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Greek or German? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 9 of 15 23 July 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
One of the worst possibilities for you would be realizing that you're getting nothing out of classes, and you're essentially wasting time with inefficient assignments just so you could pass the class, while your real learning is done outside of it. And as I've said, this situation is easier to handle if your level is already quite good. So if something goes wrong, Greek will be harder to handle... unless there are much lower expectations, given the "difficulty" and relative rareness of the language. That takes me back to where I started. Former/current students should be able to answer many of your questions and give you a great insight. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6906 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 10 of 15 23 July 2012 at 10:36pm | IP Logged | ||
I know it's a little off topic but I just had to comment on that! I made pretty much the same experience at the university (although I had done my research before, and really thought my choice was the best possible). Learning English texts by heart "because that's a great way to learn, and I still remember some texts I had in the first year of my studies twenty years ago" was a dreadful experience! Plus, I was learning French from scratch and I felt just stupid for most of the time because many students in my (beginner)group had already learned French for a couple of years, and the methods used in the class were very far from where my strengths are. Fortunately, I decided to drop out of studies after less than a year, and I started over in another school at the same university. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5265 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 11 of 15 23 July 2012 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Archaeology, biblical research and philosophy are areas where I think a knowledge of Ancient Greek would be useful. Perhaps a major in Ancient Greek and a minor in philosophy could set you up for an academic career. As far as what you can do with such a major goes, the humanities never have been "practical". If you want practical you major in engineering the sciences, mathematics, etc. What you make of a major in the humanities is down to you. Edited by iguanamon on 23 July 2012 at 11:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 12 of 15 23 July 2012 at 11:42pm | IP Logged | ||
I was also unlucky to have groupmates who were very serious about studying, considered me lazy (though they knew I had taught myself Finnish, haha) and downright refused to help ("what's the home task?" - "but you're going to skip anyway"). In fact, at about this time last year I tried to re-enter the 4th year after being kicked out... I'm now glad I couldn't, but yeah I wanted to. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6906 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 13 of 15 24 July 2012 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I did know people studying in my department, and it didn't help either :(. Maybe I just
had other expectations or preferences, no idea. In my opinion, the teaching methods were completely outdated, and I believe some of my groupmates (and most certainly my teachers!) were pretty sure I was lazy, not dedicated enough (I was doing a double major whereas most in my group majored in linguistics only) or not talented enough. Plus, the only good French teacher I had left after the first semester and was replaced with yet another old lady with old-fashioned teaching methods. Back at that time it would take five years to get a degree (is it still the case in Russia? Now we have the BA + MA system because of the EU) so I decided I didn't want to spend another four years studying something that was neither interesting nor of good quality. I dropped out and instead of studying for my English and French exams I left for a Spanish summer course and then self-studied to get DELE Intermedio five months later ;). In the end, I ended up with a degree in German. Best decision ever! :) I guess the bottom line is that a good decision such as the choice of a university may be not that good after all, and there is no point in going on with studies at all cost. ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 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 14 of 15 24 July 2012 at 3:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Nowadays we have this system too but my year was one of the last ones where you still studied for 5 years and became a "specialist". And aww, yeah I remember your love for German so a degree in it seems a natural choice :) Sure you managed to avoid having to study it from scratch? If I could do that with Finnish I would've got a degree in it, of course. But it's only taught at school in the regions bordering with Finland, and departments that have entrance exams in Finnish take only full-time students (so I'd have to move to St Petersburg or Petrozavodsk etc). But I loved English as well and I loved learning it at my lyceum (affiliated with the uni!!!), so I couldn't imagine anything going wrong. And oh god, it's taken so much time to recover my love for English.
Yeah, it seems that those who just want to learn one or two languages usually don't mind formal study and outdated methods... They believe learning shouldn't be fun and they feel good about themselves if they can survive boring classes. They're looking forward to "finishing" the language. So yeah OP, try to find people similar to you in their motivation, or try to understand their personality well enough to see why the things they mention matter to them and why they perceive it like that, then decide whether you would feel the same way or not. Edited by Serpent on 24 July 2012 at 3:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6906 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 15 of 15 27 July 2012 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't realize my love for German is so well-known and obvious ;). Fortunately, I
didn't have to study it from scratch as part of my degree (German is within 3-5 languages you don't usually study from scratch in Poland if you decide to major in them, as opposed to e.g. Finnish). BTW, despite the fact I was quite happy with my German major (partly due to the fact I had two years (out of five) of traditional language classes only) I think it's good that no university studies had a chance to spoil your love for Finnish :).
I can totally identify with that :). I don't know what your attitude was but in my case, I reached B2 level or so (+ C1/C2 reading comprehension) and at that point, I lost all interest in English. I obviously used it for communication but it wasn't fascinating as a language any more... if you know what I mean. Now it's different but I've lost quite a lot of time and I'm not with my English where I would like to be (I've learned other languages, though, so maybe I've actually won this time ;) - hard to say....). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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