is worse, though.

As far as an influx being good for a people/country/language.... diversity makes strength. Homogenization causes stasis which causes decay. As long as new people and ideas are being added to a culture, the culture will thrive. Anyway, I can give specific examples if need be, but this is my take on it at least.

I don't see how immigrants from Morrocco, Turkey and the Antilles (sp) made my country stronger.
That's the reason I don't want Turkey to join the union. there are enough of those people here already.
Now I do agree Chinese, Indian and Polish immigrants would make this country stronger. But those people are willing to work and integrate with society.

<edited by Satis for stupidly long lines screwing up my forum>

lol, damn crappy forum! erm, i mean... nice admin.

Right then, I'll be in the corner, with my simple english. Screw you all

*joins mole*

well i learn Japanese soo..... there hehehe
I've always been ok at languages, but as far as ever being fluent in another language... i don't think that is gonna happen!

lol @ sugas sig!