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The Attraction to Your Languages | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | Usefulness | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| wanderingbird Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4133 days ago 16 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, French, Japanese, Portuguese, German | Message 9 of 29 05 August 2013 at 11:10am | IP Logged |
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Learned (Learning) Languages:
Spanish - useful, spoken by about half of California (where I live), beautiful French - have friends who can speak it, widely spoken Hit List: German - Plan to travel to Germany in a year, like the difference between the harsher German sounds and the languages I already know Italian - Plan to travel to Italy in a year on the same trip, my ancestors were Italian, have Italian friends, like the sound of the language Portuguese - Want to round out my romance languages, know some Brazilians, want to go to Brazil Chinese (Mandarin) - For my linguistics degree I have to take classes in non Romantic language, most spoken language in terms of native speakers Japanese - Have a Japanese family member, like the alphabet, like anime/manga Vietnamese - Grew up in an area with a large Viet population, could speak some Vietnamese as a small child but forgot Russian - Know some Russians, my other ancestors were Russian Catalan - Planning on living in Spain for a year in Barcelona Afrikaans - Not sure why but I like the sound of it and is closely related to English Korean - Have a strong interest in the human rights crisis in North Korea, know some Koreans Mongolian - A little shallow but I just really like the alphabet... Croatian - I like Croatian music Thai - Another language where I'm just in love with the alphabet, but I also grew up around a lot of Thai people Romanian - Another romance language and again, I just like the way it sounds Bengali - Promised my Bengali friend that I would learn it eventually Arabic - It's spoken by so many people and even though I'm not Islamic I'd like to read the Koran in Arabic Edited by wanderingbird on 05 August 2013 at 11:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4590 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 10 of 29 05 August 2013 at 4:15pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, I love this post! What a great idea!
As for mine, let's see: English - My first foreign language, and also an important one for many things in my life. German - We could choose between German or French in school. I picked German because I don't like how French sounds. Also, it's far more useful to me as I go to Germany at least a few times each year, but I've only been to France about twice in my life. Spanish - Nowadays it's the main "football language" to me, as I'm crazy about a football team from a Spanish-speaking country and also follow various other teams about which the majority of news are in mostly Spanish. Italian - It's a very beautiful and musical language, and it's also very relevant to my football interests. Czech - I love the country, and the language hit me instantly with its beauty and I promised myself that I would learn it one day. Of course, it also fascinates me with its millions of diacritics and many wonderful sounds like ř or ž or č. I don't know if I could even do this for languages on my hit-list, because the list of languages I'd like to learn or feel attracted to or fascinated by is simply too long. While I might not have serious plans to get started with this or that language at the moment, I would start learning almost anything that isn't French or Arabic if the incentive for it was good enough :) Then, what counts as a good incentive can be discussed, of course, but I suppose the main one would be that the language needs to be relevant to another interest/hobby of mine in some way - after all, I started learning Spanish already back in high school and enjoyed it because "it was a language", but it was football that made me truly want to improve my skills and provided me with a nice way to use the language on a daily basis. Okay, that was a ramble and a half in a post that was mostly supposed to be about lists and reasons. I'll stop now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4251 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 29 05 August 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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Indo-European;
Russian - sounds cool, fascinating grammar, excellent literature, huge country that holds within lots of Finno-Ugric peoples, "lingua franca" of the Slavic world Spanish - immensely useful, not that difficult, Spanish speaking friends German - lingua franca of Finno-Ugric studies, interesting language, second/third most useful language to know in Europe Scandinavian - ancestral language, my love interest, Scandinavian friends from all of the countries, useful in Finland Finno-Ugric; Estonian - irregular, modern "version" of Finnish, interesting to see how Finnish could develop or could have developed under different circumstances, relatively easy for Finnish speakers and it's very close too Sámi-languages - [Northern] ancestral language as all of my family is from Lapland, sounds beautiful, not very difficult and a bit of a chic factor influence too Hungarian - I haven't begun studying Hungarian just yet but it too is an ancestral language from my mother's side, besides, it has a fascinating grammar and I've heard Budapest is an amazing city (which I haven't yet experienced) I haven't found an Asian language just yet that I'd have an emotional tie to but I'll keep looking. Mandarin is seeming like a good candidate but I haven't locked it yet. Edited by Henkkles on 05 August 2013 at 5:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| KidRoberts Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4133 days ago 19 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Afrikaans | Message 12 of 29 05 August 2013 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
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Afrikaans - It's simple and I like the sound. I also found a good band from Suid-Afrika.
That helps. Hit list: Russian - I know a few basic phrases, but it's such a neat language. Spanish - I'll probably end up taking this in school. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 13 of 29 06 August 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged |
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English - native language
German - my wife's language. I use German extensively with her family and I have many German-speaking friends. Russian - I was intrigued by the writing system. Hungarian - I love the fact that this language is just so different from all the surrounding tongues. Serbian - Picked at random basically. Hit list Welsh - A surprisingly widespread Celtic language. I like to visit Wales and would love to surprise a local. Edited by beano on 06 August 2013 at 3:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nonneb Pentaglot Groupie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4749 days ago 80 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French | Message 14 of 29 06 August 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
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I like this thread.
English - native language, I really like the poetry, movies, and bluegrass music. Ancient Greek - My favorite literature, and the only poetry I enjoy as much as English poetry. German: my wife's native tongue. I really enjoy German news sources/journalism. It sometimes pains me to watch the news from the States now that I'm used to the German media. Spanish: Spanish-speaking friends. I tend to get along well with Latin Americans more so than with any other culture except my native one and I hope to live there again in the future. Chinese: the writing system and fascinating history. also lots of movies, and I especially enjoy costume dramas. Hungarian: fun grammar, good experiences in Hungary, moving back next year French: I like French-Canadian movies Hit List: Portuguese - I like the sound of European Portuguese more than any other language I've heard Afrikaans: I really enjoy the music. Russian: Can be used in a huge area, and that means tons of places to visit 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| darkwhispersdal Senior Member Wales Joined 6038 days ago 294 posts - 363 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Ancient Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Latin | Message 15 of 29 06 August 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
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English- Native language
Spanish- Spanish speaking friends and I listen to alot of music Russian- Russian speaking friends and the metal music scene Mandarin- writing system, long history and fascinating schools of philosophy Classical Latin- love Roman History, Philosophy, etc Classical Greek- love Classical Greek History, Philosophy, literature, etc Sanskrit- fascinating language, literature, philosophy Hit List Arabic- an important world language, has a philosophical tradition Hindi- I started to learn this one as a run up to Sanskrit to see if I could cope with the sounds and script. It turned out that I really liked the language Vietnamese- I love the music Mongolian- the country fascinates me Thai/ Turkish/ Nepali- when Borders collapsed in the UK I bought all the Teach Yourself books and CDs cheap so they are currently on my book shelf waiting to be learnt. If anyone has noticed by now I love philosophy and languages that happen to have a philosophical tradition will attract me. While I won't develop a good reading and understanding ability in all the languages whose philosophy interests me, I have found a get alot of satifaction from trying. So writing by attraction:- Philosophy- French, German, Japanese, Tibetan (Standard and Classical) Dead Language- generally any dead language will interest me particularly if it's Indo-European beacuse I'm fascinated by proto-indo-european language reconstruction and culture. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4701 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 16 of 29 06 August 2013 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
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Of the languages I have studied or am studying:
English - My native language. Useful for communicating with people all over the world. French - I like just how aesthetic French can be, what with all its different spellings for the same sound and inflections for gender. Also, a lot of great philosophy has been written in French. Dutch - I love the sound of Dutch, the literature of the last 60 years, and the pragmatism encouraged in the culture. Also, my grandparents speak mostly only Dutch and Indonesian and have some great war stories to tell. Indonesian - This actually came from my studies with Dutch. Indonesia was a colony of the Netherlands for about 350 years, and now, after learning Dutch, it seems fair that I follow up and learn Indonesian well. It's like completing the story. I won't go through my hit list because there are so many. Honestly, I think that given the right circumstances I could be attracted to any language. Edited by Hekje on 06 August 2013 at 9:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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