In your opinion, would Latin or French be more difficult to learn...

[truizm]

Latin or French?

[MaryBear]

1. For me,

French.

[Dookus]

2. Latin

would be harder. It has a number of concepts that just don't exist in English (to be fair, so does French, but they're not very difficult).

Also, English was hugely influenced by French. Most of our Latin influence came to us THROUGH French.

But if you're interested in learning other languages beyond that, Latin might be more useful.

[bloodyjack]

3. Chinese

DUH

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

4. Sanskrit ?

Who else would you have around to talk to ?

[Maddy McCall]

5. Mark Twain said that German was the most difficult.

[Dastard Stepchild]

33. I concur with Twain...

I could handle French, no problem. German just would not stick.

[realisticphish]

6. well, i took latin

in high school, 4 years, and i will say, it was fucking hard. but for the right mentality, its a lot easier than other languages. more structured, fewer exceptions. plus, latin will help you out a LOT with English grammer (i learned more grammer in latin than in english class)

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[truizm]

13. That's what people say...

What's so hard about it?

[realisticphish]

16. i guess

it's the fact that there are so many different combonations; there are 5 declentions for nouns, depending on fuck knows what; you have to just kind of know which words go in what declention. but VERBS are what sucks. there are different conjugations, just like english, except there are also three moods, and different tenses; in other words, about 30 ways to write each verb. straight latin isnt bad, but in 4th year, we did latin poetry, which didn't use puncuation (and in fact, a LOT of latin doesn't use puncuation, or capitals, or keep the verb in the same place in a sentence, though it's usually at the end). probly more than you wanted to know, but its 2:30 am, and im in a wierd mood...

:hippie: The Incorrigible Democrat

[Rowdyboy]

7. College required 2 years of language or one year of math

I'm linguistically challenged but did great in two years of Latin. Its VERY simple, and follows a basic formula. Teaching the language usually involves some of the masterpeices of Western literature (The Iliad, The Odyssey, or any one of the classic plays).

On edit: totally agree with realisticphish's comments. Latin really helped me understand English grammatical structure more than anything else. And I'm not into GRAMMER!!!!!

[DieboldMustDie]

9. ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I thought the Iliad and the Odyssey were written in Greek. :shrug:

[Dookus]

10. it was a VERY advanced

Latin class.

[truizm]

12. What are some of the more difficult aspects of learning Latin?

I'm fairly linguistically challenged myself.

[Dookus]

18. as mentioned above,

mainly declensions and conjugations. Now we conjugate in English, but it's usually much simpler. I give, you give, he gives, we give, you (all) give, they give... only the third-person singular is different. But ALL romance languages conjugate - you just have to learn it.

Declensions are harder, because it means that a sentence in Latin can pretty much be in any order. In English, we use word order and prepositions to define the different types of nouns (say, subjects, direct object, indirect objects, etc.)

In Latin, the noun changes depending on which part of the sentence it is. So, in Latin:

The man was tall.
I gave the man a dollar.
I kissed the man.

The word "man" would be different in each sentence.

This is also true of German.

[Cybergata]

8. Navajo

Why do you think the U.S. used Navajo Code talkers during WWII! Is a really difficult language for non speaker to learn. :hippie:

[DieboldMustDie]

11. English!

Gee Dubya was born here, had access to the best education, and he still hasn't learned it. :evilgrin:

[rucky]

14. French

but I'm a little biased, because Latin is my native language.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

15. It would be harder to find Latin speakers to practice with nt

[AlFrankenFan]

17. Don't say Latin!!!!!

I'm taking it freshman year in high school :scared:

[name not needed]

28. I bet it's a hell of a lot easier than what I'm taking.

Italian 3 Sophomore year, and I've forgotten everything.

[Dookus]

35. Oh, Italian's really easy

molto facile.

[IconoclastIlene]

40. You are not alone

My own son is starting Latin this fall. He absolutely abhorred Espanol and I can't figure out why cause it was a cake walk for me!!!

[IconoclastIlene]

41. I grew up listening to Yiddish

and that seems like it would be an easy dialect to pick up.....it too, may be headed for dinosaur land of languages...I hope not..it is so lively and fun.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

19. Took both, no contest, Latin is EASY

French was like a daily butt rape.

[truizm]

20. What was so hard about French?

I've actually started learning French (a little) already...The pronounciation is tough for me, but maybe I'm just slow. Is pronounciation in Latin easier than French?

[Dookus]

21. The ONLY

hard thing about French is pronunciation. Latin pronunciation is extremely easy because nobody knows HOW it was pronounced, so they just sorta say it the way it's spelled.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. That's kind of unfair

It's not as though Latin has been off the map since the fall of of the Roman Empire. It has remained the language of the church (even though the church version is slightly corrupt). It's not a "dead" language, it's been passed down through the years, mainly through scholars and intellectuals. Also since it is the root of all romance languages (Romanian, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) it is easier to springboard into those languages from Latin than from each other. IE, Latin is closer to Spanish than French is. I think as Dookus said, if you plan on taking more languages, Latin is the way to go.

[Dookus]

24. Latin *IS* a dead language

So is Sanskrit. Yet people speak both.

A dead language is one which has no native speakers.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

25. That's why I put it in quotiation marks

It's not "dead" in that nobody knows how to speak it, the rules or the mechanics of it. It never died so to speak in that it survived through the centuries in a preserved form since there were no natives to change and corrupt it, but it survived.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. The pronounciation of Latin is very easy

For every vowel there is a syllable, c's are only pronounced one way(as Ks) and I's replace Js. 99 percent of the time, if it looked like it was pronounced a certain way, it was pronounced that way (I say 99 percent because Im sure there was an exception there somewhere). Also since it was pronounced the way it was spelled, it was also spelled the way it was pronounced. Finally since so many english derivatives came from Latin directly, it was fairly easy to discern what aw word meant by it's look.
French pronunciation was a beast, coupled with all the accent marks. Spelling was also horrible.

And the number system is easier as well.

[soothsayer]

26. Once you learn Latin (easy as pie!) then the other romance languages

(French, Spanish, Portugese, German, etc.) are easy, since Latin is the root.

Some are spooked by Latin's sentence structure (same one the German's use, with the verb at the end---The cow in the barn is.) but it's a piece of cake.

[truizm]

27. I actually know a bit of German...think that would make learning

Latin any easier?

Do you think Latin is easier than French?

[daisygirl]

29. I took both in school

and neither one was really harder than the other for me.

With French, my biggest trouble was pronunciation. Even after 6 years of classes, my accent was awful.

With Latin, the biggest nuisance is the sheer amount of memorization - but if you learn Latin first, then any Romance language will be easier because you'll recognize the word roots.

[truizm]

30. Thanks for the replies everyone...

:D

[JLuckey]

31. If your thinking about Law take Latin.

[Guy Fawkes]

32. For me, as a student of both...

Latin is more *fun*. I found them both (reletively) easy; Latin is easy because I already know a lot of the words from English. French is easy because everyone in my family speaks it, and I learned how to do the more gutteral sounds when I learned Hebrew in sunday school.

[greatauntoftriplets]

34. Latin is a dead language,

That is plain to me.
It killed off all the Romans,
And now it's killing me.

Take French, it is more useful in the world.

[Nikia]

36. I don't know if this is true of languages at your college

At my college, if you took modern languages, you were expected to speak it conversationally, impromptu stuff. I did not have a chance to take classical languages in college like I wanted. I had a few friends who took Latin and/or ancient Greek and they were not expected to speak it conversationally.
For me, I learn vocabulary and grammar quickly. I learn how to read the language. I can even write it. I am slower at learning to speak it conversationally.
For that reason, Latin would have probably been easier. French is easier than most modern languages though. The two other popular romance languages, Spanish and Italian are also similiar.

[Swamp Rat]

37. Are you thinking of taking a course?

Latin is useful, and French is practical, especially if you live in Southwest Louisiana or Quebec.

How about Spanish or Portuguese? After I learned Portuguese, I found I could read French and to a greater extent Italian with relative ease. Even after studying German, years of speaking Spanish, and a bit of ecclesiastical Latin study, it was Portuguese that opened my mind. Almost everything you learn in Portuguese can be applied in the other Romance languages. It is a very beautiful, musical languge too... I'm referring to Português Brasileiro.

Spanish is the easiest and most practical second language in the USA. It's necessary in some places in the Southwest. You'll have more opportunities to practice as well.

[Kellanved]

38. Latin is easier

less exceptions
Using Latin, French is a lot easier.

[lil-petunia]

39. I'm no latina, so french you.