At 06:23 PM 1/4/2002 -0500, you wrote: I have to strongly disagree. If you know what the PARTS are and what they mean (i.e. why is the subject, the subject, and why is the object, the object -- not just the names but what they really mean). That's not the same thing as just learning the way sentences are usually constructed in English. If you know what the building blocks are, then you can readily understand that in a particular language they are ordered differently. At least, it worked for me with French. I think the problem is that you weren't taught what those things meant, just how they were usually ordered. That's just a guess of course! This is an entirely different question. Children are much readier at learning languages than teens or adults are. It is much, much easier to learn a language at 3 then 13, or 30. And of course, if you have to learn a wacky language like English you are very fortunate if you learn it as an infant since it will be much, much harder later. I certainly agree that people should be required to learn at least one additional language. G

see below, plz. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris" <mythtech(a)Mac.com> To: "Classic Computer" <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 4:23 PM Subject: Re: Language and English with a structure(subject, They wouldn't have been counterproductive, had you learned them. The understanding of one complete scheme for analysis and design of correctly structured sentences in one language provides a basis on which one can, by comparison and contrast, easily learn a second, or a third. If your difficulty with a second language came from difficulty with the first, it's likely it was because you didn't fully comprehend the concepts involved in structural analysis of the first language. This belief suggests you understand little about the basics of language as a concept. The same elements are present in all languages, else people wouldn't be able to express themselves in those languages. It's true that lack of prejudice allows youngsters to learn languages and dialects more easily than adults, and particularly more easily than monolingual adults. As a small child, I spoke two dialects of German. One with my mother, who came from a different part of Germany than where we lived, and the other with my father, who came from where we lived, and spoke the local dialect. Of course, I spoke the local dialect with the locals. However, when faced with a stranger, particularly one who spoke the more formal dialect my mother spoke, I spoke the formal dialect as well. I have to disagree. If you set about to learn computer programming, it's considered good form to learn to express various techniques and functions in one language, of which Pascal has recently been a popular choice, before moving on to a more "free" sort of language that lets you make more mistakes without slapping your wrist, like C or C++. The idea is that you have to learn about the concepts in terms of which you have to express yourself before you can be able, simply put, to plow ahead and apply those constructs in another language. Fully learning one will provide tools at a conceptual level that are harder to acquire in some languages than others, but fully learning the concepts associated with programming a computer, just as with communicating with another human, is the only way in which you can get a firm basis on which to build your knowledge. Before you're a competent programmer, you have to learn those constructs, whether you learn them in the first language or the second, or the third doesn't matter, but you do have to learn 'em. Likewise, if you're to communicate effectively, you've got to learn how to do that too.