Anyone who thinks that the US is in charge of what we think is the world should look deeper IMO "It doesn't matter who and where the people voted for; they always vote for us". kaiser soze
Never too late to learn a language if you apply yourself and have the time. I did French, German and Latin at school and forgot the lot!!! - Now Spanish is much easier to learn that the other 3, just learn to pronounce the alphabet correctly and then you´ve cracked it, in Spanish you say what you see (thanks Roy!) unlike English!!. If you know English and Spanish you got most of the world covered - try it!!!! ps forget all the grammar stuff - we don´t use it in English either!!!
One of my proudest moments was when a hotel receptionist in Ljubljana called his colleague over to explain that my brother had learnt Slovenian for a week's stay. I got a bit lazy after that (he learnt a bit of Latvian for Riga and Italian for Florence). Got caught out when I got to Barcelona a few hours before him (different flights) and he'd told me the wrong hotel - had to rediscover my GCSE Spanish pretty quickly - no Catalan sadly (brother knew a bit again) but I just about got by!!!!
I've always admired people that have learnt another language and apply it well. You would never know that El Pirata's native tongue isn't English as he writes ( types ) so well. It's nice to have a second language, but English speakers tend to not bother learning another one as it is not really necessary. There are English speakers the world over. I have studied Spanish and learnt enough to get by, and could manage a basic conversation. However, I find that unless you use it on a fairly regular basis you tend to forget it. Then again that could apply to most things I suppose.
Agree with that mate Life would go on without the Americans despite what else they think. China are the new super power and a load of their firms are already eating into American assets particularly in the oil business ...
A lot of my school time was wasted learning 'useless' languages, and that is useless in the literal sense, not a value judgement on their cultural importance or intrinsic beauty. I spent 12 years learning Irish, but like most Irish people never mastered fluency, just enough to scrape by; maybe it was the way it was taught or more likely my own stubborn resistance to it. Then there was Latin; I failed to grasp the relevance at the time. As an adult, I have enjoyed reading and falteringly trying to converse in the former; the latter still escapes me.
Definitely the way it was taught. If European kids spent all their school years learning another language, they'd be fluent in it. We, on the other hand, emerge from school with a cupla focail and fu*k all else. Its a sham Twins.
