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Most bang for the buck

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18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
sumabeast
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6937 days ago

212 posts - 220 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 1 of 18
15 December 2005 at 2:42pm | IP Logged 
If a person set out to learn several languages (not all at once). let's say one from each major language family, and want to get the most bang for the buck so that he/she learned the one language that would be of most use in picking up the others in the family later on, which would it be?
Romance family
Slavic family
Germanic family (besides already knowing English)
Semitic family
Sino family
Celtic family
Bantu family
Turko family
Amer-Indian family,
ect.

Or even if we decided the same but by region and not linguistic family such as which one language would you suggest for each of following regions and why?
Eastern Europe
Western Europe
East Asia
Middle East and non-Arab Mid East
Euasia
Sub-saharan Africa
Amer-Indian

thanks for your participation

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KingM
Triglot
Senior Member
michaelwallaceauthor
Joined 7202 days ago

275 posts - 300 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 2 of 18
15 December 2005 at 3:19pm | IP Logged 
It's an interesting subject, but pretty similar to this thread:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=1666

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orion
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7032 days ago

622 posts - 678 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 18
15 December 2005 at 6:27pm | IP Logged 
sumabeast wrote:

Romance family
Slavic family
Germanic family (besides already knowing English)
Semitic family
Sino family
Celtic family
Bantu family
Turko family
Amer-Indian family,
ect.


Based on number of speakers I would say
Romance:      Spanish
Slavic:       Russian
Germanic:     German
Sino-Tibetan: Mandarin
Celtic:       Welsh
Bantu:        Swahili
Amerindian:   Navaho or Cherokee
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Darobat
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7199 days ago

754 posts - 770 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian
Studies: Latin

 
 Message 4 of 18
15 December 2005 at 9:54pm | IP Logged 
orion wrote:

Romance:      Spanish
Slavic:       Russian
Germanic:     German
Sino-Tibetan: Mandarin
Celtic:       Welsh
Bantu:        Swahili
Amerindian:   Navaho or Cherokee


For Germanic, I'm pretty sure English would be a much better choice.
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orion
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7032 days ago

622 posts - 678 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 5 of 18
16 December 2005 at 12:19am | IP Logged 
Darobat wrote:
orion wrote:

Romance:      Spanish
Slavic:       Russian
Germanic:     German
Sino-Tibetan: Mandarin
Celtic:       Welsh
Bantu:        Swahili
Amerindian:   Navaho or Cherokee


For Germanic, I'm pretty sure English would be a much better choice.


I agree, however sumabeast originally posed the question assuming someone already spoke English.
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Vespasian
Bilingual Triglot
Groupie
Switzerland
Joined 6930 days ago

55 posts - 55 votes 
Speaks: German*, Swiss-German*, English
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 6 of 18
16 December 2005 at 12:11pm | IP Logged 
Could you elaborate on why you pick Spanish and not French, Italian or Portuguese?
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sumabeast
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6937 days ago

212 posts - 220 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 7 of 18
16 December 2005 at 1:22pm | IP Logged 
Some very good input.
I'll only raise for discussion your selection of Spanish.
While I'll agree that Spanish will give more mutual intelligbility than French because I've seen Spanish speakers converse with little problem with Italian or Portugues speakers, but this can't be said for speakers of French.

However outside of Spain, Carribean and South America your Spanish might be of little use, while French is far more wide spread think France, parts of Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, Carribean, vast areas of Africa, Lebanon, and even some islands in south pacific.

So maybe French is the better Romance family choice?
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patuco
Diglot
Moderator
Gibraltar
Joined 7026 days ago

3795 posts - 4268 votes 
Speaks: Spanish, English*
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 18
16 December 2005 at 1:52pm | IP Logged 
Just to change the focus slightly and asnwer your other question...

sumabeast wrote:
Or even if we decided the same but by region and not linguistic family such as which one language would you suggest for each of following regions and why?
Eastern Europe
Western Europe
East Asia
Middle East and non-Arab Mid East
Euasia
Sub-saharan Africa
Amer-Indian

Eastern Europe = Russian
Western Europe = French/German (can't decide, assuming already speaks English)
East Asia = Japanese
Middle East and non-Arab Mid East = Arabic (with French if possible)
Eurasia = Malay (?)
Sub-saharan Africa = Swahili in the east, ??? in the west
Amer-Indian = don't know enough about these languages to comment
Latin America = Spanish (obvious, but it was missing from the original list)

I know I've chosen more than one for some regions, but I really can't choose one in those cases.

Edited by patuco on 16 December 2005 at 1:53pm



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