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Languages you disliked but grew on you?

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Printed Date: 18 August 2021 at 10:12am

Posted By: Avid Learner
Subject: Languages you disliked but grew on you?
Date Posted: 28 October 2013 at 4:03am

Has anyone here learned a language that they wouldn't have considered learning previously because they really didn't like it?

I always wonder when I happen to read somebody who says he doesn't like language X. Obviously, we're all different so it's perfectly normal, but I sometimes wonder if, someday, something (a song or a friend, for example) might occur and contribute to a change of perspective.

In my case, I've never really disliked German, but I didn't especially liked it either. It is not a language I would have thought of learning after English. I was conviced that if I ever learned another one, it would be a latin language... but no, in the end, German turned out to be the language I badly wanted to learn!

Replies:

When I was a fledging celtophile at the age of 14 I had just decided that I was going to plan all of my future schooling around getting into a Scottish university and doing an honours degree in Celtic Studies/Gaelic.

I pretty much felt that the brythonic languages were the redheaded stepchild of the Celtic world. It probably had a lot to do with the way these languages were treated in the anglophone literature; always secondary to the goidelic languages, and the repeated mantra about how all Welsh mythology was probably "imported" from Ireland anyway. It was not until I was actually doing my honours degree in Celtic Civilisation 5 years later, when we studied the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, that I really came to appreciate Welsh at least as a full member of the Celtic language family. I still didn't see the value of its mythology, though; I had to study far longer for that, and couldn't for the life of me think of a single reason why anyone would want to study Breton. I mean, how Celtic could it be anyway? Brythonic AND in a romance country? Puh! I skipped anything in Celtic literature that had to do with Breton.

And here I am. I've forgotten all of my Gaelic and have no interest in brushing it off, but I'm very passionate about Breton. Whereas with Gaelic I felt that I had to learn it (because that's what you did if you wanted to understand Celtic culture, you learn one of the languages), with Breton it's about love, and values, and a bit of politics.
eyðimörk on 28 October 2013

eyðimörk wrote:

When I was a fledging celtophile at the age of 14 I had just decided
that I was going to plan all of my future schooling around getting into a Scottish
university and doing an honours degree in Celtic Studies/Gaelic.

I pretty much felt that the brythonic languages were the redheaded stepchild of the
Celtic world. It probably had a lot to do with the way these languages were treated in
the anglophone literature; always secondary to the goidelic languages, and the repeated
mantra about how all Welsh mythology was probably "imported" from Ireland anyway. It
was not until I was actually doing my honours degree in Celtic Civilisation 5 years
later, when we studied the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, that I really came to
appreciate Welsh at least as a full member of the Celtic language family. I still
didn't see the value of its mythology, though; I had to study far longer for that, and
couldn't for the life of me think of a single reason why anyone would want to study
Breton. I mean, how Celtic could it be anyway? Brythonic AND in a romance country? Puh!
I skipped anything in Celtic literature that had to do with Breton.

And here I am. I've forgotten all of my Gaelic and have no interest in brushing it off,
but I'm very passionate about Breton. Whereas with Gaelic I felt that I had to learn it
(because that's what you did if you wanted to understand Celtic culture, you learn one
of the languages), with Breton it's about love, and values, and a bit of politics.

Good for you :-)
And if Breton is characteristic of the Celtic language(s) that were spoken in at least
part of Roman Gaul, (or partially spoken in Roman Gaul), then it's important to keep
alive that link with European history at a very formative stage.

And when you've got Breton under your belt, you might think about Cornish, and, er,
Welsh. :-)

montmorency on 28 October 2013

I was initially exposed to Dutch (actually Flemish more so than standard Dutch) before I
had much exposure to German.

When I (much later) started studying German seriously, I really disliked the sound of it
compared to Flemish / Dutch.

But the more I got exposed to it, the more I got to like hearing it, and nowadays I
prefer the sound of German to Dutch.

However, I'll go back to Dutch one of these days, and that will probably change the
balance yet again.
montmorency on 28 October 2013

montmorency wrote:

Unfortunately, there is probably very little Gaulish in Breton since it came over from Britain at a time when it's uncertain that there were any Gaulish speakers left. Breton is more King Arthur and less Vercignetorix. :)

I definitely wouldn't mind getting closer to Breton's close cousin Kembraeg (Cymraeg)! Cornish is definitely interesting, and wanting to save the language is a worthwhile cause, though I'm not sure if it's a worthwhile project for me personally. I try to stick with languages I have a practical use for. :) I live in Brittany and my neighbours speak Breton, but I'm not sure I could find a Cornish speaker to talk to even if I started taking annual holidays across the channel, alas!
eyðimörk on 28 October 2013

From neutral to positive - Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, Ukrainian, Danish.
As for actual dislike, hmmm written French? I still don't like the sound of it but now that I have a lot of experience with its neighbours and ancestor(s), it's much more fun to read it. But I pronounce most of things like Portuguese and some words like Romanian (for example aici).

Oh and I used to adopt the Finns' disliking of Swedish, mostly because of the pain associated with the Finland-Sweden matches (especially in ice hockey). But nowadays my plan is to learn Swedish better than most Finns speak it, as I want to move to Finland but I don't want Russian to be my main advantage on the job market.
Serpent on 28 October 2013

I used to hate English until I came to terms with its history and learned it to a sufficient level.

I think it for some reason is a part of the Finnish mentality to not have a high interest in Swedish but it's grown on me, even though I still am not a huuuge fan of it (I like inflection too much ._. )
Henkkles on 28 October 2013

I used to dislike English a lot. When I was about three I started learning English with my Dad, who was pretty impatient when it comes to teaching me English. But it was effective in its way, primarily because of the early exposure to the language, and as a result I was pretty good at English by the time we started having English classes at school. Now that I live in an English-speaking country and use English everyday, I don't think I dislike English anymore, but that's just a neutral attitude. I wonder when I would start actually liking it though.
cacue23 on 28 October 2013

I used to hate English because of its grammar. Now I like the language but still do not have any good feelings to grammar.
And, to be honest, the last of European languages I would've chosen to learn, was German. Before I made a final decision, I was running between Polish, Finnish, French, maybe even Spanish while I was listening to Shakira. In that time German was for me the language of Nazis, very tough and complicated, not to mention its dialects!
Well, I was just a little stupid kid. Anyway, now I have no desire to study all languages, listed above, but German. A little bit weird? Maybe. But now I like the language, that little part of grammar which I know seems strict and logical and I like all that.
Via Diva on 28 October 2013

eyðimörk wrote:

montmorency wrote:

Unfortunately, there is probably very little Gaulish in Breton since it came over from
Britain at a time when it's uncertain that there were any Gaulish speakers left. Breton
is more King Arthur and less Vercignetorix. :)

I definitely wouldn't mind getting closer to Breton's close cousin Kembraeg (Cymraeg)!
Cornish is definitely interesting, and wanting to save the language is a worthwhile
cause, though I'm not sure if it's a worthwhile project for me personally. I try to
stick with languages I have a practical use for. :) I live in Brittany and my
neighbours speak Breton, but I'm not sure I could find a Cornish speaker to talk to
even if I started taking annual holidays across the channel, alas!

Wow, it's fantastic that you have some Breton speakers to talk to!

And it's true that there certainly won't be any Cornish first-language speakers around,
unless one is in touch with the spirit world. We can hope that the revivalists have
success. I've listened to part of the fledgling "Say Something in Cornish" course, and
it's funny to hear what amounts to Welsh in a rich Cornish accent!

OTOH, I've heard part of Assimil's Breton course, and the only thing I could recognise
was the strong French accent! :-)

Ah well, Cymru (and Cornwall and Brittany) am byth! ("for ever")

montmorency on 28 October 2013

I hated English and German for years. Two ugliest languages in the world until some
point.

1.English-my feelings started to neutralize as I started playing computer games. Years
later (and already on a very good level), I found out it isn't that ugly.

2.German got me differently. I heard several people who spoke it nicely. And travelling
to Germany or Austria is so much cheaper than to further destinations.
Cavesa on 29 October 2013

montmorency wrote:

And it's true that there certainly won't be any Cornish first-language speakers around, unless one is in touch with the spirit world. We can hope that the revivalists have success.

I read recently that they are picking up the immersion strategy that is so popular here in Brittany (and which Bretons stole from the Basques), so there are in fact kindergarteners today going about their entire day in Cornish. :)

montmorency wrote:

OTOH, I've heard part of Assimil's Breton course, and the only thing I could recognise was the strong French accent! :-)

Not sure what you mean with a strong French accent, since the current Assimil course doesn't sound particularly French to me at all. I suppose there are some common sounds between Welsh and Breton that don't exist in English or French, and by comparison the rest of the sounds in Welsh can sound very English to a Breton speaker and I suppose Breton can sound very French to the Welsh speaker.

Of course if you're used to Bretons speaking French there's not necessarily much difference. ;) Sometimes when I'm not listening, I can't tell if my neighbours are speaking French or Breton because their French is so Breton. :D It took me 6 months to learn how to listen to decode what they were saying to me because the sounds and the stress were so off, not to mention various celticisms and pronouncing letters that are silent in French.

montmorency wrote:

Ah well, Cymru (and Cornwall and Brittany) am byth! ("for ever")

Breizh (ha Kernev-Veur ha Kembre) atav! :D
eyðimörk on 29 October 2013

Do they do the mutations as well in French? I read that Brittophone French speakers say
ma vère for ma mère.

Breton does sound a bit French to me, but that is probably because many people on the
Assimil recordings use the French "r" (and not a rolled r.)
tarvos on 29 October 2013

I disliked Spanish because it was forced on me in high school and because of the negative stigmas it has in the US. The past couple of months it is growing on me as I study it, but honestly I still feel myself resisting it for these reasons even though I know intellectually that these aren't good reasons to dislike it.

I went to the bookstore with the intent to stock up on Spanish content with a more intellectual mindset--newspapers, history books, popular science books, etc.--thinking that having this stuff in front of me would help re-train my brain to see Spanish as the medium of high culture and learning that is obviously is. Unfortunately that plan backfired as the only stuff in Spanish you can buy at the dozen bookstores in my area are pulp novels, religious stuff, and pseudo-scientific garbage like The Secret.

So, I decided to use European pronunciation and materials and lean heavily on my Latin knowledge to try to distance myself from these irrational feelings. This approach seems to have helped.
dmaddock1 on 29 October 2013

tarvos wrote:

Do they do the mutations as well in French? I read that Brittophone French speakers say ma vère for ma mère.

I haven't noticed that personally, but that's not to say that it doesn't happen.

tarvos wrote:

Breton does sound a bit French to me, but that is probably because many people on the Assimil recordings use the French "r" (and not a rolled r.)

That's a slightly odd thing to base the whole "they sound French" on since R is pronounced differently in different parts of Brittany and by different speakers. There's a rolling R that's high in the throat, a rolling R that's low in the throat, there's a non-rolling R... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhrzPu-fcw - Here's an example of the dialect local to me, in Haute-Cornouaille, by a speaker born ca 1900. Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBR6KpB8j8 - the rolling R of Denez Prigent , born in Léon in the 1960s.
eyðimörk on 29 October 2013

I used to dislike French for several reasons. First of all, given the choice between Latin and French in school, I
chose Latin and all the other kids were trying to justify their choice by putting the other language down (e.g. by
saying clichéd and idiotic things like "Latin is dead" or "French sounds gay") so I sort of went along with that.

Later, when I got older I still thought French was rather boring and I still think so to some extent, my interest
being mostly directed at "exotic", non-European languages, but then I became more and more interested in
French colonial history, former French Africa and the Maghreb states. I started to realize that French was really
not only a "boring European language" but also one that is used in countries like Senegal, Congo, Algeria or Haiti.
I also became interested in the multicultural society of France and its conflicts as well as the rich frankophone
intellectual tradition.

I was intrigued by the fact that it used to be normal for European intellectuals to speak French and in some old
academic books that I looked through, there were actually quotes and essays in French that were left completely
untranslated because it was simply assumed that the reader would be able to understand French.

In the end all of this could not convince to really study French though. I like to pick up bits and pieces here and
there and sometimes I read French texts and look up grammatical constructions I don't understand but even
though i would like to speak French, it's not my first priority.
morinkhuur on 29 October 2013

eyðimörk wrote:

tarvos wrote:

Do they do the mutations as well in French? I read
that Brittophone French speakers say ma vère for ma mère.

I haven't noticed that personally, but that's not to say that it doesn't happen.

tarvos wrote:

Breton does sound a bit French to me, but that is probably because many
people on the Assimil recordings use the French "r" (and not a rolled r.)

That's a slightly odd thing to base the whole "they sound French" on since R is
pronounced differently in different parts of Brittany and by different speakers.
There's a rolling R that's high in the throat, a rolling R that's low in the throat,
there's a non-rolling R... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQhrzPu-fcw - Here's an
example of the dialect local to me, in Haute-Cornouaille, by a speaker born ca
1900. Cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uBR6KpB8j8 - the rolling R of Denez
Prigent , born in Léon in the 1960s.

I meant the Breton on those recordings which is definitely a uvular r. I am aware that
Breton people are equally able to use different variants of this r, but the standard
one is equivalent to the uvular r of French nowadays and is what is given on Wikipedia
as the standard. That makes it sound more "French" than using an "r" higher up in your
mouth. It is not a generalization across all accents. I wasn't talking about Breton as
a whole, just the Assimil recordings.
tarvos on 29 October 2013

Ukrainian is probably the best example even though I've never really disliked it in the first place.

By the time I got to Ukrainian, my ear was very attuned to Slavonic languages in which unstressed and stressed vowels aren't realized that differently, if at all. Ukrainian sounded really off in comparison to those languages because there is a noticeable difference (it's even more prominent in Russian which sounds even less attractive to me). On the other hand, I've known for a while that Ukrainian vocabulary and to a certain degree its structure are pleasingly familiar because of influence from Polish (it's rather quaint for me to hear Ukrainians using terms such as пан, панi, прошу and так among many other terms reminiscent of Polish) so that offset my negative impression of the language's sound. As I've been plowing through Ukrainian over the last year or so, I've come to terms with the sound of the language (but the sound of Russian still makes me cringe). As alluded to in my comments about the link with Polish (and other Western Slavonic languages) grammatically and lexically there's nothing really mind-blowing for me in Ukrainian but just variations on a theme.
Chung on 29 October 2013

eyðimörk wrote:

I read recently that they are picking up the immersion strategy that is so popular here
in Brittany (and which Bretons stole from the Basques), so there are in fact
kindergarteners today going about their entire day in Cornish. :)

Excellent!

Quote:

montmorency wrote:

OTOH, I've heard part of Assimil's Breton course, and the only thing
I could recognise was the strong French accent! :-)

I think the course i got hold of was quite old. It was in MP3 form, but had probably
been copied from older format recordings.
I could see some resemblance to Welsh in the textbook.

Quote:

Of course if you're used to Bretons speaking French there's not necessarily much
difference. ;) Sometimes when I'm not listening, I can't tell if my neighbours are
speaking French or Breton because their French is so Breton. :D It took me 6 months to
learn how to listen to decode what they were saying to me because the sounds and the
stress were so off, not to mention various celticisms and pronouncing letters that are
silent in French.

Makes sense. Welsh speakers essentially use the same accent in either Welsh or English.
The main difference I've noticed is that they roll their "r"s more in Welsh.

montmorency wrote:

Ah well, Cymru (and Cornwall and Brittany) am byth! ("for ever")

Breizh (ha Kernev-Veur ha Kembre) atav! :D [/QUOTE]

:-) Diolch yn fawr. (Thanks very much).

On the origins of Breton: It occurred to me that the Romans referred to Brittany as
Armorica (although the term took in more than modern Brittany I believe).

"Armor" could be regarded as almost pure Welsh: "Ar y mor" or "A'r mor".("On the sea",
or "at sea").

Which suggests a Welsh-like language being used thereabouts in Roman times, i.e. well
before the influx of Cornish or Welsh speakers from Britain (in the 5th-7th century
AD?).

Not much evidence, admittedly, but interesting.

montmorency on 29 October 2013

tarvos wrote:

I meant the Breton on those recordings which is definitely a uvular r. I am aware that Breton people are equally able to use different variants of this r, but the standard one is equivalent to the uvular r of French nowadays and is what is given on Wikipedia as the standard. That makes it sound more "French" than using an "r" higher up in your mouth. It is not a generalization across all accents. I wasn't talking about Breton as a whole, just the Assimil recordings.

I don't really know what your point is? Essentially you appear to be saying that the Breton speakers (on Assimil specifically, because you're not generalising, even though you also say that this is "standard" Breton, so I don't know what makes Assimil special) sound French because they are using a variation of the R-sound, that has been current for a long time and is common in a wide variety of Breton dialects (but not all), because said sound is also available in French (and German and southern Scandinavian dialects).

So maybe you're trying to say that Breton isn't unaffected by being next door to French (just like Irish, Scottish, and Welsh are very clearly affected by English)... but in that case I don't know what the point is about Assimil specifically.

Nonetheless, this is veering very much off topic. If you want to clarify with a final word, I'll gladly read but I won't comment so as to not steer the thread even further off its course. Cheers!
eyðimörk on 29 October 2013

Assimil is just an example.
tarvos on 29 October 2013

I hated Spanish and French! I learnt them in school, because I had to, and it was an awful
environment and a dull way to learn, so it turned me off them for a long time. I'm just
getting back into them, though!
anethara on 30 October 2013

anethara wrote:

I hated Spanish and French! I learnt them in school, because I had
to, and it was an awful
environment and a dull way to learn, so it turned me off them for a long time. I'm just
getting back into them, though!

That's a point that should ring a lot of bells with HTLAL members.

We self-learn (in general) because we found traditional ways of learning (at least at
school, and sometimes also at university) disappointing.

We might say that we are claiming back what was "taken from us" by our school
experience.

But perhaps that is overstating it, and maybe not everyone had a bad experience at
school, or university, with languages.

EDIT: Sorry, perhaps that is also getting away from the main point that the OP was
trying to develop. School isn't the only reason that people dislike particular
languages, but then maybe later on change their mind, for a variety of reasons.

montmorency on 30 October 2013

Well, surely not everyone but far too many people began to hate a language or just gave
up due to school. Considering only teachers I met during my formal education (no tutors
or outside classes even though I count in people I had for shorter period of time but
enough to see), this is the score:

2 were totally awesome
3 were quite good
5 were horrible (in various ways but all of them totally destroyed the potential of the
classes)

tutors and private classes:

1 very good,
2 good,
4 not bad but nothing to get excited about,
1 bad (not horrible but still bad. And she was a native educated in teaching the
language with many years of experience),
1 horrible (again a native with the proper education in teaching her language).

No wonder I prefer self-teaching. And if more people have a similar score, no wonder so
many either give up or just hate the language they had been forced to study in past.

edit: somehow forgot to add the Berlin experience
+1 awesome, +1 mediocre, that goes to the second cathegory and slightly changes the
score.
Cavesa on 30 October 2013

For me it's German. I really, really hated German. It was my least favourite subject in
School, and after five years, I still didn't get beyond A1/A2 level.

Last September, I decided to give it a new chance, and now it's the language I care
most about, and within a year, I've managed to go from A2 almost all the way to B2.

And if there's a language that'll never grow on me, it has to be Chinese, but that
might be because a lot of native speakers here are rude and loud, and thus the
language(s) come off as a bit too rough for me...
stifa on 30 October 2013

For me, that language would be Spanish. Hate, hate, HATED it in school, and now I couldn't imagine not speaking it.

I also was never really interested in French, but having gotten to a decent level of Spanish I've been considering tackling it next.
Indíritheach on 30 October 2013

Looks like we are getting two main groups of school based haters here. I belong to the
European: the propaganda for English and German was too strong, even though I resisted
with all my power :-D The Americans seem to suffer the same thing about Spanish. I guess
a few more and we'll have mapped quite a good portion of the world. Do the Germans have
such a nemesis? And what about canadians or russians?
Cavesa on 30 October 2013

For some reason almost all German profs are kinda strict, it's as if you need discipline to learn it by traditional methods... so as much as I love my lycee, it nearly killed my enthusiasm for German, although it had been my own choice to study it. while there's no guarantee to get the language you want, I could've signed up for Spanish or Italian for example.
And uni temporarily killed my love for English, but by now it's back ♥.

French is also commonly learned at schools and commonly hated/disliked. Spanish is quite rare and I think it's normally considered cool (there are also no immigrants to form a bad stereotype...)
Serpent on 31 October 2013

I can't think of a language that I didn't like at first but which I now want to learn because I love it. I did start on Polish a few years ago and then I dropped after a month or two, but that was mostly because I was sure I was pronouncing the language very badly. Then sometime last year I listened to more Polish without attempting to immediately pronounce the sounds I was hearing and that seemed to help. My Polish pronunciation still sounds terrible sometimes (at least to my own ears), only now I am much less self-conscious about it.
mick33 on 31 October 2013

French. For me it was French.
From the very beginning there was something about the way it sounds when it's spoken that I didn't like. It's okay when it's sung, but not spoken (I have the same problem with Italian by the way).
And it's also partly because of a bad school experience. I had 3 different teachers in 4 years and their behaviour towards us was sometimes just plain horrid - and no, we were no angels either, but you know as the question, so the answer. And being a minor and a pupil doesn't mean that's okay for a "teacher" to call me names or calling me stupid whenever I make a mistake (and I was one of the "luckier" ones as I was one of the best pupils of the class). So French was certainly the first thing I dropped when I could drop subjects. So till this day, and even though I know it's unjust to the language itself, I associate French with unfriendliness and rudeness. Something that certainly isn't true, but I can't help it.
Now that I work in Luxembourg and am surrounded by French speakers my feeling towards the French language got much friendlier (I guess because I can now connect some nice memories with the language), but I'm still not very fond of the way it sounds ... but hey, at least I don't hate it anymore ... :)
Mani on 31 October 2013

stifa wrote:

For me it's German. I really, really hated German.

Last September, I decided to give it a new chance, and now it's the language I care
most about, and within a year, I've managed to go from A2 almost all the way to B2.

The same here. Maybe it's an aquired taste. Now I like it a lot, and I also noticed that most of my favourite greek authors and thinkers were fluent in German, had studied in Germany or were influenced in a deep level from German writers of various fields.
renaissancemedi on 31 October 2013

I disliked Spanish in school as well as I couldn't find the point of learning the language and I didn't like the sound of it. Two trips to Spain and 6 years later, I am in love with Spanish and I'm going to take an upper-division Spanish course next semester in college, even though it has nothing to do with my major. I even read Spanish literature for fun. The language has grown so much on me and all it took was a lot of exposure in the right context.
Kartof on 31 October 2013

Spanish and Italian both do that for me: Spanish for many of the reasons stated--I chose not to take it specifically to be a rebellious teenager because everyone kept telling me I "had" to learn Spanish. In general I never found much of a positive connection with the language--of course I knew Spanish speakers, but we spoke English with each other, so I never really had a positive association with it. With Italian, from having learned classical music, it's another language that's essentially forced on you; everybody wants to hear the same Italian art songs. It didn't help that by that point my German pronunciation was so focused that it kept interfering with my Italian, and I've never felt natural singing in the language. Eventually I discovered Verdi's operas, and it's really the only Italian opera I can handle! Interesting that with both Italian and Spanish one of the reasons I don't connect with them is because I don't prefer the music traditions--apparently that was more of a factor than I would have realized.

I wouldn't say either has "grown" on me except that I'm more neutral than negative towards the languages now.

The one odd-ball would be Latin. I've performed a lot of sacred music, which means I've sung a lot of Latin. I think it's another case of the feeling like I was forced into the language (I actually did enjoy performing that music a lot). I did eventually come to the point where I really enjoyed its expressiveness and the way composers would use the language in music.
Fuenf_Katzen on 31 October 2013

I used to hate Chinese mandarin more than any language in the world... But with so many
chinese in Paris and in my school I started to get used to the sound of it and I ended up
starting studying it a year ago. Now, if I don't have anything chinese during a day, I'll
feel really weird.

German is also one of those languages I used to hate. I can't say I love it now I've
grown accustomed to it. Maybe in the future, it'll be the future chinese? :p
yuhakko on 02 November 2013

I used to dislike Afrikaans, because it's forced on me at school, and I have never had a teacher for it I really liked, but I find that for some reason I now really enjoy the language.
AbsentM on 04 November 2013

For me, it was Spanish. I disliked the way Spanish sounded (even without hearing it very much) and took German in
school, because my twelve-year-old perspective was that Spanish was for slackers ("too easy"), and French was for
girls (and harder than German!?). Now I am crazy about French and two Spanish girlfriends/various Latino friends
later I really love Spanish and think that it is wonderful and very useful.
Alanjazz on 05 November 2013

Arabic. In the past, I didn't like the language and the "sounds". But after 1 years studying it I love all his features. Awesome calligraphy and script, the awesome root system when you can predict the meaning of new words you find, the great amount of vocabulary and synonyms. And now, I like the speaking arabic too!
haitike on 05 November 2013

eyðimörk wrote:

Cripes eyðimörk! if I had had children with the sister of my French exchange partner - it could most definitely have been you!
maydayayday on 05 November 2013

When I started German I was neutral about the matter, I chose blindly because I had
to take German or french and I hated the second. After a while though I hated the
language to the point that I didn't like to study or hear German at all- a very bad
teacher and the hostility that exists towards Germans(the government mostly) and their
language in my country helped and affected me, sadly.
But then I got a great new teacher and in the summer I travelled alone in Germany and
lived in a camp for a month and I came to love the language and the German people. Now
it is by far my favourite lanuage and I truly miss speaking it daily.
Also, as I mentioned I hated french(a series of awful teachers again and the fact
that the French are too snobs sometimes and expect you to speak their language
perfectly) but now I got some
old teaching books my father had and learn on my own, and dispite the weird and
abnormal way of writing, I surprisingly find myself enjoying the journey :)
I also love Asterix and Ovelix and Les Miserables and being able to understand them
would be a dream come true.
zografialep on 10 November 2013