[German] Andere Sprache

[gatitoverde]

What are those, Portuguese and Italian?

[Tomisimo]

Italian and Portuguese (in that order) I think.

[Rusty]

Yep.
Here's Russian, a language I studied in college: я согласен

[Tomisimo]

Wow, so Rusty speaks at least 5 languages! You are my hero.

[gatitoverde]

I started studying Russian about a year ago and got to the point where I was picking my way through a children's book. It was my first experience with a complete lack of articles. I remember being blown away by that. I also remember finding German's case system extremely easy in comparison afterward. I figure I'll return to Russian a few years from now. I seem to be able to go a long time without practicing a language and then whip myself into shape in a few days. Admittedly though, when I returned to Spanish this time, I had to look up a few simple words like correo and pasa. I remember being shocked that I didn't remember pasa. Evitar was another one.

[Tomisimo]

I remember after studying Spanish for a few years, I wanted to start on another language. I signed up for a Russian course, got scared after looking through the textbooks, dropped it and started German.

[Rusty]

I recognize several when I hear them spoken or see them written, but I only claim to speak English and Spanish. I've tinkered with the others out of curiosity.
Me traban la lengua los demás.

[Rusty]

Not only does Russian lack articles, there is no present tense 'to be.' If those two hurdles aren't enough, the cases (6 of them, compared to 4 in German) will get you.
Finnish has 8 cases, in case you wanted to know which language is the hardest to learn.

[gatitoverde]

I'm working on Chinese right now und das ist eine andere Geschichte but a remember one of the hardest parts about Russian was just not having very many cognates to work with. Of course there's a lot of Greek, it having been the lingua franca of the East, but there's not that much call for planet, comet, asteroid and whatnot in everyday speech.

[gatitoverde]

I always say I can speak Spanish, read French fluently, read German, though slowly, and then pick my way through this and that if you give me a dictionary.