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> Why in the world would you do that? Languages are the biggest timesuck in the history of humanity. A language not only express the ideas of the speaker, it a
by pacofvf 13y ago
> Why in the world would you do that? Languages are the biggest timesuck in the history of humanity.
A language not only express the ideas of the speaker, it also carries a lot of historical and cultural data, I love learning new languages even if I don't become proficient in that language. Being said that, I don't think it's a good idea for non-native Portuguese speakers to ask/answer questions in pt.so
> Uhm, no? I know English and my native language (Dutch) and that is more than enough. The only language I had to learn besides my own was the one that most of us on here see as the universal one: English. And for all I care the Dutch language can die a quick and silent death.
I'm a native Spanish speaker, being the second language with most native speakers in the world only behind mandarin, why would I settle just with English?, Spanish is more useful for me in all other activities of my life, I only use English on the Internet, even my Brazilian boss is a fluent Spanish speaker.
- moron4hire 13y agoI've never explicitly studied Spanish, but apparently I've been exposed to it enough in the US that I was able to get through a recent trip to Ecuador without too much trouble. It was easier to read than to try to speak, as I could generally figure out the context of sentences based on key words and shared Latin influences with English. I actually found billboards to be the hardest to understand, which I guess makes sense. Billboards tend to use incomplete sentences and made up words to try to get their point across quickly. It was just a lot of fun. Several months ago, I started learning Russian. Once I got over the hurdle of the alphabet (again, I had actually once studied it in grade school), I realized that I could figure a lot of things out as I went. It feels like being Sherlock Holmes or something.