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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Luis L Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5588 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 81 of 141 10 August 2009 at 7:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Mandarin: distinct culture, different grammar, the tones, and the beautiful writing system. All of those fascinated me, and the fact that it's such a useful language definitely helped justify learning my first foreign language. It's a decision I am so happy I made as I've found I absolutely love learning languages, and have plans for several more. The fact that it was supposedly so difficult was also a plus: challenges keep me going...
...and that's where Korean comes from. Entirely different from what I know for different reasons than Chinese was. Absolutely fascinating, and the high complexity of the language will hopefully keep it just as interesting as Chinese has been. After my Korean reaches a decent level I plan on undertaking either French, Italian, or Portuguese to finally make use of the discount native Spanish provides, and I know the very basics of all three. I find the Romance languages really beautiful, especially Italian. Portuguese is moderately useful, and French is in between for those two criteria. At the same time I fear I might not be too interested if they're too easy (I can already read Portuguese and understand a vast majority of what I read, especially with a dictionary, and Italian and French aren't too strenuous with a dictionary either), but at least even if I give up early on I'll still have acquired a notable amount. If I do I plan on taking a Nordic language immediately after given my interest in the region (the modern social and government system are appealing to me, as are the culture), though I've yet to decide which one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 82 of 141 11 August 2009 at 5:03am | IP Logged | ||
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English - Native language, no choice about that.
Spanish - Sent into an immersion program at age five, no real choice about it, but I would have chosen to learn it anyways. Greek - My family is Greek and I enjoy the sound of the language and how the alphabet looks and feels. I'm not sure if I would have chosen to pursue it otherwise though, but I'm glad that I have had the opportunity to. French - I liked the sound of French and thought that it would be easy since I spoke Spanish already. Several people in my family already spoke French, including my grandmother, who was a high school French teacher while she was alive. Portuguese - I had been on my arbitrary list of languages I wanted to learn since I was young, but for no apparent reason. I had very little knowledge about the language or how it sounded until I started to study it. The reason why I chose to study it was because I thought it would be easy to learn. Now I enjoy Portuguese because I like the sound and feel of the language and it is wonderful to use it. German - It was always a language I had wanted to learn because I had deemed it as a must-know language. I now enjoy German because of its pronunciation (which I had considered ugly until I began to study) and its fascinating word order. Italian - I had always enjoyed the sound of Italian and it had always been on my list of languages to learn. Italian culture is lovely, as is the language. Japanese - I have had an interest in Japan and its language since first grade, when we did a unit on Japan and had to learn to count to ten in Japanese and learn the characters for those numbers. I enjoy the pronunciation of Japanese, classical Japanese culture and history, the beauty of the writing system, and the interesting syntax. Russian - I like the sound of the language and the look of the Cyrillic alphabet. Several people in my family can speak it and I have always wanted to learn. I like Russian culture and cannot wait until I am more advanced when I can read some of the fabulous literature in the original. So, to sum up, it seems that I generally choose my target language based upon the beauty of the language, the history and culture, the usefulness, and the difficulty. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6030 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 83 of 141 11 August 2009 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
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As a citizen of the world I feel compelled to learn languages. Culture, music, friendship, intellectual persuits, etc, all these and more contribute to me wanting to learn languages.
Also for languages like Yiddish and Lithuanian I have a family connection which makes it more personal. I just love languages!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| densou Senior Member Italy foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6132 days ago 120 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 84 of 141 12 August 2009 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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How could someone explain a matter of heart ? (it always prevail over the brain)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5983 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 85 of 141 13 August 2009 at 6:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Sumerian -I wanted to see how far removed a language could be from English, so I
figured a language isolate that had been lost for thousands of years might be a good place to start. I have been fascinated by the language and culture ever since. I find Sumerian extremely difficult, but at least I don't have to worry about my accent. At times this language seems so bizarre to me that it makes the differences between Japanese and English seem like the trivial differences between dialects. It really does seem like a language from another world. Akkadian -I started this language for the same reason as Sumerian, although it is not nearly as strange, being related to Arabic. I think it is the most beautiful and mysterious language, and I would happily dedicate my life to studying it. Japanese -I initially started Japanese out of curiosity, as it seemed very exotic, but I stuck with it because I think it is a beautiful language. It is probably the language I have studied the most. Arabic -I took this up because I wanted to go to Iraq to study Sumerian and Akkadian - but that was a long time ago, and I don't think that will happen any time soon. However, it is a language I have come to love for its own sake, and I enjoy studying it. It is probably my favourite modern language. Spanish -I had to study it in school. I can read it and understand it, but what little speaking ability I had is long gone. Irish -I had to study it in school for thirteen years. I was terrible at it and I hated it. French -I was going on holiday and decided to do a crash course, but I never really expected to take it any further. However I really got into it after I got home, and I really enjoy the language. German -I started German on a whim. I had no particular interest in it, but I kept working at it, and now I think I can speak it fairly well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5909 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 86 of 141 13 August 2009 at 9:49am | IP Logged | ||
Oh dear. You, sir, have rekindled my interest in ancient languages. Oh just not good. I don't have time for this... :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| blindside70 Newbie United States polymathisthegoal.co Joined 5761 days ago 24 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Polish, German, French | Message 87 of 141 13 August 2009 at 11:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish-
my family is Argentinean and my Spanish was always so so. I always thought I needed a formal teacher so it never really got better until I started learning... Polish- I married a Polish girl and then moved to Poland and started studying Polish and sort of "Learned how to learn". It's a very difficult but doable language and it got me interested in language learning in general, which is what made me start looking into Spanish. French- It's important and I like it. Japanese- Want to learn something non-European and Japan has a lot of culture to play with. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5335 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 88 of 141 01 May 2010 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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English: Never really chose it because I was exposed it and kind of had no choice but to pick it up but I'm pretty sure I would have learnt it in any case. I've always had a fascination with England and later came to like American culture as well.
French: My family went to France almost every summer so I had the opportunity to pick some things up (like how to order a bread and four croissants :P) but I didn't really learn it until my mum offered to enrol me in a course when I was 12. I was originally a bit taken aback by how difficult the language was but I became reasonably good at it in secondary school though I was and am still far from being fluent in it. My motivation to try and achieve fluency is my family's partial French ancestry, my nostalgic love for the country because of all the summers I spent there and of course it's just a beautiful language. German: I hated it in school but now that I have a basic knowledge of it (not to mention the advantage of a native language that's similar to it) I would like to turn that into at least basic fluency one day. Papiamentu: My best friend speaks it and since it is relatively easy and uncommon, I want to learn it so we can use it as our secret language. Other languages I would like to learn one day are Spanish (for it's usefulness) Italian (because I love the language and the country), Greek (for it's history and because it's so pretty), Swedish (because I'm intrigued by Scandinavia and the language) and Esperanto (because I like the idea behind it and it sounds like a very cool and expressive language from what I've heard.) Edited by ReneeMona on 13 June 2010 at 5:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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