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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6264 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 65 of 141 10 December 2008 at 11:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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The languages I've chosen for my "to learn" list, I chose because I like the way they sound and look, and because they have interesting things for me to read.
The languages are: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and French Difficulty and usefulness have absolutely nothing to do with it...If I love it, I'll work on it. Although, I'm not sure if I like the way Spanish sounds most of the time yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6264 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 67 of 141 10 December 2008 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
What, I'm not allowed to dislike the way certain speech sounds? I didn't even say I disliked the way Spanish sounds, eh... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gulliver13 Triglot Newbie Bulgaria Joined 6022 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, German | Message 68 of 141 11 December 2008 at 7:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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I choose learning Italian, because I just love the sound of this language. Add the fact that Italy is one of my favorite tourist destinations and here you go :)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| yobar Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7032 days ago 52 posts - 54 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: German, Spanish, Irish | Message 69 of 141 08 January 2009 at 2:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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German was the first foreign language I studied, thanks to my discovery of old documents and a Bible from that branch of my family tree. I had a few native speakers in the area who helped me. I ended up using it years later when I was stationed in Germany. Mmmmmm Wo ist mein Weizenbier?
I then began the study of Spanish. It was the only foreign language offered at my small school at the time. I took two years of that in high school. I used it when I was stationed in San Antonio, where I began the study of... Russian. The recruiter noticed my interest in languages and asked if I'd like to test my abilities for learning languages. I scored a 123 on the DLAB. He said I'd be guaranteed any language I liked at a fine school in scenic Monterey, California. I chose Russian because of the Cold War. I did receive my choice of languages, but was assigned to a new (to the Army) school on an Air Force base in Texas. They needed so many new Russian students that there was not enough room at DLI for all of us. I definitely used my Russian in that job and went on to get a degree in it. I'm still learning Russian. I also studied other Slavic languages for personal and scholarly reasons in the Army and university. Language identification, comparative linguistics, idle curiosity, etc. I've danced around Gaeilge (Irish) for years, baffled by its seemingly psychotic orthography, prepositional pronouns, and number system. I finally got serious and started a structured study, thanks to the wealth of learning materials now available and to the Philo-Celtic Society's online lessons. I'm currently on lesson 15 of Máiréad Ní Ghráda's Progress In Irish. Class is in recess until February. New classes of all levels starting then! That's it for anything serious. Over the years I've bought beginner books and/or surveyed courses of Dutch, Welsh, Gàidhlig (Scottish), Czech, Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Serbian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Romanian, Panjabi, Pashto, Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew, Finnish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Thai, Latin, Greek, Hungarian, and Myaamiaataweenki (Miami-Illinois). I think that's all. ;) Edited by yobar on 08 January 2009 at 3:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 70 of 141 08 January 2009 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I fell in love with Russian language as a child - it's got such cool sounds, and there were many wonderful Russian childrens' shows that were shown on TV - everything from Crocodile Gena, to cartoons and adventure films.
Unfortunately learning English, German and French took precedence. The opportunity to study Russian presented itself in secondary school but I was too lazy to take much advantage of it other than turning up for classes.. Now, as an adult when I can choose what languages I want to study, it's my top choice..! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5924 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 71 of 141 08 January 2009 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Spanish: A few reasons: 1. I've been fascinated by it ever since my mother shared her very limited knowledge of Spanish with me when I was a child. 2. Two of my brothers have lived in South America, Bolivia and Chile respectively, and were totally immersed in Spanish, so I already know two people I can ask for help whenever I need it. 3. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and learned very little, and I've always wanted to seriously study it, so now I'm taking Spanish in college.
Afrikaans 1.I'm curious about South Africa, and Afrikaans seems to give an easier introduction to SA than say, Zulu (which I hope to eventually learn) for someone with virtually no language learning experience. 2. I enjoy the fact that double negatives are correct grammar in Afrikaans. 3. I hope to use it as a gateway to other Germanic languages; though this is a minor reason. Dutch I'm still in the very rudimentary stage with Dutch; Afrikaans and now Spanish are enough to get on with right now. I think the Dutch language, and indeed much about the Netherlands, is very interesting. Dutch is neither German, English or Afrikaans; but somehow similar to all three and seems to be a logical choice after learning Afrikaans. Finnish My Finnish is at a very basic level; that is I can barely say anything but reading about the 14 case endings and how challenging Finnish is for speakers of Indo-European languages made me very curious. I'm also starting to learn Swedish because I like the melodic sound of the spoken language and because Sweden and Finland have a kind of friendly rivalry that made me want to learn both languages, especially since Swedish is an official language of Finland. Edited by mick33 on 04 May 2010 at 10:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gaa1gaa1 Newbie China Joined 5614 days ago 30 posts - 39 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 72 of 141 18 July 2009 at 10:03am | IP Logged | |||||
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To cut a long story short：
1. English: a must, no need to explain. 2. Korean: China and Korea are neighbors, a lot of Koreans (Chinese-Koreans & South-Koreans) have been living in China, especially in Tianjin and Qingdao. 3. Japanese: It's Italian of Asia. China and Japan are neighbors, and Japan seems much close to ancient China in many respects, a lot of Japanese have been studying in China. 4. German: Germanic language, more helpful than Dutch or Swedish, and German is an engine of the whole Europe. And I was very impressed by 2 Germans. 5. Italian: It sounds more beautiful than Spanish, it's more important than Spanish in Europe (not in Latin-America or USA), perhaps also the most musical and euphonious one among Romance languages. 6. In future... Persian (Farsi)? Turkish? Arabic? I've got a bad headache, because I don't know which I should choose to learn, and it's still a pending issue for me. Edited by gaa1gaa1 on 18 July 2009 at 10:12am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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