All the languages in the world

Thought of this maybe a month ago: 

I've already stated that if I won the lottery and could just quit work (i.e. be a stay-at-home dad; songwriting, woodworking and yardwork -- plus exercising on a more regular basis), that I would take one martial arts course a year (e.g. Judo one year, BJJ another), and cycle through most of the styles until I figured out which I liked the best (and acquiring a hodgepodge of skills along the way).

In addition, I now think that I'd take about one semester each of many foreign languages (skipping every second semester):  that is, take [Name of language] 101, and then at the start of the next school year take something else.  This was prompted by my trying to read the various "copyright warnings" at the end of a DVD (the ones that appear after the movie is over) out loud, and realizing that although I did a decent job of knowing the different languages (I think I knew more than half), my pronunciation was pretty bad.

So it would be good to know just some basic vocabulary, pronunciation rules, and language structure, for a bunch of different languages.  I already know some French and Japanese (and American Sign Language) -- so do Spanish, Italian, and German (in an arbitrary order); and then in no particular order, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Laotian, Cambodian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Australian sign language, Portugese, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Irish (Celtic?), Welsh, and a few local Aboriginal languages.  That's about 21 years right there.

I'm pretty bad at anything involving straight memorization -- which is why I'd only do the first semester of each language:  I'd reach a saturation point with vocabulary.


I will say, though, that for some reason Italian has an extra appeal:  I think it's a combination of the sound, the expressiveness... and the gestures while talking!  :)

I knew a guy who was taking Italian at the University of Washington, and he said that his instructor said that you can't speak Italian properly without moving your arms.










--GG