If I have a use for a language, (work or travel) I wouldn't mind at all. At the time, our school system was set up with fewer sections per day to fit in required courses and any electives that we wished to take. With the courses that I had to take for college entry requirements, there were not many left to fit in true electives that would have allowed for a well rounded education rounded out with courses that I found interesting.

Except for a couple vacations down into the border states, I haven't had any real opportunities to use a second language. The volume of reading I do in my native language combined with continuing my education and my work keep me occupied with more than 24 hours in a day as it is.

Aw come on Robert:

You don't have to be shy on these types of forums as long as you are civil.

So Scott!, is it boxers or briefs?

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

No, -I'm Good Ole, Pure American English. In Language, and a Lot of my Personal Identification and Outlook. I'm of both Irish and Bavarian German Extraction, -with even a Small Amount of Native American Indian in me, -of which I'm kind of particularly Proud!

Found this out only about Two Years ago. I Know Not yet of What Tribe(s). Its Small though, -on the Order of 6 % or so. This has been Found and is Backed by both Standard Geneological Research, and a Basic DNA Test.

My Indian Side could Figure into my Great, Longstanding, and Special Love of the (Truly So Very) Great Outdoors! But I Like to Think I so Have it About me anyway! Even if I wouldn't have an Ounce of Native American Indian in me!

But No, -I am Not Persian / Iranian, Nor of some Other "Non-English Origined", Culture or Language. (Excepting my Euro-Indian).

I can See how the "Reza" in my Username could suggest Iranian. But it is Simply Not the Case!

I Simply Like the Name a Good Deal! This Iranian / Mideastern Name.

Its Not my Real Name, BTW. Nor is "Scott" or "Logan" Together they are just my Username here.

I've Mentioned my Identifying with and Admiring the Shah (In All his Many Positive Aspects), in a recent Post. Iranian he Happens to be. So this is One Reason I've Chosen it as Part of my Username. But Not the Only One.

For I just happen to Like and Identify with the Name Anyway! This Middle Eastern Guy's Name.

I like to Pronounce it as both (Reeza, -Rhyming with "Squeeze Ya"), and as (Rayza). Either Way Does Fine with me!

"Scott" is simply Long my Very Favorite Guy's First Name. I Think it Very Well and Closest, Describes the Real Me! And is the Guy's First Name I would Prefer to Have! If I could have Chosen at Birth, or Otherwise have my Druthers about it!

And it has to be "Scott" with Two T's! As the Name Usually and Conventionally is. "Scot" with only One "T", -would be Flat and Anticlimactic! And Not the Real Me! (Though "Scot" is Perfectly Fine for Positively Denoting the Scots and Things Scottish!).

And "Logan" is just by Far, -my Favorite Surname! It's a Very Outdoorsy Name! And I Feel and Know Myself to be Such a Very Outdoorsy Person! It Begins with an "L", -one of my Very Favorite Letters!

(My Top 5 are L / R / J / S / and M, -in that Descending Order. Though "L" and "R" are Co-Placing Number One Toss Ups, and "S" and "M" are Perhaps Co-Ranking Toss Ups too!).

(I See "R" as a Medium Briteish "Green" Letter, -and "L" as a Medium Brite "Yellow" Letter! Though I am Not particularly Synesthetic!).

It, "Logan", -Neatly has 5 Letters to it, -as does "Scott". It Too is a / the Surname that I would Preferentially Like to Have!

By and Large, -We're Usually Stuck with the Name we're Born With, -Like it or No! Its Often a "Family Passdown" Matter too! I Duly Respect That!

But Some Day, -when more Financially Able, -I'm Looking at Legally Changing my Name! To One that *Is* Sufficiently Me! It Won't Neccessarily be my Username.

I Personally Dislike Two of my Actual, Given Names, -and the Other One is Pretty Much just a So So One for me.

But "ScottRezaLogan" is Not my Actual Name, -but Only my Username here. And I'm Not "Iranian", Nor of Many Other "Foreign" Extraction. The "Reza" of it has Nothing to Do with Possibly, -from your View, -of my being Iranian. <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I Have Gotten Bitten by the Language Bug!, a Number of years ago.

Before then for Most of my Life, my Attitude toward Foreign Languages was, -"Foreign Languages, -Nice, -But English is Good Enough for me!" -With the Exception of my Long Beloved Spanish. But that too was Vastly on Inactive Status.

I am Seriously and Enjoyably Self Teaching myself a Number of them! Its a Labor of Love!, -and I Do Soak Them Up like a Sponge!

Its Both a Love and a Strong Suit, on the One Hand, -and an Income Oppurtunity and Marketable Skill on Another, -at One and the Same Time! I'm Looking at Getting Established in Such, in an Intermediate if Not Immeadiate Future. It's One of Those "I Think I Can Do This!", Kind of Things in Life! This is One Area I Aim to Set Roots Down Into!

It can of course have Great Survival and Preparedness Applications as well! It can so Come In Mighty Helpful and Handy! Regarding Survival and Getting Out of Tight Spots! And Getting Valuable Help and Information from the Locals and so on! Prices can Go Down in the Local Marketplace, Etc! Plus the Real, Quality Interaction with Such Locals, as Some have Mentioned. We Can Find Ourselves Stranded Anywhere in the World! And a Majority of that World Out There!, -Does Not Understand or Speak our own English!

So this Figures into Why I occassionally Touch on Foreign Languages and Linguistics, in some Posts. Including on their Great and Useful Applicability toward Survival!

Again, -Not Iranian here, -Nor a Natural Speaker of a "Non-English" Foreign Language! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> [color:"black"] [/color] [email]gear_freak[/email]

I took Latin & French in highschool & Spanish in college. Found out I am "linguistically challenged". Must be one of those right brain-left brain things.
gino <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Linguistically challenged or not I have come to the conclusion the people of English speaking countries - or more precisely, the UK - are not challenged but lazy.
The reality hit home when I visited Holland and Germany. Nearly everyone I met, young or old could at the very least hold a basic conversation with me.
There are a few who refuse in principle to talk English to the English, (the French are famous in that respect) as in general, we have taken little or no time to try to learn thier language, and seem not even to make an attempt at it. In thier eyes (and I agree!) it is arrogance for us to assume that they can speak our language, whilst we make no attempt at thiers.
I do sympathise with thier cause, but I fear it will make little or no difference in the long run.
Finally, I'm no linguist either, but I do wish I had tried a little bit harder in my French and Latin classes at school though - C'est la vie <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Depend's, if your doing alot of travel or live in NYC <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I have to deal with Spanish{differant dialect's}, Russian ,Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Viet Nam, Jewish, Polish, ect,ect. you start to pick up some.One of the girl's is from Mexico and she already speak's Cantonese as her third langauge. The other's all speak Spanish, English, Mandarin, Cantonese and some village dialect's. Me, I am to old to learn compleat new stuff other than what i learned under The Corp's enforced wandering's around the world <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Scott, thank you for that thorough and interesting journey through the evolution of your username. I am fascinated by languages, though the only language which I can even remotely converse in besides English (and that is questionable at times), is Spanish. I'd love to be conversant in a non-Germanic/Romance language, such as, say Mandarin Chinese or Korean.

I have some small percentage (a sixteenth, I believe) of Creek Indian blood. I've really been remiss in investigating this more thoroughly.

A friend from Africa says that there, it is customary to speak the language of the person you are conversing with. For example if my native language is English and yours is French, then I would talk to you in French and you would talk to me in English. She said most people could speak 25 or more languages. Not dialects, but distinct languages. Boggles my mind.

She also says;
Speaks three languages = Tri-lingual.
Speaks two language = Bi-lingual
Speaks one language = American.

Hello. I Didn't Know till a little bit ago whether that Post of Mine "Took" to the Site or Not. (The one explaining the Evolution of my Username, in Answer to your Question). For I'd been Having Error Message Problems for about the Last Day. I had No Way of Knowing if it was Successfully Submitted. I can now See that it was. (I had used the Back Button towards making a Printout).

Another Post to UT Genuinely was Lost in Cyberspace somewhere! This Coincidentally Occurred when a Post of his was being Tranferred *to* this Forum. But a Later One to you *Did* Take!

NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS-

We both Share some Native American Indian in us, -Having that in Common.

CHINESE And KOREAN / LANGUAGES-

A Few Words on Mandarin Chinese and Korean.

MANDARIN CHINESE-

"Everyone" Thinks of Mandarin or any Other Form of Chinese as Extraordinarily Hard! In some Partial Respects, -It is Quite Involved and a Challenge! But in Many Others, -It is Astonishingly Straightforward and Easy!

Two Chief Challenges or Difficulties are A), -The Characters. And B), -Whats known as the Tone System.

---CHINESE CHARACTERS-

Briefly and Basically, -Characters are just Pictorial Symbols for Given Words (and/or Syllables). It would be like if we Dreamt Up a Symbol, -for every given word of English. As Such, -They Don't have an Alphabet! My Mind was somewhat Blown the First Time I Heard that! Character Based Languages have Real Disadvantages!, -Along with some Advantages. Chinese has been a Developed Language for so Long, -that Elements once Making Sense, -Now Often has No Rhyme or Reason Pattern to it anymore! Similar to how our own English Spelling has Often Gotten Out of Whack! Many Other Languages have Far More Regular Spelling. Our Own English is one of the Harder World Languages!

Each Chinese Character Represents one Syllable. Many Chinese Words are of One Syllable / One Character Only, -At One Time All Chinese Words were so. Nowadays though, Many Chinese Words also are of Two or Three Syllables, More Rarely, of Four or even More. Such "Words" would be Shown as Two or Three Characters Next to one another.

Chinese and its Characters, however, -are Composed of Relatively Few Syllables. Far Less than the Amount we have in our own English. This is a Handicap for Chinese. It Doesn't Have to be that way. But Somewhere Back When, -China Developed only that many! It may have once Worked Fine! But its now Modern Times, -Not Earlier Historical Ones! And Thus Many More Words than Before. Characters Themself are Not the Problem here!, -Just Continueing to Try to Get By on rather Few Syllables is!

Characters are Composed of Two Elements. Part of the Character is What's Called the Radical. There are 214 Differnt Radicals in Mandarin Chinese. It would be like as if we had 214 Different Required Syllables in All of our English Words. For Example, -We might have 2,000 of our Words Requiring "Op" to be Attached, Another 1,500 Requiring "Kel", Another 4,000 Requiring "Lob" to be Attached, -and so on thruout All the Words of our Language! The Radical Looks Characterlike, as Does the Other Part of the Character. Originally and Long Ago, -Both Made Sense! Occassionally One More or Less Still Does, -but Often Anymore They No Longer Do! It Often now Comes Down to Just Memorizing them! As with Irreagular Verbs in French or Spanish, though, -There's little Tricks of the Trade! Some "Regularities Within the Irreagularities"!

Chinese has various Set Particularities for Actually Writing the Characters. Unusual for a Language, -the Script is Actually Artistic! And the Chinese Seriously View it as an Art.

However, With All Due Respect, -but also as a Practical Matter, -I'll Draw a Character "As I Obviously See it Looking Before me!" If it Looks like a Box above a Triangle!, -Thats How I'll Remember and Draw it! Many Characters can be so Drawn Easily Enuff, -Many Though, -are More Involved and Complex. Still my Method can Still Go Far! Even with Many of those More Complex Ones.

Why Does Chinese even have Characters?! Actually, Other Major Worlwide Languages of Antiquity had Characters. Or Pictorial Representations a Lot Like them! Ancient Egyptian, the Sumerian and Babylonian Languages, Etc, Etc. They however over Time had Gotten Away from that! Alphabets and Letters to Represent Sounds or Syllables have been Found in Many Respects, -to be So Much Better! China however Held On to it's Own! It Didn't Make such an Evolution or Change! For Better or Worse, -This is What Chinese Culture and Civilization had Decided. Its One of the Very Very Few Current World Languages yet Doing So! But it just happens to be by Far, -*the* Chief World Language! Via Virtue of Sheer Volume and Numbers.

A Romanization Scheme had been Worked Out, -the Pinyin System. But Beyond Such, -Chinese Words and Syllables are Composed of their Character Representations.

---TONES!-

The Other Major Difference and Difficulty with Mandarin and Other Forms of Chinese, -is the *Tone System*! The Relative Paucity of Syllables in Chinese, -Probably has a Lot to Do with this!

Basically, if we had Tones in English, -Which we Don't!, -Thank God! But if we Did, -Our Word "Box" might Mean Both "Box", "House", "Car", and "Tree"! -Depending on How you Say it! You might have to Say the First of these Four, -"Box", kinda Low and Flat! And That and Only That would Mean "Box"! Now if you Next Say that Same Word "Box", -but with a Rising Tone in your Voice, -It would Mean "House". If you then Say "Box" High and Flat, -that could Mean "Car". And if you then Say it in a Dipping, Falling Off Fashion, -the Word Still Spelled as "Box", -Would Here Mean "Tree"!

In a Nutshell, -Thats What Tones Are. Mandarin Chinese has Four of them! But thats Mild Compared with Cantonese / Southern Chinese, -which has Nine! Actually Tones Aren't so Hard as they at First Appear! Our Language is Full of Ruffly Similar Such. "Read" and "Reed", for example. Or "Lead" as to Lead People Down a Path, vs. "Lead" as in the Element that you Mine! These are No Insuperable Problem for Us! Tones Aren't Nearly so Difficult as they First Appear either. But in our example here, -you'd Have To Remember to Actually Say "Box" in these Four Different Ways! If you Want People to Think of a "Tree" when you Mean "Tree", or a "House" when you Mean "House"! We Have No Tones in our Own Language. Most Languages in Fact Don't. Tonal Languages are Rather Rare! But in Asking a Question, -or in Expressing Surprise or Emotion, -We Automatically Use Whats Actually a Tone! We Do so Naturally and Have No Problem with it! So Tones, -While New and Different!, -are Not Insuperably Difficult!

But Tones are a Must! In Mandarin, Thai, and Other Chinese Languages!

---CLASSIFIERS-

As are Something Called Classifiers! Arabic seems top also have Classifiers, -Only There I Think they Call them Collectives! Classifiers are Plenty Easier than Tones!

THE CHINESE "ROMANCE" LANGUAGES-

Mandarin, Cantonese, and the Other Six or so Major Chinese Dialects / Languages, -Compare in Similarity to One Another, -the Way Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and French are variously Similar and Different from One Another. Or Say German, the Scandanavian Languages, and Dutch. Mandarin is of course by Far, -the Largest Chinese Language and the Standard!

SYLLABLE SHORTAGE And CHARACTERS AGAIN-

Its Not that Chinese Cannot Accommodate Many / and Larger Words! It is Very Perfectly Capable of that! Its just that its Shortage of Syllables, -and even Individual Characters!, -Often Makes Things More Difficult, than they'd Otherwise be!

MUCH SIMPLICITY TO CHINESE!-

Beyond Characters and Tones, -Much of Mandarin / Chinese is Very Straightforward and Simple!

DON'T NEED TO LEARN CHARACTERS!-

One Can Learn Only the Spoken Language and the Pinyin Romanization! One Does Not Neccessarily Need to Learn the Characters! The Same for Japanese and its Script!

I Suggest that you Take this Route, at least at First, -if Ever you Want to Take Up Mandarin Chinese! If Early or Anytime Later you Want to Tackle Characters, -Fine. But they are Not a Must! Tones however, Still Are! There's No Way Around them! They can Become a Lot Easier Once you Get a Little Used to them, though!

KOREAN-

Korean, now, is One I also Particularly Like! (Mandarin, -Not so Particularly! But it's Importance as a World Language, and Any Future "Rise of China" Matters as may be Coming, -Has Had me Up it a Few Notches, on my Scale!). Korean now is NOT a Tone Language! Its in No Way Related to Chinese! In Fact, its Very Radically Different! It has a Symbolic Alphabet and Script of it's Own, -but they are Not "Korean Characters"! It's Similar to How Greek or Rushan has a Radically Different Alphabet from Most of us Other Europeans! But Neither Greek nor Russian is a Character Language.

Now Korean, as Well as Japanese, -has Taken In and Adapted for it's Own Use, -Many Chinese Characters! Hundreds and More Years Ago. Thats just Because China was *the* Area's Developed Civilization back then! The Learned Scribes and Scholars were there! They Set the Standard! They were the Ones Others so Sought Out. Kind of Like How Ancient Greece and Rome, Set Many of our Own Standards. Korean and Japanese are a Mixture, -of their Own Scripts along with Such Borrowed Chinese Characters! *But in NO Other Way!, -are They Any Bit Related to Chinese!* That's similar to the "False Friends" aardwolfe Talked About, -Between our Own Western Languages. The Borrowing of Chinese Characters, is a Kind of False Appearing Friend! But They and Chinese are as Different as the Arctic and the Tropics!, from One Another!

Korean is Far More Akin, to Languages like Turkish and Finnish! Though even there, its Quite a Distant and Iffy "Relation". But this Further Shows it's Great Difference and Dis-Similarity from Chinese!

Korean has Taken In Not Only Many Old Chinese Characters, -but Many Chinese Words as Well! Still, -It's Otherwise Poles Apart!

Korean, though No Simple Language, -would be the Easier of the Two to Try Learning. If it's a Choice between Korean and Mandarin Chinese.

I'm Done for Now! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]gear_freak[/email]

Two Languages Better Than One to Keep Mind Young

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two languages are better than one when it comes to keeping the brain young, Canadian researchers reported on Monday.

Older adults who grew up bilingual had quicker minds when tested than people who spoke only one language, the researchers found. They showed less of the natural decline associated with aging.

The tests of people who grew up speaking English and either Tamil or French suggested that having to juggle two languages keeps the brain elastic and may help prevent some of the mental slowing caused by age, the researchers said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=st..._bilingual_dc_1

Time to elasticize my brain. Now, where are those Berlitz tapes...