So...in case I didn't introduce myself last time (?), I'm a novice at several languages and master of none but my native English. I'm also fascinated by the structure of languages, which is probably partly due to having had a linguist for a parent. Certainly, I drive my language teachers nuts with it.
I studied French in high school, and you'd think I'd have completely forgotten it by now, that having been a long time ago, but somehow quite a bit of it sticks with me. Not sure how that happened, except perhaps by the effort of translating letters from Dorothy Sayers novels for my friends. Anyhow, I became school-proficient, but never truly fluent.
I studied Russian for one year (it was intensive, so the one year was supposed to cover all the grammar and most of the vocabulary, leaving one fit for literature after that) and remember nothing. I seriously cannot even sound out simple words.
I studied Latin twice - classical Latin in high school (at a university class), and then ecclesiastical Latin in graduate school, and in the latter case even progressed far enough to be translating some famous, if simple, sermons and so forth from centuries back...but I don't remember anything beyond a hazy addition to my comprehension of etymology.
Several years ago, I commenced teaching myself Japanese, and have returned to it off and on ever since. The language itself absolutely fascinates me, but I know I won't become proficient unless I take classes and then get some immersion.
And I may not get that because I recently made the choice that, professionally speaking, it was much more important for me to know Spanish than Japanese, and so I've begun studying that by myself as well. I'm still an absolute baby in it - I don't know anything except the present tense, and so forth - but I'm working on it. A lot of the questions I have these days are related to Spanish.
Given worlds enough and time, I would also like to learn ASL, Haitian Creole, and Vietnamese, and attain proficiency in all the languages I have a toe-hold in already. I don't know how much of that will happen, but ambition can be good.
One question. I don't see anything about Macs in the community info about making accent marks. I'd be very grateful if people could tell me whether the accents I can make using the Mac's innate options show up on their computers or not.
So, for instance - "Ce café là--" do the accents show?
Also, おねがい します。 Can you see the hiragana characters, or no?
Thanks, and hello, and sorry if I already did all this and somehow forgot.