Punctuation!

[dandysmom]

Originally Posted by yola

Eileen, how would Greek be an 'easy A'? It's a totally different alphabet

My Dad taught me Russian (he learnt it when inprisoned during WWII), when spoken it's similar to Polish, but I actually taught myself to write/type it. That was 17 years ago, still don't know how I managed it

I don't actually know how to explain it, but in the beginning of the semester you look at a letter and say that'\s an "B
" to yourself, but as the time goes on your mind just starts translating the alphabet with less and less thought, and before you know it you are reading it....

It was the same with German: they were still using the old alphabet in our texts when I was in college; somehow the mind manages to grasp it, and then it's just like learning any other language...

I must admit after all these years away from them, cannot read a word now...
Spanish is very rusty also ..."use it or lose it"..

[random]

Originally Posted by dandysmom

I must admit after all these years away from them, cannot read a word now...
Spanish is very rusty also ..."use it or lose it"..

This is exactly where I went wrong with my French, I could have had a conversation in it a few years ago, i'm lucky if I remember how to buy a loaf of bread now! But then I suppose if I did a refresher course there's a chance it could all come flooding back pretty easily and i'd pick it back up again pretty well, maybe you could look into doing a wee online refresher course?

[angieh]

That's a good point random - there's a huge number of helpful websites now. I've discovered two or three for Italian that are so useful, and of course you can listen to radio or watch TV in the language of your choice now too and all that without having to spend lots of cash on various language courses either at a college or elsewhere.

[Elaine]

I used to love learning greek, got to a point that I could write and read better than i could speak it

[angieh]

I wish I had an ability like dandysmom describes, how things fall into place. That's never happened, although I have heard other people describe similar. I think it's to do with how your brain works (or in my case doesn't!) and sometimes I really struggle and don't seem to get any further on. No good at maths either.