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Re: Rating Languages

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 25, 2001, 20:34
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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John Cowan <jcowan@...>