Re: Rating Languages

Quoting David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>:

>     I sense a long thread coming on.  ~:D
>
> In a message dated 9/24/01 5:54:52 PM, hmiller@IO.COM writes:
>
> Everything I've added to the list will be in ALL CAPS.
>
> << Ancient Greek: verb conjugations.
I found the problem was not so much recognizing the verb forms
(the optatives are pretty glaringly obvious most of the time),
as coming up with them.  I would also add:  prepositions whose
meaning shifts (many times significantly, as with _apo_: away from,
because of, but also ceasing, leaving, and "by means of abuse");
verbs whose meaning changes depending on the case of the object:
peithô, e.g.

> FRENCH: "REFLEXIVE"
For many English speakers, faux amis are a problem as well.
I seem to remember there was a dispute during WWII in which
the French requested (demander) some documents from the Americans,
who got upset when they thought the French were being ungrateful
for the help they were giving them.

> GERMAN: DER/DIE/DAS, "REFLEXIVE"
For me, the hardest part about learning German was not the
declensions, which were easy enough to memorize, as remembering
gender and the very un-Latinate vocabulary.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

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