03-27-2006, 07:35 PM
Quote:Ramesses II:3nzikwjv Wrote:Languages and writings do interest me quite a lot, but until now it has just been the 'overall' history, not yet the languagesWell, I'd suggest you hit the languages sooner rather than later. Europeans are at a clear advantage on this point, emphasizing language studies much earlier than Americans do. You may have heard this, but if someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, and someone who speaks three languages is trilingual, what do you call someone who speaks only one language? Why, an America, of course.
("American" here being the common term for a citizen of the United States, since our Canadian and Latin America neighbors often study a second language.)
Never heard that one "America/American" is also often used here to point out citizens of the United States, like we say very often "England" to the United Kingdom (that's wrong, I know ).
Here in Belgium we speak roughly four languages, sometimes more. Flemish (=Dutch dialect), French and German as official languages, so we have to learn them anyway. Of course English, since it's so commonly used around the entire world. And then you can choose of course I prefer the classical languages such as Latin, Greek, etc. (not that I'm able to speak them except a couple of words), but there are many who speak Spanish or Italian too. Probably the effect of having so much neighbors...
a.k.a. Daan Vanhamme