|
 |
Your list of "useful" languages? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 9 of 31 09 September 2013 at 2:52pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well I've always found German essential as I spend 2-3 weeks in the country every year. Small-town and rural Germany is certainly not overflowing with fluent English speakers.
But everyone has their own perception of "useful" and it doesn't necessarily revolve around the frequency of English speakers in a given area. I imagine a Russian business person with clients across the former Soviet Union would perhaps draw up a scale of usefulness depending upon the amount of Russian spoken in certain territories. Edited by beano on 09 September 2013 at 2:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Ford Groupie United States Joined 4741 days ago 65 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 10 of 31 09 September 2013 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||
|
If I'm understanding the original post correctly, you're asking which languages are the most useful to communicate with people you otherwise wouldn't have been able to. So languages which are spoken by populations with extremely good abilities in another more common language (Scandinavia ;) ) are automatically out.
And that's a very interesting question! Certainly here in the US the most common one is Spanish, especially in places like California, Florida, or Texas. If I had to guess I'd say the second most 'useful' might be Cantonese, as so many cities have a Chinatown area and Cantonese is traditionally the most common in these neighborhoods in the US. If I can expand the area past the US, French comes up a lot because so many people visit Europe and because of the use of French in a lot of international organizations. A lot of these people also speak English, so maybe that rules French out, but I've been surprised before at the strange places that I find monolingual French speakers. You also have to think about the prestige (for lack of a better word) that some languages carry and how widespread that makes them. Going back to French, it's not hard to find people in Australia, Asia, or South America who have dabbled in it because it's considered prestigious and cosmopolitan. Maybe other languages (German for example?) are also making it into this category after being more regional in the past. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4171 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 11 of 31 09 September 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My friend just came back from South America, and he said that even some tourist places, such as museums, didn't have anything in English.
I'm surprised the OP said Malaysia, because I know a few people who've been there and they've all mentioned how good they are at English. I guess most countries are going to be the same once you leave the tourist areas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4666 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 12 of 31 09 September 2013 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Chinese may be useful in the US and Canada, but it's not useful in Europe. There are more Indians, Pakistanis, Vietnamese, Arabs than Chinese in Europe. I've met some Chinese in Croatia, and they don't speak Mandarin at all. Edited by Medulin on 09 September 2013 at 9:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5958 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 13 of 31 09 September 2013 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
At my university in Germany, Mandarin-speaking Chinese students make up the largest group of foreigners. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 14 of 31 09 September 2013 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Plenty of Chinese here, although usually from Hong Kong actually.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kollind Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4202 days ago 1 posts - 2 votes Speaks: Norwegian, Swedish*, English Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 15 of 31 10 September 2013 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
I have been travelling twice off the beaten track in Thailand, and the Thais knowledge
of English is awful. I guess that would be great if one were to study Thai, and it was exotic and exciting as a traveller. My experience is also that the Thais in the touristic areas know just enough English to get by in their work with tourists. You can order in English at a restaurant, but not have a proper conversation on a common topic. When I was in Oman, I spoke a little Modern Standard Arabic with the locals. And even if they were speaking good English, the natives were very happy to meet a westerner who is trying to learn their language, and I think that gave me some extra hospitality. I was so lucky to be invited to stay with an Omani family, join a wedding and a private tour of the grand Mosque by the Imam. I also got the feeling that they felt more confident in me since I trying to learn about their culture which is somewhat controversial in the west, and therefore some of them wanted to vent some frustration they feel towards the politics and problems in the middle east and between the west and the east. Edited by Kollind on 10 September 2013 at 3:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5049 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 16 of 31 10 September 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged | ||
|
Well, there are 4 big areas where the language is spoken by over 250 million people,
English is not very spoken and the language is considered international: - China. Mandarin Chinese is the first or second language of the majority. Some 850 million people speak Mandarin in China - Latin America, from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, people usually speak Spanish. Spanish is spoken in all the Americas by over 400 million people - Arabic world. Modern Standard Arabic is spoken in Northern Africa and Middle East as second language (there are not mother tongue speakers) by over 300 million people. - Former USSR and Eastern Europe, where Russian is the first or second language of some 275 million people. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
