Quote:
Originally Posted by Buzzard
It's funny. I work with a Romanian and he told me how similar it is to Italian. But when he speaks it though, it sounds very eastern European, much more like a Hungarian speaker I know than any Italians I've heard.  |
I bet your romanian co-worker has been lived in Transylvania for his whole life.
Anyhow, I studied Latin in grade 7. English and French for 8 years. Mandatory in school. As a romanian language speaker I find these languages VERY similar (grammar especially): Italian, French, Spanish and Romanian. I find Portuguese very hard to understand. I love English because grammar is WAY easier than all above.
Bottom line, the best time in one's lifetime to learn a second, third,etc language is in early years (age 4 to 18) imo. It's all about memory and "cementing" the new things through excercise. A lot of exercise. I dont want to discourage anyone 18+ by saying that, but the effort to be put in learning a new language is definetly bigger. Hearing the language all the time makes things easier, of course, but you have to go over the grammar first. "je me souviens" won't make much sense if you dont know what tense is that!
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Found the link below interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20lang.html
regards,
selinis