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BaronBill Triglot Senior Member United States HowToLanguages.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4691 days ago 335 posts - 594 votes Speaks: English*, French, German Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian
| Message 9 of 35 25 August 2013 at 6:34pm | IP Logged |
I imagine this would depend on where the person lived. For me in the US, the most useful combo would be:
German
Spanish
French
Cantonese
Russian
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 10 of 35 25 August 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
How about a list of five, out of which an aspiring polyglot should learn at least one?
imo:
Finnish
Turkish
Mandarin
Hindi
Indonesian
Basically, a non-endangered language which is very different from the typical Spanish/German/French hit list. apart from Hindi all are non-IE.
3 persons have voted this message useful
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 11 of 35 25 August 2013 at 7:37pm | IP Logged |
albysky wrote:
If someone had no particular reason to learn any language apart from English ,but he would
simply like to
learn 5 other languages , which languages in your opinion should he absolutely learn? |
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I think it's kind of impossible to answer this question. It depends on your motivation, your purpose and your
interests. If there's no particular reason to learn any language, then how can there be some that you should
"absolutely" learn? If you're learning for fun, then you pick languages that you like - because they're musical,
because you know someone who speaks it, because you like the movies or the music or the literature.
Assuming that English is my first language...
For me?
French - already speak it fluently
Spanish - working on it
Filipino - want to learn it because it's my husband's first language
Japanese and/or Mandarin - haven't decided which one yet. I want the challenge of learning a language that's
completely different from English or French.
Portuguese - I'm fascinated by Brazil
These are all based on personal interests - travel, culture, etc.
If I were younger, I might want to pursue a job in international affairs - in which case I'd probably want to learn
the five major UN languages (aside from English):
French
Spanish
Mandarin
Russian
Arabic
If I wanted to learn languages so that I could speak to the largest number of Canadians, I would choose:
French
Punjabi
Chinese (Mandarin and/or Cantonese)
Spanish
Tagalog
If I wanted to learn languages that were "easy" based on what I already know (ie. be fluent in the highest number
of languages as quickly as possible), I would probably choose:
French
Spanish
Italian
Portuguese
Esperanto
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4911 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 12 of 35 25 August 2013 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
Professor Arguelles wrote some interesting thoughts about the first 6 languages an aspiring polyglot ought to learn, and his idea that any educated person should aspire to knowing 6 languages. What is interesting is that he does make different lists depending where a person lives. http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.a sp?TID=300&PN=1&TPN=3 (Go down to post 23).
For me, the list of 5 (other than English) would be:
- Ancient Greek
- French
- German
- Hindi
- Sanskrit
If I was allowed one more, it would be Hebrew. This list is based on the languages I have actually studied (except Sanskrit which I plan to study). And just like on this list, Hebrew has sadly fallen to the wayside in the wake of other interests.
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| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 13 of 35 25 August 2013 at 8:28pm | IP Logged |
Here was my 2006 list
luke wrote:
Spanish
Esperanto
French
ASL
and then, since this is a fantasy, Mandarin. |
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My list is still pretty similar, although my ambitions have settled down ....
English
French
Spanish
Esperanto
Russian
Most importantly though, I wonder what alias lengua, the starter of the 2006 thread is using these days.
Edited by luke on 25 August 2013 at 8:33pm
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| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4360 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew
| Message 14 of 35 25 August 2013 at 8:46pm | IP Logged |
albysky wrote:
If someone had no particular reason to learn any language apart from English ,but he would simply like to
learn 5 other languages , which languages in your opinion should he absolutely learn? |
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If only one could decide...
French/Italian/Spanish (choose one or more)
German
Greek/Latin (choose one or more)
Russian
Hebrew/Arabic (choose one or more)
That pretty much covers my mediterranean/european orientation of interests. Add English and it's a pretty good communication arsenal.
Now, if one is interested in other parts of the world I would add Swahili ( I saw a film and I loved it), creole of some sort, chinese, japanese, etc etc etc.
Five, you ask?
Edited by renaissancemedi on 25 August 2013 at 8:46pm
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| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5102 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German
| Message 16 of 35 25 August 2013 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
If I had to tell someone else which languages to study, that would probably be sign that
they won't learn any of them.
That said, for me it would be:
French
German
Russian
Ancient Greek
The last one, I would probably leave blank to give myself room to change my mind. Today I'm
leaning towards Italian or Swedish, but Chinese is also quite possible and I suspect that ten
years from now, I will have changed my mind again.
1 person has voted this message useful
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