On Wed 25 May 2005 18:38, Michael Armbrecht wrote:
> > There is no such thing as "a good first language", IMHO.
> > Is Russian a good first language? Sanskrit? Italian?
>> There is. Latin. Once you've groked that, you'll have much less difficulty
> learning any other (European) language. At least that's my experience.
I am so old that Latin was in fact the first foreign language I learned,
starting IIRC at age 8 or 9.
While it was quite useful in getting a grasp of grammar,
I don't think it was actually any help
in learning to speak any other language later.
My grand-daughter at the same age learns Spanish and Japanese,
which in my opinion are both more interesting and more useful.
--
Timothy Murphy
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s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
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