:O! Neato. My birthday is December 12th. So I guess we won't be the same age very long. xD (Sorry!)

I knooow! It's frustrating and rewarding at the same time. You look at something and am all "Hey I know what that says!" but for the life of you can not remember how to ask for a glass of water. Haha. :P Languages are so funny.

Pfft! I've been studying on/off (mostly off) for maybe.. 5+ years, but it is sooo embarrassing for me, because I am definitely not at that level. I'm more at a First Year level. It wasn't until recently that I actually started focusing hard core on learning it.
(Work is so draining...)
And I agree. I blend people together all the time. xP

Aw... I guess that ruins it. Oh well. ^^;

Oh yeah, that's right. You've been teaching yourself haven't you? I wouldn't be terribly embarrassed if I were you then. It's definitely a lot harder doing it yourself than it is with a teacher giving you assignments and correcting your mistakes. That's why I'm not sure I'd ever be able to teach myself a language, because I'm always questioning whether or not I'm doing things right. T_ T

That pumpkin in your sig, did you carve it yourself?

Cela fait longtemps que je ne suis pas venue ici ^^

Oui! Ça fait vraiment longtemps Doll! Ça va toi? Ton avi est chouette!

Ça va bien merci ^^ et toi?

Merci beaucoup :)

Et la je fais un effort pour bien écrire mon français pour que tu comprennes tout! lol

Yeah. Boo. :(

Haha yeeeah. I really would like to take a class but my town is totally country. Lmao. Or they would be expensive. There is one program I would love to try but I wouldn't want to go alone and it's insanely expensive. One of those, study abroad programs.
I'm the same way! It's hard for me to make sentences because I'm afraid I'm saying/typing it incorrectly. But I recently watched a video of a girl who has been living in Japan for 7 years and said "You know, you're going to make mistakes. So don't be afraid to. That's how you learn, when you get embarrassed." Something along those lines. So I'll be trying harder to start speaking it and not worrying so much about makin mistakes. I never thought I could teach myself either, but I'm slowly getting there. :)

Yup. I just carved a simple pumpkin this year. :P

@ Doll: Oui ca va bien! Aujourd'hui ma famille va fêter mon anniversaire. J'ai hâte de voir les cadeaux. ^^;

Merci! J'ai bien compris ce que tu as écrit. ^_^


@IkuAki: Yeah, I live in the country as well so the nearest place where I would really be able to take classes is an hour drive away. I studied abroad but it's pretty expensive. I went to Paris but I imagine it would be a lot more expensive to go to Japan with the flight being much longer and the exchange rate being down.

As for mistakes, I'm not afraid of them when I'm speaking to people and stuff like that. It's important to just make yourself understood there and just do your best. What I'm talking about is understanding grammar points and doing like workbook exercises. You never know if what you did is right unless you have the corrections in the back or something. That's why it would be hard for me. I'm used to learning languages in school and having someone correct my homework and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Aw, it's cute! Did you enter it into the pumpkin carving contest during the event?

Ah bien Bonne Fête ^^

Merci! C'est juste ma famille donc ça ne va pas être très très amusant mais chouette quand même. On mangera du pizza et j'ai fait un gâteau. ^^;

@IkuAki: Yeah, I live in the country as well so the nearest place where I would really be able to take classes is an hour drive away. I studied abroad but it's pretty expensive. I went to Paris but I imagine it would be a lot more expensive to go to Japan with the flight being much longer and the exchange rate being down.

As for mistakes, I'm not afraid of them when I'm speaking to people and stuff like that. It's important to just make yourself understood there and just do your best. What I'm talking about is understanding grammar points and doing like workbook exercises. You never know if what you did is right unless you have the corrections in the back or something. That's why it would be hard for me. I'm used to learning languages in school and having someone correct my homework and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Aw, it's cute! Did you enter it into the pumpkin carving contest during the event?

I think the closest one here would be either an hour or two hours away. I think the college that's two hours away has classes, but of course, you have to pay for them. Being an adult sucks. You have to pay for EVERYTHING. XD

Oh! Haha. I'm more afraid of making mistakes in front of people, but I totally get what you mean. I have tons of workbooks and stuff but I'm hardly even through them. A lot I got, but couldn't start on because I didn't know hiragana and katakana. Which reminds me though, I've learned those two; so now I can start on those. :D

I did enter, but I didn't win anything for it. :P I just wanted the extra rare. XD
I did get runner-up in the Scary category for the drawing part. :P

I think the biggest setbacks in French, for me, is the gender assignment to like.. everything, the varying degrees of pronunciation, and conjugation. D; Oh conjugation!

Tu as fait TON propre gâteau?? La c'est nul lol

@ IkuAki: Yeah, I really miss having a student discount on things. I still have my college car though so I can use it to get into some museums cheaper etc. until I start looking too much older...

I know a few words in Japanese but I definitely don't know how to write them. Learning the different writing systems always seemed like it would be a nightmare to me. T_ T

Oh, that's cool! I managed to get first in the cute pumpkin carving category. I was really quite surprised. I had carved it a few days prior and took a picture so I figured I'd enter it just for the heck of it.

Yeah, try German then! They have not two genders but three! There's male, female and neutral! That makes things even harder. I think the genders is the problem I'm always going to have. You think you remember something being masculine but then it turns out to be the opposite. You really have to try hard to memorize the genders of the words as you learn them but since we don't have that in the English language it's quite difficult for us to remember that component. T_ T

@ Doll: Oui... Je suppose mais ma mère était trop occupée avec son nouveau compte FaceBook de le faire. T_ T Moi, je déteste FaceBook. Je ne créerai jamais un compte.

@Zig: Ah yeah at least there are student discounts. I usually mooch off of military discounts too, but not for too long. Lmao.

Yeeeah, the different writing systems is what's probably daunting to most people. It was for me. Then I read about it, had people tell me over in better terms what it meant and then finally unserstood. Lmao. It's definitely hurdles learning them, but they aren't too hard (minus kanji XD). You just have to push yourself to learn the same thing but different symbols twice. XD Comparing it to French though, I think Japanese is easier, to me. Mainly because it's more straight-forward. No genders, only five ways of pronuncuation. There is however a degree of speaking which sometimes gives me a headache. Like.. formality of speaking based upon who you're talking to. But I think if you only learn from anime or manga or a "slang" type book then you will probably learn formal first.

Really?! Omg competition! :P That's really good though. Congratulations. :D

I look at German and go "oaehrlg." XD If I was really good at learning languages, I would give German a try. I've slightly looked over it, like phrases and whatnot and for right now, no thanks. xD
It sucks more because not all languages have the same gender assignments. I would be mega confsued if I was learning two langauges and the gender for one thing was opposite for both.. So confusing. With all the confusions English has, I am very glad it does not have gender assignment. xD
--
Here's a cute video. Sharing here because of the french in the beginning. x3
Cuteness

Well there's the formal and informal in French too but I imagine it's a lot more complicated in Japanese since their culture seems to put a high importance on politeness in social relationships with the use of the honorifics and that.

German grammar is quite difficult. Instead of just having different tenses there are different cases like in Latin. I'd probably give you a headache if I tried to explain but basically there's the regular tense, a tense for direct objects like "She ate the apple" and then one for indirect objects like "I gave the apple to her" and then another case for possessive like "The childrens' bike". There cases affect the adjective endings and conjugation, etc. It's a lot to learn at first.

That video is pretty cute. My only problem is that it spells "deux" wrong. T_ T

Oh yeah? I don't remember anything about formality of speech in French. xD But maybe because I'm sure the class was based mostly in formal. Yeah. @_@ It is quite a bit, but sloooowly I'm getting it.

Holy crap! Yeah. I think I might just skip German. XD And I was thinking of Latin too, but not so much anymore. I would like to learn Braille (English and Japanese) and American Sign Language.

Yeah I noticed that too. Oooh well.

Icelandic (my native language) is about as difficult grammatically as German, so grammar is usually pretty easy to understand for me. English is a bit retarded when it comes to grammar, I always feel a bit sorry for native English speakers learning a second language with a lot of grammar.. must be so confusing at first. :x

Et je suis desolée que je n'ai été pas ici pour longtemps.. pour parler (oú écrire) le français je dois bien réfléchir, et depuis que je suis en train d'écrire mon mémoire, quand j'arrive en Mene, je voudrais ne penser pas.. :sweat:
Mais je voudrais aussi m'entraîne en français.. et voilà, je suis ici maintenant. Comment ça va?

Ooo neat, Icelandic. :D
Haha, what do you mean retarded?

Yarr.
Ehh, just that English has ridiculously simple grammar and you hardly learn any of it, so native English speakers who haven't learned another language or learned English grammar rules specifically have no idea of the terms or how it works. Or at least not in my experience.

Ah. Yeeah. XD

Originally Posted by IkuAki

Oh yeah? I don't remember anything about formality of speech in French. xD But maybe because I'm sure the class was based mostly in formal. Yeah. @_@ It is quite a bit, but sloooowly I'm getting it.

Holy crap! Yeah. I think I might just skip German. XD And I was thinking of Latin too, but not so much anymore. I would like to learn Braille (English and Japanese) and American Sign Language.

Yeah I noticed that too. Oooh well.

There's the vous form which is formal and the tu form which is informal. And then there's phrases and stuff that aren't used in formal context and stuff like in any language. I would love to learn French sign language. And in doing so, I would know about 60% of American sign language as well because they are 60% compatible with each other. Amazing, ne?

Originally Posted by ljosberinn

Icelandic (my native language) is about as difficult grammatically as German, so grammar is usually pretty easy to understand for me. English is a bit retarded when it comes to grammar, I always feel a bit sorry for native English speakers learning a second language with a lot of grammar.. must be so confusing at first. :x

Et je suis desolée que je n'ai été pas ici pour longtemps.. pour parler (oú écrire) le français je dois bien réfléchir, et depuis que je suis en train d'écrire mon mémoire, quand j'arrive en Mene, je voudrais ne penser pas.. :sweat:
Mais je voudrais aussi m'entraîne en français.. et voilà, je suis ici maintenant. Comment ça va?

Oh, ça va. Ne t’inquiète pas! Ça va comme ci comme ça. C'est un peu tard mais je dois pratiquer le français un peu avant que je m'endorme. ^^;

Originally Posted by ljosberinn

Yarr.
Ehh, just that English has ridiculously simple grammar and you hardly learn any of it, so native English speakers who haven't learned another language or learned English grammar rules specifically have no idea of the terms or how it works. Or at least not in my experience.

While that's somewhat true it also isn't exactly true. I remember my teachers explaining to me what direct objects were and objects of the preposition and so forth but I think it's difficult to understand all that stuff when they teach it to you at such a young age. They don't usually bother to try to explain those things to you again when you're old enough to actually understand what a preposition is exactly.

Well, compared to learning how to conjugate verbs, the gender and many different cases of nouns, modality and moods and how they completely change the form of the verb, and that's all in primary school.. and trying to explain most of this to people who only speak English? :sarcasm:

Euh, je dois me réveille et aller à université.. *bâille*

There's the vous form which is formal and the tu form which is informal. And then there's phrases and stuff that aren't used in formal context and stuff like in any language. I would love to learn French sign language. And in doing so, I would know about 60% of American sign language as well because they are 60% compatible with each other. Amazing, ne?

Ah yeah. I kind of remember that! Yeah. I think English has degrees of formality in speech, we're just not taught it that way I guess. :P
And wow, that's neat. :D I remember at one point when I was young, I thought Sign Language was universal. xD

@Jos: Your stance on English-only speakers seems a bit degrading. :(

Originally Posted by ljosberinn

Well, compared to learning how to conjugate verbs, the gender and many different cases of nouns, modality and moods and how they completely change the form of the verb, and that's all in primary school.. and trying to explain most of this to people who only speak English? :sarcasm:

Euh, je dois me réveille et aller à université.. *bâille*

I dunno. I guess just be wary of making over generalizations of such a big group. Pretty much every kid in the US has to take some foreign language at some point in time so they do learn some of what makes a language work. Most high schools have language requirements and most colleges do as well. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll learn cases like in German but they should learn what direct objects are, ect. from learning Spanish or French at least, even if only for a few months. There are a lot of nuances to a language and it is a difficult thing for some people to grasp but just as many people have difficulty with math, etc.

Moi... Je vais regarder un film et me coucher tôt. J'ai mal à la gorge. T_ T

Originally Posted by IkuAki

Ah yeah. I kind of remember that! Yeah. I think English has degrees of formality in speech, we're just not taught it that way I guess. :P
And wow, that's neat. :D I remember at one point when I was young, I thought Sign Language was universal. xD

@Jos: Your stance on English-only speakers seems a bit degrading. :(

Languages are very intuitive when you're a child so you pick up a lot of things by just hearing them. You aren't always formally taught such things as formality, you just kind of learn it on your own I guess. ^^;

I used to think that too about Sign Language. It's a shame it isn't, it could be the one language in the world that everyone could use to communicate with everyone else. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive or anything. I've just had so many cases of English speakers having no idea at all what I'm talking about when I talk about grammar.. I'm not saying it's true for everyone, but English still has very simple grammar compared to Germanic and Latin based languages. I'm not saying that makes people who only speak English stupid or anything.

Sign Language is so beautiful.. and isn't it somewhat similar between languages? I know it's not the same at all, and I've only learned the basics of the Icelandic one, but I would guess some of the more.. descriptive signs would be pretty similar?

J'éspere que ton gorge est mieux. Quel film as-tu vu? Je me coucher aussi, j'ai voulu aller á un convention de jongler mais c'était épuisé. :( Maintenant je me repose avant le départ á un grande fête.

The pessimistic part of me agrees with you because a lot of Americans don't seem interested in other languages and cultures but that's not to say that everyone isn't. ^^;

I don't know about all sign languages, I'm only really familiar with English and French but I can imagine say an Asian sign language being very different from an African form of sign language so much that they wouldn't be able to understand each other without playing a bout of charades... I know that the French sign language was developed around the English version so therefore they share a lot in common. I'm not sure if other sign languages really would though...

La gorge va mieux mais je tousse donc je suis encore malade. J'ai vu le film Seven Pounds. C'etait tres bien mais plutot triste. J'aime beaucoup Will Smith comme acteur. Tu as passe une soiree agreable a la fete? ((Desolee, j'utilise l'ortinateur de ma mere donc je ne peut pas adjouter les accents ou verifier l'eppelage des mots T_T))