I started this blog already once

Then i deleted it.

Now I'm here again.

I love languages.

I'm a big fan of Benny, but I have Asperger's. I know it doesn't mean I CAN'T socialize. I'm sure there are tons of Aspies out there who are quite fluent in neuronormal and do fine in social situations and improvise without any problems. I, on the other hand, am NOT comfortable in social situations.
When Benny talked about partying in Spain and I couldn't see anything attractive, exciting, interesting, or anything else positive about it... the mere idea of dressing up and going out just to sit with people in a noisy room and... chat? brrr... I don't do improvisations, I don't do smalltalk, I don't do flirting and I don't chat. Not even online. No.
Lunching with girls? Oh, dear. No, thank you. No cups of coffee, no dinners... I'm a really fuzzy eater. I don't drink coffee. If you want to share a dinner with me, you're welcome to my home, to sit by my table and share my bread, but I'd like to read my book, if you don't mind.
The idea of going out there, traveling, starting the discussion with a total stranger... brrr. I'm sure most of the people out there are nice, lovely, friendly, hospitable and all that, but... no way.
Those situations come pretty close to nightmare in my mind.

I want to learn languages so that I can read more, that I get the access to more information online, so that I can use the wonderful opportunity cable television gives us. (We have 8 channels in Arabic, Syriac and Turkish, among other channels.)

I also love collecting data, information, and make lists. Just think about it... all the half-abstract information of grammar, all the word lists... there are thousands of words in every language. About 200.000-300.000 is about normal... (well, frankly I don't know how many. People say English has somewhere between 500.000 and 5.000.000 words. Considering that if you know the 2000 most commonly used words of English, you master 75-80% of the language... and almost all with mere 15.000. I would say half a million is closer than five million. But - I don't know. It's a lot of words.)

Another juicy little piece of statistics, and I don't know anything about the veracity of this:

age 2 - 200 words
age 3 - 1000 words
age 6 - 4.000-20.000 words
age 14 - 10.000-25.000 words
adult - 30.000-60.000 words

A typical toddler learns 10-100 words a day... 100 words a day doesn't sound possible. Considering that a 6 years old is some 2000 days old, that would make it 5 words a day since birth to reach 10.000 words, which is a good vocabulary for a 6 years old. It's not so that the kids don't learn words before they start using them... some theories even claim they learn words and sounds already before they are born.
Anyway, the point with this is that this is the rate children - those "natural sponges" learn languages... so if you get fluent in three months... that means you'll learn some 2000-10.000 words in 3 months... 22-100 words a day. Adults do NOT have it harder to learn than kids. It's all in one's attitude.

Another tidbit - they have found out that Danish is the most difficult language to learn - Danish children take the longest time to speak their mother tongue. So there so.
English is the most difficult language to write. (as if not everyone knew it...)Especially if you're dyslexic. Finnish and German are the easiest. Ha! Also, pictograms are easier than letters. Dyslexic children learn easier to write Chinese and Egyptian :-D