dumbstruck?
Walk feet. Close eyes. Dunk head.
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My $0.02 on languagesâŠ(Coming from someone who has learned several, including French)
There are certainly things to like about French, including us melodic sound (in some circumstances). Precise vocabulary that can be both expressive and nuanced.
What I donât like are:
- Gendered inanimate nouns that need individual memorization. You can guess an objectsâ gender about 80% of the time based on the suffix (ie: -age, -eau -isme -ment -oir are all often, but not always masculine, and -ade -ance -Ă©e -ette -tion are often, but not always, feminine. However that assumption is only true 80% of the time. You have to individually learn the gender of everything that exists: the gender of a rock, the sky, even the parts of your body may have the same or opposite gender from yourself. And you have to use different grammar depending on an inanimate objectsâ gender, which feels unnecessary and ridiculous if you are coming from a language that doesnât do this.
- Conjugation is also inconsistent and ridiculous in many ways⊠Though English is exponentially worse.
- Silent spelling and lots of exceptions to rules (again, English is worse though)
- Idioms - I actually donât dislike this, but thought I should mention it since it makes it so much more challenging. But again, English is exponentially worse.
To be fair, the above is normal for all Latin based languages and English has plenty more to dislike.
I like Haitian Creole the most 
The spelling is phonetic = awesome
There is no verb conjugation. The verb is always spelled the same, no matter if it is past tense, past progressive, present, present progressive, future, future progressive, conditional, etc. You just say the word âteâ before any verb and itâs past tense. There is no struggle to learn inconsistent conjugation like many other languages. Thereâs also basically no complex gender structure or pronouns or inanimate objects having gender. He, she, it, are all the same word âliâ without wondering if a rock or a cloud is male or female. To make any noun plural you just add the word âyoâ after it. Easy.
Itâs heavenly to learn in many of those senses. The UN should choose a language like that as one of the official languages. One that is straightforward that ANYONE can learn quickly and easily without all the complex inconsistencies and exceptions to their grammar, let alone unnecessary eccentricities. Those eccentricities can make a language beautiful, and interesting, but not necessarily efficient/effective or helpful when diverse cultures are trying to communicate.
Though nowadays, sometimes I wonder if I wasted my time learning languages since machine learning has basically made it automatic with no effort. 
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The French language is quite easy to read, but try to figure the old French Republican Calendar used between 1793 and 1805 . 
I have hundreds of my Dutch and Belgian ancestors birth, marriage and death records that were written in French and based on that calendar. Lucky for me I found a quick converter 
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Oh man, you donât have to tell me! I have done a lot of volunteer work doing what is called âIndexingâ of all those records for genealogy use. For a while I even worked as an âarbitratorâ to rule on indexing discrepancies (they usually have 2 separate people index the same records, and if they both match, itâs accepted, if they donât, then the computer flags differences and has an arbitrator review and decide on the finalization). I have done hundreds of thousands of such records, and I spent a long time indexing and arbitrating MANY of those old French records too since I knew French, so I know what you are talking about. If you were able to decipher their handwriting at all, then you are far ahead of the average person! 
Most youngsters nowadays canât even read more modern regular cursive anymore, let alone some of the near illegible chicken scratch from 200+ years ago that is sometimes partially faded/blurry. People think Doctorsâ handwriting is hard to readâŠtry old genealogical records for centuries ago, and youâll start thinking Doctors write in nearly pristine Arial font by comparison. 
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Some years and some churches had good records, depending on who was writing. This church Saint Loup in the City on Namur had good and bad records. This one is my 7th Great Grand Aunt Maria Francisca Berger. Baptized 25 August 1644, she died the next day. 
And her brother Vincentius baptism from 10 August 1643.
For a few years they listed all the baptism alphabetically by the first names.
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Ah, good old archaic French Script. Hard to believe how much lettering styling can change over the years and that all of that is still basically the same alphabet we use. 
I bet most people canât decipher more than half the letters/numbers in those scripts despite it supposedly being the same general alphabet we use.
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?
/edit
This is my emojification of the Angel Moroni, prominent symbol of LDS. A connection is implied in carverâs post and Iâm checking my inference.
Donât be afraid to speak, folks (not you, carver, I know you donât fear. )
/edit
Recast with one of carverâs better angels:
/edit
With an extension:
(may not hold up because of device spacing differences 
)
hip
I wanted to put @bryonhu 's âMrs. Peepeepâ tribute in here, but she wonât fit - too hip!
Shrunk her down, here she go
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Boy, I walked right into that one! 
Thatâs a cousin I once removed. Sheâs back.
Iâm going to try this from memory. Scorpion asks frog for a ride across the river. Frog says yeah right youâre a scorpion youâre just going to sting me. Scorpion says no not this timeâŠ
By memory only, amend and extend (or finish) the story. Anyone.
âŠthen the frog trusts it and agrees, then the scorpion stings peepeep anyway and Peep croaks out âWhy would you do that, now weâre both going to drownâ and the scorpion says something about âYou knew what I was, I canât help it, itâs in my nature and I canât changeâ blah, blah, blah, thus used to claim that some people and creatures canât change their âinherent natureâ even if itâs their own downfall.
BahâŠrubbish. Change is 100% possible with the right motivation and circumstances. I have experienced this in my own life.
Perhaps if the scorpion had a strong enough reason to survive such as a family waiting on the other side of the river, or a dire need to reach the other shore, then it might overcome itâs instinct to sting. In real life, LOTS of people have changed their behaviors and habits when faced with significant consequences or when they have a compelling reason to do so.
The story assumes the scorpionâs nature is fixed and unchangeable, but thatâs rubbish and not NECESSARILY applicable to humans either. We do have the capacity for growth and transformation. We can use self-awareness, support, effort and learn to manage our instincts and make different choices.
From my psychology background and focus on behaviorism, itâs even possible to use behavioral techniques to âchange someoneâs natureâ if you have sufficient time and control and motivation to help do so.
Thatâs not to say that everyone WILL. I suspect there are lots of figurative âNPCâsâ in the world who make themselves basically droned scorpions without critical thinking skills.
Still, letâs rewrite this rubbish story with my modifications.
Some people might argue that in this case the scorpion is actually virtuous.
The frog didnât sting anyone either, but heâs not able to do so. So the frog not doing something he couldnât do, doesnât make the Frog virtuous. The scorpion CAN sting and kill the frogâŠbut he doesnât act monsterously. Goodness doesnât come from not doing an act (especially one which you canât do anyway), but from being able to do the [negative] act and choosing not to. AS WELL AS having the means and opportunity to do something positive and doing that. In this case, both the frog and the scorpion can be heroes of a sort. The frog did something he was capable of doing to help, and the scorpion chose not to do something he was more than monstrously capable of doing, and had urges to do, but used inhibitions (and thankfully wasnât compromisedly intoxicated so that he was able to be in control).
Hey, you askedâŠand you said:
And even an old counter-convention contrarian like me is an âanyoneâ 
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you funny
In the subsequent posts, was I faking it, or was it organic?
I actually have an honest answer ready.
Oh more fun⊠(disclaimer for any onlookers not familiar with us, Iâm just having fun joking around with my friend in the watercooler, Iâm not ACTUALLY this mean and will usually be nice and helpful to YOU)
Bah to your Freudian-ish rubbish Iâm more of a behaviorist and a data guy. What matters more is that you DID it, as that is the only thing that can be measured with any degree of certaintyâŠnot some abstract secret subconscious post-hoc self-serving interpretation that may differ over time. You ever read the research on how atrociously unreliable witness testimony is and how easy it is to create fake memories? How can I believe your own self report as the only unreliable witness testimony about what you ârememberâ going on inside your head? Overruled!
You ever hear the old phrases such as âFake it till you make itâ or if you act like you have a trait that you want long enough, eventually it will be a natural trait for you.
SoâŠdoes it REALLY matter if you were faking it or organic-ing it?
OKâŠj/k, my friend. Give it to meâŠ
Youâre such a liar you are this effing mean!
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Yeah, but Iâd kind of feel bad if I was nice to youâŠdonât want to yuck your yum and all that. 
Iâm not kidding you, Iâd already written this:
It was mixed and oscillating.
I arrived at âcompletely earnestâ in post #64.
So as a guy said to me as I sauntered across an open field at 7am as he washed his car, âSomeone got laidâ and laughed and I laughed and responded couldnât be further from the truth and he said:
Ah, fake it 'til you make it, right on.
And I let him think what he wanted to.
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The data behavioralist is enamored of conclusions arrived at by collecting the perfect data set.
Iâm enamored of the mess the world and people actually are.
I mean, this is my freakinâ opinion, ok, I could be wrong. 