Language – Anglo (English)
English might not need a closer introduction, but I’ll say a few words about it anyway. Nowadays, you simply can’t get along without english.
Personally, I don’t find english difficult at all. Unlike many other languages, you can practice English almost daily. English is all around. That can be practical since you need to learn it. I started learning it when I was about two years old. Actually, it was mom who was going to study, but I was the one who found it a lot of fun, so I was the one who learned the most.
English is spoken practically everywhere, by several billion people (at least as a second or a third language). As a first language it’s spoken by about 300 million people. Wherever you go, you can probably get by with English.
I prefer to refer to the international version of English as Anglo. That’s because I live in Northern Europe, and my friends in for instance Lithuania and India, hardly speak English. I mean, we don’t live in England, and we’re not from there. We don’t speak American either, like the people of the USA, or Canadian, as they do in Canada, or aussie or oz (or whatever they call it in Australia) etc. Anglo. If you have a better suggestion, please let me know.
Language 2
In general, I can say, that with the exception of English (Anglo), it’s difficult to become really fluent, unless you’re prepared to travel to the country where the language is spoken, to work or study, for at least a year. Sure you can do that, if you’re content to study one or two languages, but if you want to know several it could be difficult. The best I can do, is read as many books as possible and watch tv and movies in the language in question.
Another thing you can do, is to take advantage of the internet. There are news sites, in many different languages and sometimes free literature for download. Of course there are all kinds of web pages in many different languages. Apart from that, there are also sites dedicated to the study of languages, with forums and chat rooms, where you can use the language.
Without the internet, I would have been able to use so many of my languages.
I’ve chatted with people in French, German, Spanish and Italian (not always completely successfully, I might add). Unfortunately, not everyone you encounter want to help you out. Instead they choose to get by in their own, not always so great, English. But if you do meet someone who wants to help you, it’s the best. Much better than any dictionary.
You can also use the computer offline. I’ve bought a language software, Languages of the World. Most of the major languages of the world are available on those CD:s, but I think it might be best to just use the program to practice languages you’ve already studied, rather than starting out with a new language.
