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Would you change your native language | ||
Tags: Native Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| luhmann Senior Member Brazil Joined 5334 days ago 156 posts - 271 votes  Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: Mandarin, French, English, Italian, Spanish, Persian, Arabic (classical) | Message 33 of 100 11 September 2010 at 4:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, quite truth. But none is a big national language which could be useful even when living far from where it is spoken. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5534 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 34 of 100 11 September 2010 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I Agree with Ari and jtdotto about this "having English as native language is like
winning a lottery" thing. To me it's exactly the opposite. Since English is so ubiquitous, you would have ended up learning it anyway, no matter what your native tongue would've been. So you would end up at least two good languages, whereas being "lottery winner" would give you a chance to get by with just language. Which may be convenient but which sure hasn't got anything to do with being lucky. I, for one, wouldn't want to have been born with English as my native tongue. I feel it would've been a handicap for me personally. I feel that if I wouldn't have been as keen to learn languages then as I am now. After all, there would be so fewer compelling reasons to get off my lazy behind and learn another language. As for picking another language as my native language - no. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 35 of 100 11 September 2010 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd go with Inuktitut.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 36 of 100 11 September 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with this. Even though I would love to have a native command of English, I wouldn't want it as my native language unless I could be bilingual because if it were, I would still be monolingual by now and I might not even have developed an interest in languages at all. I actually feel very lucky that I was born in a place where I got a language of my own as well as so much English exposure that I got another language almost for free, and such a useful one too! Being able to talk about others without them understanding you is a plus factor as well. ;-) Edited by ReneeMona on 11 September 2010 at 6:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Thatzright Diglot Senior Member Finland Joined 5673 days ago 202 posts - 311 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: French, Swedish, German, Russian | Message 37 of 100 11 September 2010 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On one hand I'm really glad that my native language is considered to be one of the more complex ones in general to almost everyone, and I've come to greatly appreciate how imaginative and (almost) unique it is many ways. You don't think about this stuff often with your native language. On the other hand, I'm a little jealous of everyone whose native language greatly resembles another language, that's to say people speaking Romance or Germanic or Slavic languages as native languages for example. In all of these language families you have plenty of languages that are really worth learning, as in not close to extinction, and I'm sure it is very fascinating to dive into a language that resembles your native one a lot. With Finnish, I only get Estonian for a "discount", and even the relationship between these two isn't as close as Russian and Ukrainian or Swedish and Danish etc.
Of course, since I can speak English I do sort of get a discount for other Germanic languages now too, so yeah. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 38 of 100 12 September 2010 at 1:59am | IP Logged | |||||
What about Hungarian? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 39 of 100 12 September 2010 at 2:08am | IP Logged | |||||
Cantonese might not be a national language, but it's quite big and it's certainly useful even when living far from where it's spoken. Fukkienese is spoken by 70% of Taiwan and also has a strong presence in Chinatowns around the world. And if you were raised with Mandarin, chances are big you'd be bilingual. And you'd get a discount on Japanese (writing system and vocabulary) and even Korean (vocabulary). Just sayin'. Edited by Ari on 12 September 2010 at 2:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 40 of 100 12 September 2010 at 6:15am | IP Logged | |||||
Finnish, while related to Hungarian, is not a close cousin. It would be about as much help as knowing Icelandic while studying its relative Bengali. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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