Learn anything from French to Cantonese. For free.

http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

I would suggest livemocha.com for finding native speakers for practice

Bump.

As a complement to this, one might want to look into learning by immersion.

What that means is that they breathe in nothing but that specific language (read books in that language, have people speak to you in that language alone, watch television in that language, etc.). I've heard that's the most efficient way to become proficient at a language.

Yes- Mormons do this before they send their 'missionaries'. Its quite effective.

God confused everyone's tongues at Babel for a reason. He didn't want us to be able to communicate with foreigners. You're all Communists, trying to break down national barriers!

 :scratchchin:

lol

I think you've been hanging out at CI.com for too long; back to IgnisArdens Clare  

From a philosophical anthropological perspective, learning a second language (and I mean learning it to the point where you can literally THINK fluently in that language), I imagine, would be tremendously important when it comes to allowing you to see man as he is outside of your own cultural background. Looking at other cultures, breathing in other cultures, will give you an outlook on the nature of Man that you could never have by only being immersed in your own culture. No, I am not suggesting being multicultural, where we get a bunch of different cultures and mix them together; that in my opinion destroys culture. What I'm suggesting is leaving your world behind and completely immersing yourself in another culture.

Besides, American culture (where i assume most of us live) is hardly worthy of the name in my opinion. I'd rather go to Italy. A country with almost two thousand years of Catholic thinking would do some good.

And I imagine that if we study other cultures, you will find, Clare, that they also have hierarchies and classes (at least those cultures that do well). So studying other cultures and stepping outside of yourself will make you even less of a communist.

From a philosophical anthropological perspective, learning a second language (and I mean learning it to the point where you can literally THINK fluently in that language), I imagine, would be tremendously important when it comes to allowing you to see man as he is outside of your own cultural background. Looking at other cultures, breathing in other cultures, will give you an outlook on the nature of Man that you could never have by only being immersed in your own culture.

Right- this book I'm currently reading said that St. Francis spoke French in his own home and was fond of the Langue d'oïl. This was also very interesting in the footnotes:

Brunetto Latini wrote in French because "the speech of France is more delectable and more common to all people." At the other end of Europe the Abbot of Stade, in Westphalia, spoke of the nobility of the Gallic dialect.

Sometimes I am frustrated that my daughters will not grow up with two languages, as I did. I had the benefit of having a grandmother who only spoke Spanish, who I was very close with. I was forced to communicate in Spanish with her because of that. However, everyone my children know and communicate with speak English, and I fell I don't have the fortitude to dialogue with them in Spanish.

If the mother can speak Spanish it would work well for you to speak Spanish if you want them not to speak it with an accent and have trouble later acquiring it as a "foreign" language - as long as your children are not too old yet they will still have the ability to quickly pick up foreign language. However, this ability will decrease with age - anything that you teach them now will later benefit them since their brains will not prune away those neural pathways that are created for language acquisition. Example: if you are raised bilingual, it is automatically easier for you to become trilingual than it is for a person who speaks only one language to become bilingual (a parallel example of this is the case of musicians who find less difficulty in acquiring their second instrument as opposed to their primary instrument). And don't worry that they won't be able to catch up in English - they will. Aside from that, American English spoken with an accent is hardly offensive to the ears.

Ecclesiastical and Classical Latin should be the universal written language in the West; Classical Chinese should form the be written language in the East (and in fact, it was - all the way up to the beginning of the 20th century!).