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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| PaulLambeth Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5373 days ago 244 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Hindi, Irish | Message 89 of 141 01 May 2010 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good thread, I'm glad it's been restored!
Icelandic - I visited Iceland a couple of years ago and loved it. I've been back once since and have decided to learn the language so I may spend some extra time there after university or just visit frequently. I find the culture and environment beautiful, and the language pretty and complex. It's surprisingly satisfying when all the elements of the grammar combine successfully in a sentence ... I never thought I'd say that about a language. Finnish - I wanted to learn something not Indo-European, and read up a tiny bit about the Finnish language partially just by chance. I found a couple of books on Finnish in my library that I've started and I adored the structure and condensation of the language. I also hear that the whole of Finland is very beautiful. I've visited Lapland before and am intrigued by the Saami people. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Olympia Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5981 days ago 195 posts - 244 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Old English, French | Message 90 of 141 01 May 2010 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Spanish, the first one was sort of by accident. We got to choose in the sixth grade between French and
Spanish, and I originally had wanted French, but then I met the French teacher and hated her and fell in love with the Spanish teacher. So there you go. As for Portuguese, I've wanted to travel to Brazil and the Amazon since studying it in second grade. And it's similar to Spanish, so I figured why not, right? Old English was the only linguistics course that fit with my schedule and I needed another linguistics course this semester for my major. And now I'm moving over to French because apart from having left it at age 12 and always having wanted to go back, my roommate is a native French speaker and is dying to have a conversation partner, and my best friend is quite fluent as well. And after the Olympics in Canada I decided that now was the time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jon1991 Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5365 days ago 98 posts - 126 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian | Message 91 of 141 03 May 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish - Learnt a bit a school and I picked the language up better than French. Besides that, I love speaking the language, it is very useful and when I go to Spain the people are always so friendly and welcoming not to mention the girls are FIT!!!
Russian - I've always been fascinated by Russia, it's history and culture. Russian is my favourite language as I find it incredibly beautiful, powerful, commanding and intellectual. I love Russian! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dolly Senior Member United States Joined 5790 days ago 191 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 92 of 141 03 May 2010 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do all of my language-learning for enjoyment.
French: A great literary language, and I like the way it sounds (elegant grunting). It was THE language, I hardly chose it. Italian: I like the way French and Italian complement each other, similar yet different, and they're beautiful in different ways. Turkish: Fascinating grammar. I was curious about it, watched instructional videos on YouTube, and something clicked. I just love this language. Edited by dolly on 03 May 2010 at 10:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5612 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 93 of 141 04 May 2010 at 2:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish - I grew up in Miami and learned it as a teenager hanging out with Spanish
speaking friends (with some formal learning in high school). Spoken in many countries and it's fun to speak, especially if you're ranting. =) French - Love the way this language sounds. My parents speak French, so I was exposed to it at an early age. It's also a useful language in the Arab world and France produces many books on the region which I enjoy reading. It ended up being a practical language because I travel to Quebec for my company. German - Learned it because of engineering. I was in a study abroad program in Germany for my major and I had to take college German to qualify. I ended up loving the language, taking 3 years of it in addition to my regular course requirements. I also have some family that live in Germany whom I often communicate with in German instead of Arabic. Russian - There's something about the sound of this language that I'm drawn to. I just love it. I have an interest in Russian history and politics. And I have good friends that speak or are learning Russian. Greek - I love Greece and the Greek people. I've always wanted to learn it. Also to learn a new alphabet. Turkish - Interesting grammar. An important regional language. Turkey is a gorgeous country which I plan to visit some day. And I have a few Turkish relatives that I am close to. Persian (Farsi) - Partly for the great Persian literature and political reasons with Iran. I also think the language sounds badass. I saw an Iranian film called "Saint Mary"* and felt I had to learn it after watching. *http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=15002536564190431 4# Italian - Interest in Italian culture and art, travel opportunities, to learn another Romance language for linguistic reasons, and it's a lovely language. Hebrew - To learn another Semitic language and to read the Israeli press. Edited by Saif on 04 May 2010 at 3:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lucilha Pentaglot Newbie France Joined 6007 days ago 16 posts - 19 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Russian, German | Message 94 of 141 04 May 2010 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I started to learn Portuguese because I bought a dictionnary of Portuguese! Why? This is the question... I'm almost fluently in that language. Now, I try to learn another latin language: Italian.
I'm trying to learn Chinese because I love China and I think Mandarin will be very uselfulness soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ubik Senior Member United States ubykh.wordpress.com/ Joined 5316 days ago 147 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Arabic (Egyptian), German, Spanish | Message 95 of 141 07 May 2010 at 5:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Whew! Just got through reading everyone's posts. I must say Im jealous of the people who live in areas where they get to start taking languages as early as the 4th grade! They didnt start until 6th grade here and then it was only Spanish and only for a quarter (half a semester). Needless to say, I took that (didnt really learn anything except what double r and double l were called).
Latin: Anything obscure or different than the norm has always been what I go after. I definitely already knew I had a passion for languages so among the choices of Spanish, German, Latin, French, and I think Italian, Latin was my first choice and German my second (that year I could only take one elective so it was Latin). I ended up taking 3 years of it. I didnt even know what a direct object was until I learned Latin. In fact I owe all the English grammar and vocabulary I know to having taken Latin. To this day I still view English and any other language I encounter in terms of accusative, ablative, etc. Though I must say I think learning the Latin Dative case has messed me up for other languages. I still need to look further into this, but it seems that when any other language talks about Dative, theyre not talking about an indirect object as in Latin. German: I started taking German in my sophomore year and I had the most amazing teacher Frau Holm. Unfortunately she decided to move to another school the next year so for German II we got a bunch of subs who could either teach but didnt know German or knew German but couldnt teach. Im thankful though that I learned SO much in German I and was taught it so well that I was able to retain so much even now 13 years later. Right now German is on hold due mostly to scheduling issues (work vs. class times) 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. That said, here is my language path and my reasonings: Arabic: I originally was attracted to Farsi (Persian) because it looks and sounds more beautiful, but one of my "tenets" if you will is to pick a language that not only seems attractive aesthetically, but is also a) the oldest of its kind and b) has more modern useful heirs. When I realized that not only was Arabic first (written that is), but that it takes up WAY more geography than Farsi does, AND that its much harder, I opted to go for Arabic instead. Farsi This one is next. After Im confident enough in my Arabic, I will take Farsi That was path one. Path two is thus: Latin: The "skeleton key" if you will into the Romance languages (of which I only want to learn 3...maaaybe 4) Portuguese: One of the 3 (or 4) languages that interests me in the Romance family. My placement of it is mainly because Ive heard from countless sources that its a helluva lot easier to learn Spanish after Portuguese than vice-versa Spanish Well, I DO live on the west coast and all. Besides that, after hearing "Spain" Spanish for the first time in my late teens, I finally realized that it is indeed a beautiful language Catalan: This is the #4 I keep referring to. I will only know after I get beyond Spanish whether or not I actually want to learn Catalan. I am very interested in it though Romanian: Final Romance language. I saved this one for last because I want to use Romanian as a jumping off point into the Slavic languages. Seeing as a large amount of Romanian is so Slavic-influenced, I figure the Romance part will be a breeze and then I can focus my efforts at understanding the Slavic part Croatian: This will be my first true venture into the Slavic family. I chose Croatian because it is almost identical to Serbian BUT unlike Serbian it uses solely the Roman alphabet. Im scared to death of Cyrillic so by learning this, I can learn a Slavic language and thus get myself closer to Russian without having to learn that scary script Serbian: Duh, right? I dont even know if I can consider myself as having another language under my belt knowing Croatian and Serbian, but all I have to do with Serbian at this point is learn a few minor differences between the two and focus on plugging in my knowledge of Croatian into the Cyrillic alphabet and voila! Russian: The ultimate goal marker for this language path. If I make it this far....well I dont know exactly, but it will be awesome. Basically I want to learn as many languages as I possibly can until I die. There are countless more that I want to learn than NOT learn so Im going to end this by stating what I dont want to learn: French: No offense to anyone, but I think French is ugly, sounds ugly, and besides English is the only language I know of that can have a 10-letter word and pronounce 3 of the letters! I hate silent letters and French (to me) looks nothing like any other Romance language. Tonal languages: If I live the rest of my life having never learned Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Lao, etc Ill be A-OK. Maybe at some point when I have at least 7-10 languages under my belt and Im financially stable enough to dabble in something I know I will probably never master, then fine, but it would be at least 10 years before Id ever even consider learning a tonal language Khoisan languages: I might reconsider this at some point and say "click languages are awesome", but right now I certainly dont feel that way. "Island" languages: I know Im being kinda ignorant here when I cluster ALL the "island" languages together (and please someone, feel free to correct me -- I wont be offended), but whether it be Eskimo languages (Samoyedic), Hawaiian, Micronesian, etc etc I just have no interest. My only possible exception might be Maori as it is my dream to soma day emigrate to New Zealand and I would love to be able to hold conversations with the Maoris American Indian/Native languages(tribal, Nahuatl, etc): Ive seen some samples of the vocabulary and grammar and boy it scares the crap out of me. I bow down to those who can actually achieve non-native fluency in languages such as these. Edited by Ubik on 07 May 2010 at 5:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5397 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 96 of 141 07 May 2010 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
Interesting thing I learned a couple of months ago: Did you know that Finnish is actually related to Hungarian? Apparently in history the two languages were in close proximity to each other but through time Hungarian moved south. I thought that was a neat tidbit I discovered. As far as my languages go: With the exception of Portugese which I just kind of started learning based on all the other languages I am working on, I am an opera singer and I want to be fluent in any languages that I am going to sing in. My semi-short term goal is to be fluent in ten languages by the time I'm 40 (15 years from now). Edited by JPike1028 on 07 May 2010 at 8:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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