Vinbelgium Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Belgium Joined 5814 days ago 61 posts - 73 votes Speaks: Dutch*, Flemish*, English, French Studies: Spanish, Russian
| Message 201 of 580 22 February 2009 at 6:29pm | IP Logged |
Mandarin
Russian
Arabic
Japanese
Spanish
Since I already know English and French, I needn't mention them in the list.
These 5 languages are the most spoken, and therefore a must to communicate with foreigners.
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Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6529 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean
| Message 203 of 580 22 February 2009 at 8:20pm | IP Logged |
no, nevermind what my last post said, I changed my mind
- Korean- Whatever it takes me, I'll speak this language well some day
- Spanish- so necessary, and so beautiful
The other 3 are pure fantasy, things I'll probably never get to because of my focus on Korean and Spanish, but...
Indonesian- I always try to trick people by saying I'm Indonesian, it's be cool to have the skills to take that farce a bit further
Japanese- I'd never learn this, but gosh darn it if it doesn't seem the peak of interesting... I think I'm just attracted to the scripts, honestly
Peul- My dad's language, I think I missed so much growing up without this... But I'm beyond the age to learn that freaky thing he does with his vocal chords to pronounce a weird B and D, I fear, so none of that for me
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mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5914 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
| Message 204 of 580 11 March 2009 at 1:27am | IP Logged |
This thread took a long time to read; because I decided while reading other posts that I needed to slim down my hit list considerably, as it was too ambitious, and getting a little ridiculous. I also don't want to limit myself to just 5 languages, and to make it more interesting for me personally I will list 5 languages I might like to learn if I had unlimited time and resources. These languages are, in no special order, listed below:
1. Inuktitut - Just to know a relatively exotic Native American language that is still spoken.
2. Swahili - It's widely spoken in East Africa.
3. Cantonese - I would love to visit Hong Kong.
4. Guaraní - Maybe I'll go to Paraguay someday.
5. Northern Sami - Could be very useful in Northern Scandinavia.
I actually intend to learn the first three languages, but the last two are highly unlikely, given the relative scarcity of learning resources. I may find the thread that asks about 10 languages so I can add languages like Icelandic, Polish, Estonian, Montagnais-Naskapi and Hawaiian to this list.
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yushuak Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5767 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Italian
| Message 205 of 580 12 March 2009 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
Hm.
I dont want to seem boring following the above post:
Spanish
French
German
Italian
Arabic
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VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7071 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French
| Message 206 of 580 12 March 2009 at 9:20am | IP Logged |
Hi everyone.
I think, it all depends what you want to do with them.
The question is :” …if you could learn only 5 languages to perfect (native) fluency (reading/writing/listening/speaking), in addition to any which you already have a native or advanced fluency in…”
English – you just have to, it is Latin in our time.
French – you do not have to, but if it is not in English, then it is mostly likely in French.
Arabic- the whole another world for an Indo-European language speaker. The different script and the grate culture.
Chinese – read Arabic description above.
Greek – you can find a lot of native speakers in small communities around the world, and read in origin about 3 thousand years old text on all topics.
Edited by VityaCo on 12 March 2009 at 9:23am
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JasonBourne Groupie United States Joined 5742 days ago 65 posts - 111 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Written), Turkish
| Message 207 of 580 13 March 2009 at 6:32am | IP Logged |
Japanese - Already conversational in the language, mind as well keep it up
Mandarin - impressive
Arabic - impossible
French - sexy
Portuguese - sexier
There are more I'd like to study, but I think if I came anywhere close to having any sort of practical fluency in these languages, I'd die a happy man
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trance0 Pentaglot Groupie Slovenia Joined 5740 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: Slovenian*, English, German, Croatian, Serbian
| Message 208 of 580 14 March 2009 at 10:39am | IP Logged |
I would first like to improve on the languages I am already familiar with: German and Serbo-Croatian and bring them at least to advanced fluency. Aside from these I find the following most useful:
1. French, love the sound of this one and I find it very useful in Europe and many other parts of the world.
2. Italian, very useful in my country as we border on Italy and Italians are notoriously bad in foreign languages.
3. Spanish, a beautiful and very useful language especially in the Latin america.
4. Russian, the most important Slavic language and not to dissimilar from my native tongue, very useful in Eastern Europe.
5. Arabic, very interesting and useful in the Middle East and in North Africa, also geographically close to EU.
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