WortDrauf Already banned: zarathustra, lifelover Newbie Canada Joined 5395 days ago 23 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 97 of 141 08 May 2010 at 1:21am | IP Logged |
Ubik wrote:
One thing I will point out to everyone: I know this is primarily a self-study site, but for me, breaking into a new language or language family requires the kind of discipline I just dont have. Im a very intelligent person, and if I really put myself to task I *could* self-teach myself a language, but I reserve the self-teaching parts for only either when I already have a firm grasp on the language and Im learning more OR if Im just simply dabbling in it with the short-term goal of taking the language so as to have some prior knowledge before I hit the classroom. |
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My sentiments exactly.
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Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 98 of 141 08 May 2010 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
I think I chose Chinese because out of the all the other languages I want to learn it seamed to be the most difficult, script-wise. A friend once told me that if I learn Chinese then all the other languages will come easy. I doubt that it is true, but still, to learn Chinese requires a different mode of learning.
Another criterion was that Chinese is one of the major world languages, a language of the UN (my main interest language group), a language of an economic powerhouse with great potential. I'm not really interested in Chinese culture (I'm not really interested in any particular culture but my own individual one). I however am interested in Chinese philosophy. The Chinese people also seem very nice and kinda remind of my own people (Balkanians). Another interesting reason is the awe I'll receive from everyone I know. It'll be my little revenge for them thinking I'll never accomplish anything in life. Of course Chinese is only a small part of my goals. :-D
All things considered it was a combination of many factors. Same goes for other languages as well.
Edited by Delodephius on 08 May 2010 at 1:58am
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blindside70 Newbie United States polymathisthegoal.co Joined 5761 days ago 24 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Polish, German, French
| Message 99 of 141 08 May 2010 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
Chinese philosophy = a piece of Chinese culture
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Delodephius Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 5403 days ago 342 posts - 501 votes Speaks: Slovak*, Serbo-Croatian*, EnglishC1, Czech Studies: Russian, Japanese
| Message 100 of 141 08 May 2010 at 3:28am | IP Logged |
Which definition of 'culture' are you using: European or New World?
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Jallan Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5311 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes
| Message 101 of 141 11 May 2010 at 11:54am | IP Logged |
It would be the language of the countries I intend to visit the most in my life...
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ilperugino Pentaglot Groupie Portugal Joined 5174 days ago 56 posts - 75 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin
| Message 102 of 141 25 September 2010 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
Russian = the language of 20th Century Theatre Masters: Stanislavski + Meierhold.
I just long to read them first-hand.
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fireflies Senior Member Joined 5181 days ago 172 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 103 of 141 25 September 2010 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
I enjoy Spanish a lot but I mostly chose it because it was what I took in school and it is easy to get novels and tv in it. I felt like I should at least know 1 language besides English. Spanish seemed like it would be useful and there were plenty of materials to help learn it.
I chose French because it isn't too difficult if you are familiar with another Romance language. It also had a big influence on English and that makes it interesting.
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books_galore Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5072 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian
| Message 104 of 141 06 January 2011 at 4:27pm | IP Logged |
I took Latin because I was homeschooled in elementary school, and my parents noticed that I liked learning about words. Since most English words have Latin roots, I started that. Then I went to public school and continued learning Latin there.
With Russian, I initially got hooked because of Cyrillic. I love how the language looks, and I liked the challenge of learning another alphabet. Now that I've started Russian, I see that there are gramatical and vocabulary similarities between the two languages.
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