So, that's what all those 2012 apocalyptic stuffs are all about.

Less than 19 millions of French voted for him back then. That's how you get a government that more than half a country don't want.

Pero la idioma es muy facil. Es cerca del espanol, es porque hablo facilamente espanol tambien. (he estudiado 3 anos de espanol )

So I speak 4 languages and currently studying Japanese :p (Easier than people think actually )

Ouais, la seule chose qu'on puisse vraiment espérer d'Hollande, c'est qu'il redonne un peu de lustre à la fonction de président de la République, mais à part ça...

Anyway, those in for changes will be disappointed. It will be almost the same policy, except maybe with less far-right oriented bullshit...

I had to make a 2h train trip to vote and same to come back home. Yeah, I could have voted with my computer, but I don't trust that system...

Really, it always seemed such a mountain to climb to learn an eastern language, is it actually not that hard? What are the difficulties?

It really isn't that hard.
Well, first off, I was surprised to find out that they actually write from left to right like we do in French or English (No problem eitherway for me since in arabic we write from right to left)
And sometimes, (rarely) they right downwards...

Now the easy part is the pronounciation and the grammar, the hard part is learning the Kanji.

You see, in japanese you have three alphabets (Though it would be wrong to call them alphabets since they are more pronounciations than letters) :

-Hiragana : The basic one, consists of more than 40 pronounciations (Ex : Ta, te , to, ti, tu, ra , re , ro , re ,ru, ka , ke , ko , ke ,ku ...and so on)
PS : They pronounce the "r" between the english L and R.

-Katakana : It's exactly the same as the hiragana but written differently as it is applied to foreign nouns. For instance "Pizza" would be written in Katakana in japanese, but sushi would be written in hiragana. It gives a clue that the noun has a foreign origin. All the foreign names are also written in Katakana.

-Kanji : The hardest of the three, as there are more than 6000 kanjis, and most of them are copied from the chinese ... They are pictograms, wich represent things and are often used to replace hiragana combinations.
The hiragana combination for instance "Su ki" meaning to love or to like, can be replaced by the kanji represent the woman + the kanji representing the child.
Kanjis take different meanings relatively to the context of the phrase, and the words that are before/after them.

One of the hardest things in the japanese language is also to understand the different nuances while adressing someone... They have several degree of Politness integrated to many words.

For instance "Doko" and "Dochiro" meaning "Where" but varying in politness degree...the latter being more polite.

THIS
And that, too.
Omelette du fromage! Oo lala! Sacrebleu! (Just to prove I'm really french...)

I think the most complicated langauge to learn has to be chinese I mean why else is there 2 different versions of the langauge: traditional, and simlified

My understanding was that there were 2 languages, Mandarin and Cantonese. Though I may well be wrong.

Indeed. Hence the "We hope..." bit :P

She all but snubbed him the other month, but as more and more polls had him winning, she did soften her stance enough to talk to him...even if it [supposition] was along the lines of "This is how we do things in Europe now. Toe the line, or else...."

I'm not holding my breath he will make great waves, but maybe he could start a few ripples....and even if he does, our shower of shite won't take advantage. They're just too ingrained to acquiesce to the EU... :\

Traditional and simplified aren't different languages, they're different ways of writing hanzi (cognate with the Japanese word Kanji as mentioned by N0x0ss above). I think simplified was invented by the PRC government during or after the cultural revolution?

I saw Hollandae and immediately thought of hollandaise sauce and thought this thread was going to be about eggs benedict or something

I guess not

But big ups to that president none the less

80% voter turnout - I envy you French people.
Yeah... that's not how it works.

I'm sorry for my ignorance I only assumed that chinese must have been complicated since there is a simplified version of it

Absolutely shocking. Will the nightmare ever end?
Next thing: fucking Mitt Romney is elected.
Madness?
I concur