Can't get myself on task

What was your initial interest in it? Russia will someday be a booming economy and those who speak the language will find themselves raking in the dough, living in fancy house and driving super cool cars. Also, many Russian women are gorgeous and looking for a nice American man to take them away. You could go on Russian chat rooms and show off your vocabulary to the admiring ladies. They will swoon. I speak French. It has gotten me nowhere. French sucks.

There! Ready to leand Russian?

Well, I just remember when I was in 8th grade, my brother was talking about how his Russian class was one of the most interesting classes he's taken. I suppose that sparked my interest. Throughout the 9th grade, I had my brother teach me a phrase or two in Russian and I just thought it was the coolest sounding language. At the time, I wanted to take the most unique language at the school that wasn't Japanese. ( Everyone was taking Japenese so suddenly. The Japanese culture made some very large impact at the school. ) So, I guess my initial interest was "Hey! I can speak more Russian than you can and it sounds coo so that makes me cool! !!" Now, I want learn it because I've actually met some Russian friends on the computer and throughout this language learning thing, I wanted to learn about their culture etc etc. And, darn it, I just want to do something productive this summer before band camp. Oh, and because my cousin has a CD that has Russian songs on it, and I thought it would be cool if I could understand some of it.

Well, too bad I'm a female and am not attracted to women. So, I guess the gorgeous Russian girls are out of my circle.
I know French! Er, un, deux ..trois! Merci! Oh, je ne sais pas! ( I have no idea if those are right. )

Ok, Scissors, scratch the romance thing. Of course, there are Russian men that would love to marry American women but it's just not the same. You're going to band camp? Did you see the movie American Pie? Don't be influenced by it! The only way you can learn Russian, as with anything else, is to have the DESIRE to lean Russian. Knowledge of a forign language is walways useful and Russian in particular as most Russians, unlike Europeans, do nt speak English.

And your French is flawless!

Russians are no Europeans NickFun?

Join the military for a linguist job, and study russian through them

I never planned on marrying a Russian man anyway. And yes, band campers are very well aware of the American Pie joke. In fact, I play the flute and never hear the end of it.
Well, I think I want to learn Russian, I am willing to do it in my spare time. Perhaps there's a line in between thinking you want to and actually and subconsciously wanting to.

-Flawless? Really? Too bad I don't remember what the last phrase means. "I don't understand" or . . . close to.

Je - I

Sais - from "savoir", to know

Ne...pas - denial.

"I don't know"

"I don't understand" would be "Je ne compris pas".

My French is very bad by the way, so don't ask me any further questions :wink:

Bwahaha Here I am complaining about wanting to learn Russian and what I'm getting is Fench. Thanks for the lesson.

Even if your French is bad( which I wouldn't know ), you seem to know what you're talking about. Studying linguisitics?

No, in the Netherlands we are 'forced' to learn four languages at school: Dutch, English, French and German. We know all too well you can not 'survive' in this world with only knowing one language, Dutch.

I've heard of students being "forced" to learn a foreign language, but four? Well, I assume if they teach you four languages, they would all be similar. Well, I know English is Germanic, are the other ones too?

I have a friend who speaks a little Dutch. How it helps her in life. Well, I . . . don't think it does. :/ Well, at least she could teach me a Dutch hand game. It was always fun, but I don't rememer the words .

To give an insight in language teaching on Dutch schools: you have three levels in Dutch education - VMBO, HAVO and VWO. VWO can be compared to ehm A-levels I guess, I don't know for sure. VMBO means that you have four years of highschool, HAVO five years and VWO six years. I just finished VWO. At VWO-level language teaching means: six years of Dutch, six years of English, six years of French and I think it was four or five years of German. Besides that you can choose Classical languages - Latin and Old Greek -, as well as some other languages. At our school that is Spanish; on other schools it could be Russian, Arabic, Turkish, Frisian (language spoken by the Frisians in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark) and Chinese (for what I know). Concerning German, French and Spanish (at my school) you can also choose different levels. Everybody is already taught German 1 and French 1. This means that you should be able to read it, but not write it or speak it. Than you can also go for German 1,2 and French 1,2, which means you are also taught to write it and speak it. This German 1, German 1,2, French 1 and French 1,2 (as well as Spanish 1 and Spanish 1,2) is only possible at the HAVO and VWO, and only from the fourth year at highschool. For the HAVO this means you can get approximately two years of German 1,2 and French 1,2 (to give an example); for the VWO this means you can have these subjects for a total of three years. In the first three years of both HAVO and VWO you get the whole thing, so - to give an example - all pupils are taught to speak French and read French. This is at an easy level though. I don't know how this language teaching is at the VMBO.

Bit confusing right?

When you say "years of high school", what do you mean? You can take more than four years? ( or 6 years, if you start high school in 7th grade )
And if I understand correctly, you don't take each of the VMBO, HAVO etc etc, right? You take a different one depending on how much more educated you will be in that subject? And I think you should basically be fine in the course 1 of the languages, where you just learn ot read it? I'm sure some of the quicker people could figure out how to write it if they can read it and the teacher should read it out loud . . . shouldn't they? I guess I wouldn't know, I don't know the languages nor study them.

Yes. confusing.

Well it sounds a bit discriminating, but you are classified in highschool in accordance with your...IQ. VMBO is for the people who - how to say it - score low at earlier tests at elementary school, HAVO for people who have an average - good score and VWO who have a good score. This also depends on how your teachers at elementary school think about you. So not everything depends on your testresults.

Now in the Netherlands you don't have the part between elementary school and higschool (I forgot the name, what you call - I think - the 7th and 8th grade). You go to elementary school until you are about 12, 13, and than go to high school until you are about 16 (VMBO), 17 (HAVO) or 18 (VWO).

Now, VWO is considered to be the toughest of these three. About 50% of the pupils go to the VMBO, 35% to the HAVO and 15% to the VWO. Most of the people who do VWO end up at university, although there are also a lot of people from the HAVO who go to university (and a lot of people from the VWO who don't go to university :wink: ). You have a sort of system here which is called the "Tweede Fase" - the Second Phase (sounds scary right?). This allows you to sort of choose your own "profile" - this means you can choose out of four different packages, all consisting out off different subjects. You can go for a profile consisting out off subjects like Science, Physics and Biology; but also for a profile consisting out off Economics and History. The "Tweede Fase" only accounts for the HAVO and the VWO, and it's only available from the fourth year of highschool. German 1(,2) and French 1(,2) are also part of this "Tweede Fase".

Still confusing?

It's not discrimination at all. Basically the same deal we have here. You are better at a particular subject and do better in it than others, then you're put into a higher level class of said subject. And for that reason, we don't chose "packages" of subject because you could be higher qualified for a cartain course than another.
I think I've got it now. Well, for the most part. :wink:

Than lets go back to the original subject :wink:

Bwahaha maybe this is why I'm not doing my Russian. I'm too busy talking about the school system in the netherlands

Shame on you :wink: