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Choosing a language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Tomohiro Octoglot Newbie Japan Joined 4278 days ago 20 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Japanese*, Korean, Galician, GermanC2, SpanishC2, Portuguese, Mandarin, English Studies: Russian, Old English, Armenian | Message 1 of 9 14 March 2015 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Next language
Please, help me choosing my next language. I’d like to add one more language to my list aside from Russian which I have just started with Assimil with Ease series. I am considering one of the following ones: French, Lithuanian, Latvian, Arabic, Estonian, Finnish or Hungarian. A non-Indo European language will be my priority here. I am interested in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as I have been there before. I’d like to visit the Baltic countries again for personal purposes. Of course, one could say that perhaps Russian would be more interesting as it is spoken by certain amount of the population (at least in the big cities it was so). As long as I have researched, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian lacks in good resources such as textbooks and dictionaries for foreigners. (My biased opinion). Finno-Ugric family I am interested in this group for Linguistics purpose, but I also would like to read some must read Finnish, Estonian or Hungarian books as well. I have taken a look on their profile written by Chung and I have found them pretty interesting as he gathered the main resources and many other interesting features. Afro-Asiatic: Arabic My main concern is which Arabic should I learn first? What Arabic is mutually intelligible at most in terms of speaking and writing? If I find good resources for beginners, I will probably pick up Arabic as its writing system is different and perhaps because there will be more books written in Arabic than in any of the languages I have already cited. French I would pick up this language just to rest my brain as I have already studied 8 years ago and I haven’t found challenging at all. It would be just in case I want to be lazy since I have intention to visit neither France nor some of French speaking countries again. Perhaps it would be due to their literature as I missed some of the greatest works written originally in French. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5895 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 2 of 9 14 March 2015 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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For Arabic, most recommend starting off with MSA, but it seems like many people who do
this end up rather discouraged because MSA only indirectly helps in understanding the vernacular dialects across the Arab world. Perhaps you might try starting off with the Egyptian or Levantine dialect? (Egyptian is the most popular because of numbers and centrality, but many people seem to find the Levant to be one of the most interesting regions in the Arab world.) Edited by lichtrausch on 14 March 2015 at 3:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Silvance Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5429 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Pashto Studies: Dari | Message 3 of 9 14 March 2015 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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French would probably be the easiest, if just for the extreme amount of resources. I'm
not familiar with a lot of the others, or whether or not they're super close to Russian, but you said yourself that they don't have a lot of resources. As far as Arabic goes, it's usually best to learn MSA (Modern Standard, or Written Arabic) first, as it makes it easier to branch off into dialects once it's learned. It's also the language of most Arabic news websites which allows you to use that as a learning resource. For dialects, Levantine and Iraqi are close enough where if you choose one of them first, learning the other won't take too long. Egyptian has a lot of resources, but it's fairly distant from the other dialects, which would make learning new dialects take longer. I'd only learn Egyptian if you had travel plans for there or really wanted to learn using Egyptian movies as a resource. I'd like to add though, that students at DLI who learn Arabic dialects such as Levantine, learn both MSA written and their dialect at the same time, so if you're truly dedicated, this can be done also. Edited by Silvance on 14 March 2015 at 4:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Silvance Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5429 days ago 57 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Pashto Studies: Dari | Message 4 of 9 14 March 2015 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been trying to make a new topic for this, but it keeps posting it in here, so I
guess this is where language choice questions go, so sorry about the double post. I'm a recent graduate of Pashto at DLI, and I'm looking to pick up another language in the region that has similarities with Pashto. While Pashto doesn't directly stem from another major language, it takes a lot of vocab from Persian, and Urdu takes a lot of vocab from Pashto. Due to this I think I could learn either language in a fairly short amount of time (6-8 months) but I'm having trouble deciding which. Which language do you think would be more useful/easier/have more resources? Edited by Silvance on 14 March 2015 at 4:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4642 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 9 15 March 2015 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
In this case I think it's a toss-up either way, but if you're thinking about your work in the area I would actually advise Dari. That's the Afghan dialect of Persian which will be of more immediate use to you. As for the rest I don't think it matters, especially because for the most part Hindi resources can also be used if you're studying Urdu. To Tomohiro: pick a Baltic language anyway. It doesn't matter that there are less resources. If you like them you'll put in the effort to find them, and besides you'll have a skill most of us unfortunately lack. As for Arabic, pick the dialect of the area you're most likely to travel in and learn that along with MSA. If you have no travel plans or affinity for a particular variant, pick Egyptian. I recommend dialect first, plus learning the alphabet. Edited by tarvos on 15 March 2015 at 8:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6532 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 9 15 March 2015 at 11:54am | IP Logged | ||
Generally I'm all for learning several languages, but isn't it too early? Wanting to start a new language at the slightest difficulty is not a good sign. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tomohiro Octoglot Newbie Japan Joined 4278 days ago 20 posts - 41 votes Speaks: Japanese*, Korean, Galician, GermanC2, SpanishC2, Portuguese, Mandarin, English Studies: Russian, Old English, Armenian | Message 7 of 9 15 March 2015 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is interesting because I got different suggestions on here. Thank you all!
I have no realistic plans to travel in the next few years to any Arabic speaking regions or affinity for a particular variant. So, Egyptian or Levantine Arabic will depend more on the amount of high quality resources I will find to purchase. It would be great if I have any opportunity to see the physical book before purchasing it. Between Levantine and Iraqi, I would perhaps choose the first as I have found more Levantine Arabic resources so far. Perhaps what Tarvos suggested me is similar to what Benny has told other people before. (http://www.fluentin3months.com/msa-or-dialect/) On resources I usually tell my acquaintances that one of the biggest problems that many experienced language learners face is the serious lack of decent material and online tools to learn from, especially when it comes to “minor” languages. Even though Arabic is widely spoken and important languages, I believe that it shouldn’t be an issue to find reliable resources of Arabic for foreigners. 1.Arabicpod101 There are some problems which was already reviewed by Mr. Donovan on: http://www.mezzoguild.com/arabicpod101-review/ It is a pity that Arabicpod101 seems to be focused on Moroccan variant as it is out of my plans to start with. “I would highly recommend ArabicPod101 to anyone interested in learning Moroccan Arabic since there isn’t much out there for the Moroccan dialect at present” 2.http://www.talkinarabic.com/ As Mr. Donovan studied with TTMIK, I think he decided to create together with his Arab friends a course which he would provide almost everything he has never found on other resources. Apparently he is rather focusing on quality over quantity which is what I would expect. To read what he has written: http://www.mezzoguild.com/how-to-speak-arabic/ 3. http://arabicpod.net/ Does anyone know anything about this website? I think they focus on Lebanese variant, but I am unsure about it. I will need patience and time to find out more information about other resources.
Well, I have a great motivation to learn Russian. First, I would like to travel within some of Russian speaking countries, including some I have visited before. I also have some pen pals from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia who help me improving my skills almost on daily basis (Sunday to Friday). I am aware that I have seen only the tip of the iceberg as I have managed to finish only half (50 units) of Assimil with Ease which is an easy book. However, I haven’t had much trouble so far as I can understand the audio (it is obviously very slow and for beginners such as me) and I retained most of the vocabulary and notes’ explanation as I review 10 random lessons every day. I did and I still do lots of L-R and shadowing. Besides that, I have previously read about Russian linguistics (syntax, morphology, phonology) some time ago and I found Russian pretty interesting. It is much more a matter of vocabulary which is not related to my “strongest” languages at the moment and I still believe that I won’t have many problems with Russian cases, aspect, etc. In addition, there are lots of VK communities where people post some interesting things. I am also fond of watching Russian football games and listen to many Russian songs which are very great imo (at least the ones I am listening to). I am not afraid of learning both Russian and Arabic simultaneously. I have read Lucca’s blog some time ago and despite the fact that he suggested focusing on “one problem at a time”, it is a matter of perspective, time, dedication etc. For instance, I myself have previously started learning Chinese, Korean, German, Galician, Spanish and Catalan simultaneously. Of course, Galician, Spanish and Catalan count as 1/5 (0,2) languages each accordingly to my biased and crazy criteria. So, I would say that I have studied “4” languages simultaneously and I haven’t problem at all, aside from the Portuguese interference in Spanish and Galician in terms of speaking (which I didn’t care much). I am not in a hurry to learn Arabic. I will start gathering as much information as I can about textbooks and dictionaries as they are expensive. I am also willing to do what I have done before with other languages as well. I usually start reading about my target language’s phonology/morphology and syntax, not necessarily in this order. Perhaps one of the main difficulties when learning a new language it is its extensive vocabulary, especially when it is not close related to any of the previous languages you have been maintaining. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 3982 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 9 16 March 2015 at 10:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Do Lithuanian.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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