DavidM

to the speaking of multiple languages, english is one of the hardest to learn

I would say that English is one of the easiest languages to learn. The rules are relatively simple and apply consistently to male, female and child forms, and also apply when talking about the past, present or future.

i believe russian is very difficult to learn. can anyone concur?

I agree. It has to be one of the most difficult languages that there is. Every rule has many exceptions, and is often different depending on the context of what you're saying. To learn all the rules, where/when to use them, and then to use the exceptions takes a very long time. And on top of that there is the different alphabet.

PsychoBen

Cultural differences def plays a big part in our education. In Asia, esp. mainland China, more of the students see education as a privilege or an oppty to crawl up to the middle class (they don't have a welfare system to fall back on). Here in US more of the students see school as a prison term that they try to get out of as soon as they are old enough. It starts with parenting to steer the kids to embrace education and show continuous support.

I do think US education caters to the lowest denominator. If a small % can't catch up, they lower the standard and pace for all the students. I finished 4th grade in a HK public school (not a great one at that) and the mathematics I learned carried me through 8th grade in US public school. I mean they taught basic Algebra in 3rd and 4th grade.

I agree there are far too many unqualified and incompetent teachers in the US school system and the teacher union is at least partially to blame for that. I am sure other countries share this problem as well. It's quite ironic teachers grade the students' competency mostly by tests yet they (or the union) object to be tested to determine their own competency. Not surprisingly many of the teachers that were tested failed. You are going to have some bad apples but there are far too many of them in the schooling system.

Shift_S2K

I work in linguistics and have to say that I couldn't disagree more. English was the easiest language for me to learn and unlike Mingster it was not my native tongue though I have yet to meet an American who can tell from talking to me.

I hear this all the time from Americans, it's all part of the typical BS superior attitude that comes with the nationality and which generally blinds them vis

Shift_S2K

Oh, and not really relevant but I thought some of you might enjoy this, it was sent to me by a friend earlier today:
http://www.dailymotion.com/user/totocacapo...mindedness_tech