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Why not Spanish as essential? | ||
Tags: Polyglot Academy | Language Importance | L3 via L2 | Polyglottery | Alexander Arguelles | Choosing a Language | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 17 of 115 07 March 2014 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hm, if you love a different language a lot, I agree that it makes sense to learn/start early (like I did with Finnish). If you're only moderately interested, it's better to go for a Romance language or German. Even a very motivated person needs to see how much effort even an "easy" language takes.
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| yantai_scot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4802 days ago 157 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 18 of 115 07 March 2014 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Perhaps, a person's 'cultural' fit is neglected in thinking about starting out? With the
big 3, you're having to align yourself with one of only three generalised language cultures. If you fail to engage with that chosen (or assigned) culture you could easily think you're not cut out for learning languages. It's like teenagers having the choice of History, Geography or PE as an extra subject at school when the person's happiest doing art. I certainly feel I 'need' to study French or Spanish sooner rather than later purely on utilitarian grounds. But I'm just not feeling the love, to use a horrible expression. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 19 of 115 07 March 2014 at 3:21pm | IP Logged | ||
He suggests German because of the wealth of language learning materials in it; the German plus French suggestion is aimed at people who already speak English and intend to learn 6-10+ languages. He suggests having an Asian language in the first 6. His language learning approach strongly depends on having a variety of learning materials (see his detailed suggestions about materials for any specific language where he's given one), and I'm yet to see such a list from him that wouldn't be crippled by missing English, German (for a wide variety of extremely high-quality material that simply doesn't have English equivalents), or French (for Assimil, among other things). His personal path involved a thorough mastery of both, years before he really buckled down in his independent studies. German is a useful tool in the acquisition of further languages, so if you're planning to go for a lot of them, it makes sense to have it very early, all else being equal. Professor Arguelles has pointed repeatedly to the idea of knowing five languages making your sixth-Nth languages easier than they would otherwise be, and of the value of 'gateway' languages (like Persian to the Indic and Middle Eastern languages). Very little, if any, of his advice seems to be aimed at the idea of maximizing gains if you happen to give up early. If you're very taken by a language, both he and Serpent wisely say to go for that one. If you're not, he's offered some thoughts on the matter, which you can consider - and I think his advice is reasonably sound for people aiming for something approaching his vision of polyliteracy. All else being equal, you'll find more useful learning material in German, for a wider variety of languages than you will in any of the Asian languages - but both can be very worth learning, and effort spent learning either is worth more than discussing the relative merits of one order vs another. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4707 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 20 of 115 07 March 2014 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree, German is much more useful for a polyglot in terms of materials than Spanish
is. However, you can sometimes pick alternative routes - for example if you want to be a polyglot, but harbour a special love for a certain language, do that one first - or skip an obvious language if you really have no interest in it (Arguelles himself had this with Mandarin if I recall correctly). Serpent for example skips French. I have thus far stayed away from Spanish (and also from Italian). And the Asian language I study is not Chinese but Korean (the least big of Korean/Japanese/Chinese). For the middle east you can take Persian, but also Arabic or Pashto or Hindi, and I myself don't have any of them but went for Hebrew instead (also a large history, literature and background). Eventually the French/German recommendation hinges on the amount of available material, and that's why he doesn't recommend Spanish initially - but Arguelles' word is not law. If you pick Spanish first that is certainly okay. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6439 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 21 of 115 07 March 2014 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, what languages do you want to learn? If you're vaguely curious about 5, or burning to learn 2, learn those - and if French and Spanish aren't among them, don't worry about it - if they ever look like something you'll actually need, you'll have a very solid base to pick up the amount that's necessary, and if they don't, there was no point having angst about not learning them. People living in France or Spain would usually benefit from learning French or Spanish, respectively, but can often manage without it or with a remarkably low level; most other people have less need for them again. Conversely, if you're seriously interested in learning a larger number of languages, learning French to at least a B2 level will pay for itself over and over again - and if you're mainly using language learning materials in it, cultural fit is basically a non-issue. If you want to learn art, or Finnish, go for it. If you want to learn 10 subjects, learn a bit about meta-learning (or, with languages, pick up enough French to use it as a tool). If you love French, dive deeper; if you don't, it's still useful. And if you absolutely loath it, for whatever reason, you can still be a hyperpolyglot without it. Reasonably good default advice doesn't mean that alternatives are impossible - and alternatives being possible doesn't necessarily mean that they're equally good defaults. Edit: I think it's worth pointing out that Professor Arguelles specifically set out defaults, not laws. When I was particularly interested in Dutch, he suggested I learn that - despite neither my French nor my German being particularly solid at the time. Edited by Volte on 07 March 2014 at 3:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 22 of 115 07 March 2014 at 11:04pm | IP Logged | ||
The problem with calling it a "regional" language is that it is a really, REALLY big region. China is also a region, is it less international because almost all Chinese speakers are in a continuous land mass? But Latin America is WAY bigger in land mass than China. Mexico, Central America, South America, Caribbean. Not to mention Spain and other small pockets of Spanish speakers. Your example with the guitar isn't really fair. Guitar>>any language. :) If I were in Europe I would probably learn French over Spanish. But in the Western Hemisphere, Portuguese and Spanish are much better languages to pick if you want to talk to people in person. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3997 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 23 of 115 07 March 2014 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
The trouble with learning French to use Assimil is that you have to learn a language in a *foreign* language. I'm not convinced that this is a very smart idea if you want to learn a topic well. I was very close to applying to medical schools in Puerto Rico since they are accredited but didn't since I wouldn't know the subject matter as well in Spanish as in English. And I'm much more practiced in Spanish than just a handful of posters here in any one of their foreign languages. You have to know your limits. Good test to see what your most efficient language is: my ex-South American girlfriend and I got the instruction manual to put something together in the mail. She grabbed the Spanish language version and I got the English language version. Could we have done it in our second languages? Of course. Would it have been as EFFICIENT? Of course not. And when your livelihood depends on understanding the material well, like in your degree program, you stick with your best language. I can see a lot of learners learning another foreign language getting a lot of things wrong since they would be learning it in their less strong language. Once they got past learning grammar and could use native materials THEN I could see it working, using French to continue practicing your foreign language. But not when actually *learning* the basics. Edited by culebrilla on 07 March 2014 at 11:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 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 24 of 115 08 March 2014 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Says a native speaker of English...
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