sanantone Wrote:I took Spanish for 3 years and found the grammar to be a lot more complicated than English grammar. The most annoying part is learning irregular verbs and the exceptions to the gender rules.
OK - some might indeed find it annoying - but let me tell you, there is a LOT more complexity to Latin (or German) grammar. 3 genders, randomly used, four cases (and appropriate gender/number case endings) for German nouns, six of them for Latin, (only 3 in Spanish or English) 5 declensions (case-endings series) for Latin nouns, more conjugations in Latin than Spanish, many irregular verbs in both languages. It's more than 50 years ago now, but I can still remember 1959 as the "year of the subjunctive." We studied it in Latin, French and German simultaneously!
If I hadn't studied Latin grammar first, I would have had a harder time with the concepts of German grammar. And as I see it, the main grammar rules of English or any of the Romance languages I've studied are a picnic, comparatively speaking. As I said -- you know Latin grammar, you know grammar, period. It's good for that, if nothing else -- but I think there are other benefits, too.
Johann