понедельник, 4 февраля 2008 г.

English, French, German, Italian

   I have had some experience of learning German -- I started it. I found it difficult. So many words to learn. And grammar: cases and other changed forms, articles. German is beautiful sometimes -- there is some neat accent.
   Recently I've looked through an Italian book in the form of dialogues with parallel translations (on the right side of the page), grammar and language stuff is explained, too. And what I found is as follows. Italian is more interesting and easier to me than German. Maybe because I've studied French. I also find Italian has more in common with English than German has (I might be mistaken here though). English appears to have a strong connection with French -- both having lots of Latin roots. Tracing the history: The Roman Empire, the Norman Conquest, The British Isles and France -- interaction, dynastic marriages, wars (XV-XVI centuries); besides, French was popular in the XVIIIth century, if I remember rightly.
   Some previous experience. German: film series "Anna" about a young ballerina, some children language learning programmes. Spanish and Italian: long South American Spanish-speaking series, Cenerentola 87. So little of German. And quite a lot of French and Spanish.

1 комментарий:

Lady Ciriel комментирует...

Hmm, I can't really remember how I learned the German words. I just remember that I had problems with "der, die, das" for a quite long period.
However, I think it's hard to learn a language without speaking practice. You can teach yourself at the very beginning but then you arrive a point when you need conversation practice. But it's worth a try and you still can look for a course when you reach this point. I mean I'm trying to teach myself Japanese and it's not that difficult as I thought. If only I had more time to practice...but I hope I will after graduating school.