Sean,

 SD> Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian are all Romance
 SD> languages, meaning they come from Vulgar ("common") Latin and share
 SD> common roots.  I do not speak French nor Italian though I do speak a
 SD> bit of Spanish--I took a semester of it while in high school in
 SD> 1987--and with that knowledge, I have found it easy to understand
 SD> French and Italian better.  I have no experience with Portuguese and
 SD> Romanian but I suppose if I tried, I could probably do the same thing.

  I took 4 years of Spanish in high school, living in south Florida (where
you are lost if you don't speak it). While I can read it, I can't speak it.

 SD> Being a native English speaker, it can be difficult for me to learn
 SD> other languages, especially Japanese or Mandarin Chinese (both of which
 SD> I have attempted to learn but failed to do so).

  They say English is the hardest language to learn...but for those of us
where English is our native language, we wonder why it's so hard.

 SD> ... Don't raise the bar.  It makes it too hard to get the drinks.

  I'm into heavy drinking...got to drink a lot of lemonade with my
food. Janice (my late wife) would eat all her food first, without
taking a drink...then she'd drink her beverage "to fill up the nooks
and crannies". If I don't have something to wash my food down, I may
choke to death.

Daryl

... Why do we send cargo by ship, but shipments by car??
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