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HELP! What language should I learn next?! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6232 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 1 of 25 03 April 2011 at 6:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Alright... so it looks like I sadly won't be going to Hungary so continuing to learn Hungarian seems sort of futile
at this point... so help me decide: which language should I learn next?!?! Arabic- really fun to speak, but one has to learn a dialect to actually speak to anyone which has frustrated me in the past when I tried to master it. Plus, my new favorite show, Arab Labor is in Palestinian Arabic and Hebrew. Persian/Farsi- beautiful language, I just LOVE how Persian sounds. Not too difficult with a familiar script. Deep discount should I want to learn Dari or Tajik. Easy vocab since I already speak Turkish. I also love Persian food and music. Problem is not too many Persian speakers around here and Iran is not exactly an easy tourist destination! Mandarin - more speakers than any other language, not too difficult to learn the spoken language. No problem finding speakers! Script is beautiful although a lifelong, learning commitment. Sadly, when I tried to speak it with a Chinese friend, his response was: "Seriously dude, Stop that. You are reaaaaally hurting my ears when you try to speak Chinese!" Japanese - I love all things Japanese! Food, art, architecture! Plus, my daughter is very interested in learning it! Notoriously one of the hardest languages to learn for English speakers to learn although the basics are pretty easy. See Chinese for script details! Hindi- Bollywood, curries and Indian people. All awesome! Beautiful script and not too difficult. Hard to self-learn because of the total lack of good Hindi self-study materials ( I've never been able to figure this one out?!) I also don't see myself getting to India anytime soon! :-) Other candidates are : French, - I already know some French passively from my fluency in other Romance languages. But I'm really not interested in French other than my wife keeps bugging me to go to Paris ( where nobody will speak French to you anyway! ) :-) Mongolian - Awesome language and script. I could think of few things I would rather do than trek through Mongolia on horseback for 6 months or so...someday....someday... Bulgarian - If nothing else, to be able to speak to my co-worker Nikolai! Plus, I have always wanted to go to Bulgaria. German - I love beer, skiing, German food and know several Austrians. I was born in Germany and love saying German words like Reinheitsgebot and Kühlschrank! HELP!! Edited by liddytime on 03 April 2011 at 4:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5086 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian | Message 2 of 25 03 April 2011 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Learn Japanese and practice it with your daughter. :P
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Leftcoaster Diglot Newbie China Joined 5034 days ago 22 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Russian | Message 4 of 25 03 April 2011 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did the same thing before starting Mandarin, and that was six years ago and I'm still going strong.
I think it all depends on whether or not you can find and nurture the motivation necessary for long term language learning. Moreover, motivations change and mature over time. I voted for Japanese because sharing the ups and downs of language learning with somebody close to you can be a powerful and mutually reinforcing experience. Maybe that could serve as the initial motivator that will get them past the first stage hurdles and buy them time to develop a long lasting love of the language. Edited by Leftcoaster on 03 April 2011 at 1:06pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6037 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 5 of 25 03 April 2011 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Bulgarian means excellent cuisine, beautiful nature, historical places to visit (Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo, Belogradchik, monasteries, etc.). You get a taste of the orient but also of Christian orthodox tradition :-). Regarding your main list, I'd probably go for Japanese; Or maybe Mandarin. The problem with Hindi is that many people in India speak English (or at least educated people do). Hindi is only spoken in the northern parts of India. This still amounts to ~350 million speakers though. Edited by Sennin on 03 April 2011 at 1:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6232 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written) | Message 6 of 25 03 April 2011 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
Nah - my problem is that I want to learn them ALL and I just have a hard time prioritizing which one to do first. :-) I edited my main post to tell a short blurb about why I am interested in each particular one. Edited by liddytime on 03 April 2011 at 5:08pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anakapuana Hexaglot Newbie Panama Joined 5171 days ago 3 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, French*, Indonesian, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Hindi, Greek, Russian | Message 7 of 25 03 April 2011 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi, and don't look further,
Do yourself a favor: learn Indonesian (bahasa indonesia). It has all the qualities and very few of the inconvenients of other languages: Grammar/syntax: the easiest in the world. Only Tok Pisin is even simpler. Pronunciation: the easiest in the world. No tones, no difficult sounds. Anyone from anywhere can speak correctly in no time. Moreover, the language is lovely to the ear: I like to compare it to Italian, where western languages are concerned. Vocabulary: God's gift to the world. You already know hundreds of words without realizing it, through Dutch (much of which was influenced by French - hence Latin and Greek roots). Other important sources: Arabic, thru Persian or not, Chinese and of course, Sanskrit (and that means: back to Indo-European languages...). Some English as well, naturally. Yes, granted: there are also some purely Malay words. In short: if you can't speak survival Indonesian in 3 months, try stamp collecting instead. Fluent Indonesian in a year? Certainly possible and most likely. 19th century pan-linguists went to all sorts of trouble to find/create a universal language. In their bigoted classical formation, they could not envision a language that might include roots others than those from the "Old World". We were thus gratified with silly constructed languages, none of which really made any headway anywhere. Had they looked further, they would have discovered that this "ideal" universal language already existed: Bahasa Indonesia. Selamat sukses. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5962 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 25 03 April 2011 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | ||
All the native Mandarin speakers that I know would consider that response to be a loss of face...theirs. Consider finding additional Mandarin speaking friends. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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