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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| tomertim Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5040 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 113 of 141 06 February 2011 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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When I was high school a good friend of mine from Mexico translated for another hispanic individual who was
trying to cash his paycheck. I was just blown away how frustrated the person had become trying to explain his situation to a non-spanish speaker and how my buddy and his language skills helped this individual. For some reason this has had a lasting impression on me. I have studied Spanish quite a bit because of this experience and have used Spanish largely in travels to South American and at work. My goals include to improve my fluency in Spanish and eventually move into German and Russian. There reasons for German and Russian stem from genealogy research and finding how my great grandparents were from the Ukraine and spoke German, Russian, and eventually English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Leftcoaster Diglot Newbie China Joined 5031 days ago 22 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian | Message 114 of 141 15 February 2011 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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English: Well I'm American so duh...
Spanish: My junior high school only offered Spanish, French, and German. I like the way Spanish sounds, love Mexican food, and it's a good language to know; everything made sense I guess. Portugese: I double majored in Spanish and Latin American Studies, one of the requirements for the LAS degree was to take a year of Portugese. Not as enchanted with the language as I was with Spanish, but I liked it enough to make a lot of progress. Mandarin: I entered my last year of undergrad feeling bored with Spanish and I wanted to shake things up a bit. My choice came down to Arabic and Mandarin but I didn't have any major interest in Arabic besides the chic factor. Took night classes in Mandarin during my last year in undergrad and continued with a tutor. Ended up doing east asian policy studies in grad school and moved to Beijing. Strange how things work out in life! Russian: I want to take the Siberian express next summer by myself and stop off along the way. Since I won't be going with anyone else, I figured that it would be a good idea to pick up some Russian. I've always wanted to learn Cyrillic as I have a fetish for learning new writing systems! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 115 of 141 16 February 2011 at 6:30am | IP Logged | ||
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My target languages were chosen for these reasons:
Spanish: It's the language of my family as I am ethnically Mexican (on my dad's side). I wanted something of my heritage even if my parents never spoke Spanish to each other. Russian: It was offered in the school I attended during my last year of high school. I was intrigued and thought it would be interesting. I was right. Hungarian: I had thought I would study there at university level, so I began a course of self-study. I even knew someone who would practice it with me. It was going well, until... Finnish: This is where I got my university placement. I completely switched gears and stopped working on Hungarian. Thankfully, I already had a clue about some of the grammar structures thanks to working on Hungarian. When I got to the country, I found I loved both it and the language. I went back a few years after my university placement and worked teaching ESL for a year. German: I got a German boyfriend and ended up living in Germany for a while. Because I knew how to pronounce the language thanks to my music background, I found this easy and very enriching. Japanese I am a librarian, and for my library we were testing a language learning database. I wanted to check the effectiveness of the methodology, so I decided on a language that I didn't already know that I also wouldn't mind rattling around my head. I picked Japanese thinking it completely new to me but without as difficult reputation as Chinese. I've only been doing it a few weeks now, but I think this language is awesome! So while it was meant as a way to test a database, I think I'll stick with it. Edited by jdmoncada on 16 February 2011 at 6:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5178 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 116 of 141 17 February 2011 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Polish - I was born in Poland.
English - I started, from using my sis' books. German - I started learning it in middle school. Italian - I got interest in foreign languages, when we could watch Satellite TV. It sounded nice, and I wanted to learn less common language (any language except English, German and Russian is less common in Poland). Japanese - Dragon Ball Korean - because I have started Chinese already, and got a Korean pen pal. Chinese - because I got to know Chinese pen pal. French - Started learning in Middle school Vietnamese - because I was already learning CJK languages. Spanish - I fell in love with Argentina actress Natalia Oreiro Turkish - It's possible I have Turkish ancestry Russian - I don't remember, why maybe just because my family can speak it. Arabic - I wanted to buy some book, and I noticed Arabic textbook, I wanted to try something non-European so I bought it. Swedish - a Swedish friend was learning Polish Portuguese - because I had had already a mania for learning foreign languages, so I bought a phrasebook. Esperanto - because it's easy, I can learn easily, and show off more. Croatian - because I bought a book for learning it. Hindi - the same reason. Cantonese - girlfriend Indonesian - pen pals Latin - my school taught me that. Mongolian - I saw a pretty woman called Zolzaya on Korean Chit-Chat with beauties program (strangest reason ever). Tagalog - online friends. Kazakh - I like Siberia and those stuff. Hmong - girlfriend (she could not speak it actually, and she was only 1/4 or 1/2 of Hmong), but I wanted to show respect to her heritage - she had Yao and Zhuang ( I am not not sure about his one) blood in her, but learning Yao is impossible (only 1 million of speakers and lack of resources), Zhuang is a little easier, but not much of a resource anyway, but maybe later. Though I think I should not start new languages anyway. I had also another Hmong friend so... Greek - because I bought a phrasebook. Thai - pen pals Norwegian - it's rich country. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5038 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch | Message 117 of 141 22 February 2011 at 1:20am | IP Logged | ||
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German: I studied History of Art and Architecture in university, and fell utterly in love with German art and oddly enough, silent movies. I wrote my final thesis on German Expressionist film architecture, and made a few visits to Berlin and beyond. That started 6 years ago, and though I've had gaps in my concentration and application, I just love this language.
French: I learned French for 6 years in school, as part of the 'obligatory' second language syllabus. I took some refresher classes 7 years ago, but have only recently begun to engage in self-study, motivated by my 'I've started so I'll finish attitude! I think French is a beautiful language, though I don't find it as stimulating as German, which is not helped by my awful listening comprehension. Russian: Simply for it's aesthetic qualities - the sound of the words, the appearnce of the letters- I think it's a wonderful language! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yobar Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7032 days ago 52 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: German, Spanish, Irish | Message 118 of 141 22 February 2011 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||
Please try Gaeilge. ;) Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5258 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 119 of 141 24 February 2011 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish: School, and because I live in a place with many Spanish speakers.
French: It was the other main language offered at my school. Hebrew: Long story, but I like their music and now I have friends in Israel because of that. Arabic: Because I speak Hebrew, which is in the same language family/spoken in the same part of the world. Also, I see it as a nice challenge to try and learn it to fluency. Also it has a very rich culture/history behind it. Icelandic: It's beautiful and fun to speak, and I love that part of the world and their languages (Nordic countries/Northwestern Europe). Georgian: The writing system is so beautiful and the sound inventory of the language is my favorite of any one I've encountered thus far.. Italian: I am part Italian and I LOVE Italy. Persian: I wanted to take a language at the university and that's what was available (not that I don't like it, cause I do :D). Languages I plan to learn (in no particular order): Irish and German: Heritage, and like I said I like that part of the world. Hungarian: No idea, just love it. Russian: I like Russian culture and history. Also it's a common language to learn. For some reason I am jealous of people who have to learn it as a second language because of the country they live in haha. Polish and Turkish: Sound/look cool. Romanian: It's cool. I like some music in Romanian. Greek: It's soooo beautiful! Swedish: I like Ikea (I know that's so dumb lol). There are more (Japanese, for one) but this is plenty for the time being. :) Edited by zecchino1991 on 24 February 2011 at 9:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dragomanno Triglot Groupie Zimbabwe Joined 5003 days ago 80 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, GermanB2 Studies: Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Lithuanian, Albanian, Ancient Greek | Message 120 of 141 25 March 2011 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
I desperately tried, but I had to quit basically because I had nobody to talk with. But when I made it to Dublin and I managed to use my cupla fochail I was on the verge of crying :-) Anyway: English: Because you must. Moreover, because of Rock and Metal music. German: I was grown up with that language at school. Albanian: A terribly fascinating language. Romanian: Sounds like an exotic Italian. Fun. Serbocroatian: Useful & pleasant to hear. Lithuanian: A kind of mystic language... Latin: The core of my cultural identity. Ancient Greek: The same as Latin. Edited by Dragomanno on 25 March 2011 at 2:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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