[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by mike o'leary
languages and traditional language classes are very different things. traditional language classes, imho, spend too much time on the rediculous details of conjugations and what not, and not enough time teaching you to speak conversational [insert language here]. so doing poorly in a language class doesnt really reflect how hard or easy it is to pick up and understand that language. it more reflects how much detail the language has to it and stuff.

You're exactly right. Geez I said it again, me thinks it's becoming a habbit (note to self: STOP telling Mike he's right about things). Anyway, I can communicate with almost anyone in German. I say almost because Germans mummble naturally so sometimes it's hard to understand them and there are "sub-languages" in German. They aren't dialects just different languages like Spanish in Mexico and Spain except within the same country. Anyway, the point is that different people learn differently and it seems more iportant to learn to speak so that someone can understand you than to be able to recite conjugations and tense charts.

i dont know how they do it in spanish, but i know that french has like 20 different tences, all of which are conjugated differently, and that each tense has a different conjugation for each of the 6 basic subjects. and then sometimes they have agreement too but othertimes not.

German and French are very simmilar. I know the pain of these things, strong and weak verbs.