Language, Linguistics, and Polyglottism

I like languages myself but haven't learned any foreign languages other than English and bits of Swedish. I'm thinking of learning Italian on my own, because it sounds cool and easy to learn.

Swedish, now that's a "useless" language I'd like to learn.

Day, I'm here to tell you that Swedish sucks. It's probably the worst language in the world. *

Rosvo- Of course you'd say that, you're a Finn. It's in your blood.

Also, you guys have mandatory Swedish. No one likes mandatory stuff.

edited 3rd Nov '12 9:34:50 AM by HopelessDaydreamer

Day: Part of it is probably because Swedish classes were mandatory. Had I chosen to take those classes, I would probably hate it less.

EDIT: And, you ninja'd me with your edit.

edited 3rd Nov '12 9:38:03 AM by Rosvo1

I know. Like I said, people don't generally like mandatory stuff.

Yup.

edited 3rd Nov '12 9:38:16 AM by HopelessDaydreamer

Yeah, see, I wrote that post before you edited your post to add that bit. So, that edit kinda made my post look redundant.

And, again ninja edits. I'm looking really stupid right now.

edited 3rd Nov '12 9:39:59 AM by Rosvo1

Hehe, ninja battle.

Finnish is also pretty cool, but too demanding.

Day: Yeah, Finnish is probably one of the hardest languages to learn in the world. Part of the reason might be because it's in the Finno-Ugric language family.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure I'd manage to learn it pretty well. I'm quite good at learning languages. But it wouldn't be quite useful to me, so I'm sure whether it'd feel worth the time.

Swedish isn't actually useful either, but it'd be infinitely easier.

Yeah, Finnish isn't very useful if you aren't a Finn.

Still, it would be pretty fun. Heavily inflected languages are fun to learn, mostly because I'm less used to them.

I hate Swedish too! I never needed it.

Heh.

Unrelated: Hey, isn't it funny how the language Modern Greek is usually called like that, Modern Greek?

edited 3rd Nov '12 11:59:03 AM by HopelessDaydreamer

How is it weird?

It isn't weird, it's funny.

It's like as if Ancient Greek is so popular and relevant, that it overshadows the modern variety, so that we have to specify it's... eh, modernity.

Well... That is kind of funny.

Strangely, the languages aren't that far apart. You can see the evolution clearly.

Which really makes sense, considering that Modern Greek is a direct descendent of Ancient Greek.

We can do the same with romance languages and Latin.

Modern Greek pronunciation is totally different from Ancient Greek, though, so they're not mutually intelligible, even if a lot of words are similar in writing.

Much like modern English, actually.

Much like many other modern languages when compared to their ancestors.