[lbo-talk] Re: Solzhenitsyn

[Simon Huxtable]

Chris Doss wrote: 
> Well, I basically learned all my languages on my own
> (one or two classes at most, four in the case of
> French, with the majority of the work being my own
> initiative). I knew almost nada Russian when I first
> came here (but then I'm immersed, and Russians don't
> speak English). But then again I'm a weird person
> who
> thinks memorizing declensions is fun. I was
> delighted
> with Icelandic -- the article comes at the end of
> the
> noun! How could anybody not get excited about that?
> :)

Like Icelandic nouns? You'll love Finnish nouns! They
appear to have fifteen cases in five different
categories. It's the sort of language that I'd like to
learn for the sake of it, if I had time to learn
things for the sake of it. From my ill-fated attempt
to learn Swedish, I think they have noun suffixes too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_grammar#Noun_forms

Immersion in a language obviously helps in a huge way.
Learning Russian was difficult without a chance to
speak it at all - so much so that I decided to give it
a miss for the time being. It wasn't so much that it
was difficult, more that it didn't seem linked to any
context in my life. 
However, my Greek - which I started at roughly the
same time - is coming on leaps and bounds, mainly
thanks to the fact that my partner is Greek. I think
learning the language has put me in her mother's good
books, too. Eimai kalos foititis!

Simon

	

	

		
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