learning a foreign language?

[lane mcbride]

At my work, I have tons upon tons of free time. I've decided that with this free time I'm going to a learn a few foreign languages.

I was hoping some of you guys may have some personal experience or knowledge about the subject.

Currently I speak English (native language), spanish, and a little bit of italian. I plan on learning some of the romance languages since they should be easy for me to pick up, but ultimately I would like to learn some other languages as well (maybe 3 or 4 more).

I have the following questions:

1. what are some of the easier languages to learn aside from the romance languages?

2. what are the hardest languages to learn

3. what do you think would be the top 5 or top 10 most useful languages to know (romance languages included)

4. I've heard the rosetta stone website is a good place to learn foreign languages. Does anybody have any experience with this site?

5.) does anybody have any other advice about learning foreign languages?

6.) any weird languages I should learn just for the hell of it... i.e. swahili or something?

7.) how long would it take an average person to learn some of the languages fluently (maybe number of hours spent studying, or a rough number of days)? i.e. chinese, russian, arabic, french etc.

thanks in advance, I really appreciate it

-Lane

[Paul B.]

Pimsleur. It's gonna take years to become fluent at any foreign language.

[keikiwai]

I've heard Hungrian is one of the most difficult languages to learn.

Hungarian is my mother tongue, so I can't comment directly, but I can't understand a word most people say when they try out their newly acquired skills on me.

That being said I've met 2 people in my life who've learned to speak Hungarian fluently w/ no accent. 1 from Minnesota and 1 from Washington.

A dialect of Chinese, and one of Indian would be very useful based upon #s of people who speak them.

You'd have a super easy time learning Portugese. Try reading it. You'll understand about 1/2 of it right off the bat if you speak English, Spanish, and a little Italian... an there's a lot of Brazilian hotties [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[KaneKungFu123]

i think thai is pretty easy

[Requin]

French, because you can swear like a sacrément d'esti tabernac espèce de fife.

[KaneKungFu123]

if you can learn an uncommon foriegn language while being young, white and attractive you will get mad *****. this is a fact.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

If you want to pick up the romance languages, learn some latin first.

[keikiwai]

[ QUOTE ]
French, because you can swear like a sacrément d'esti tabernac espèce de fife.

[/ QUOTE ]

Va te faire foutre!

[TheMetetron]

I almost made this post a while back.

I'm attempting to learn Danish using Rosetta Stone. The software is pretty decent and the way it teaches you is pretty good (no English translation... all learning is in the language you are trying to learn).

I've decided this is one of the hardest languages to learn, at least pronounciation wise. There are a ton of letters/sounds we don't have in English (or Spanish, the other language I know).

[BeerMoney]

[ QUOTE ]
i think thai is pretty easy

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? U don't have trouble with the tones?