How do you say that in...

I would like to learn another language but I fear I will never be successful. I have tried, a few times, to learn enough Spanish to get by but I always fall short. It's a good language and is useful. It will get even more useful in the future as we have a growing Hispanic population. The grammar gets to me, though, much different then English.

I tried German back when I was in my teens... got nowhere, of course. A reasonably efficient language, I think. And I like efficiency, though I am not... efficient, that is.

I admire German, Spanish, and Italian... Russian is simply beyond me, as are Greek and Arabic and most of the Asian languages, French seems to be a nice language but the pronunciation seems lazy somehow. Like it was once formal and clipped but the speakers got lazy over time and began to mumble or slur the words.

I have great respect for anyone who speaks more than one language fluently enough to be understood. One language is just not enough, I think, and knowing two (or more) shows a mental ability I apparently don't have.

A young woman from Switzerland once remarked to a friend of mine that she had studied English for 5 years. My friend responded that he had studied it for 12 years and she seemed to have a better grasp of it than he.


There are various myths about how languages developed in different regions. I am sure there are many theories about language development. I have my own, of course, and it is based on genetics defining how sounds are made (timbre, tone, and so on) coupled with isolation of tribes in man's earliest history, followed by the expansion of tribes into other tribes' territory which results in the blending of words. Word meanings are merely agreed upon sound groupings for an idea... nouns, verbs, etc. Think about it, why does "tree" mean what it does? How does that sound (actually, group of sounds) denote a large thing with leaves, branches, and roots?

Linguists would probably laugh at me and my ignorance.