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Ideas for Asian-themed language hitlist | ||
Tags: Hit List | Asian Languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5341 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 17 of 28 24 March 2011 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Personally being an East Asian, the languages that I speak include Japanese and Mandarin, along with bits of Hokkien and Hainanese. However, I would very much like to improve my Hokkien and Hainanese; and learn these East Asian languages in the following order of priority:
1. Korean - hopefully I can understand better Northeast Asian history through the perspective and language of the Koreans... 2. Thai - it's such a soothing-sounding language to my ear! 3. Indonesian - one can understand and use it in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.. 4. Cantonese - there're many Cantonese speakers abroad 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6143 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 18 of 28 24 March 2011 at 3:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Most of the languages that I'm interested in are from Europe or the Middle East, but I am also interested in
learning a few more traditional "Asian" languages as well. Here's my attempt at a list: Japanese: By far my favorite Asian language and I'm in love with it. I adore every aspect of the language and it's just so beautiful. I've wanted to learn it since I was little, but have only studied it for a year and a half. Mandarin: I'm fascinated by China and its history and culture (as with Japan) and would one day like to delve into this amazing language. It was also the first language I ever tried self-studying (before joining this site) so I'd like to return to it at some point, successfully this time. The tones are a little daunting but I'll be armed with kanji from Japanese so at least the writing system should be a bit easier. Indonesian: I don't really know much about the language, but it seems interesting enough and belongs to a family which I've never studied before. The prospect of traveling with it through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia also sounds quite inviting. Korean: I have had an on-and-off interest in Korean for a while, and I think it would be very interesting to compare it with Japanese. I was also fascinated with Korea for a while when I was younger (I would check out reference books on Korea from the library and read the entire thing) so I'd like to rediscover that childhood interest. Beyond those it's all a bit hazy. Other possible candidates could be Mongolian, Tagalog, or Thai, but I'mnot sure about any of those. Of course, if we expand this category to include all of Asia then I'd also include Russian, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Turkish, and Hindi. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5124 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 28 25 March 2011 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
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I love this thread because it opens up such a great sense of possibilities. I never before dreamed of having an
Asian Language Hit List. For me to be learning Mandarin feels like such a miracle, because I haven't considered myself "good" at languages (I know, tired topic, all it takes is work, etc. . . . nonetheless, that's a real feeling). But I guess, if I can learn Mandarin, I could learn another Asian language, couldn't I? And another, and another . . . So, #1 is Mandarin, because my daughter's adopted from China and I want to teach her and help her value her heritage, plus we're going back for the first time in July. #2 would be Cantonese, because I liked southern China a lot when we went before, I like warm weather, and I'd be very interested to visit Hong Kong . . . plus, lots of Chinese folks in the US speak Cantonese. #3 would be Urdu or Hindi, because I've found Indian people very compatible, plus I love Indian food with its vegetarian bent. A fascinating country. Could I do more? #4 might be Korean, because I've met a fair number of Korean people in the U.S., my university's Sisters of Charity have a Korean branch and there are always some Korean sisters around, and I like Korean food (are you noticing a theme here?). You know, in fact I should move Korean up on the list if only because I realize I actually have the opportunity for frequent practice. But isn't it horribly difficult? And #5 would be Thai, for no other reason than the warm weather and, yes, the food!!!! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 20 of 28 25 March 2011 at 12:20pm | IP Logged | ||
I believe once you know Chinese, it's not so hard actually, the grammar can be difficult, but there are not so many exceptions as in European languages, once you know Chinese based vocabulary, it's easy I would say. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| andee Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7078 days ago 681 posts - 724 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Korean, French | Message 21 of 28 29 March 2011 at 3:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I may as well bite... All below are basically works in progress
1- Korean: home, life and wife... 2- Japanese: I love Japan too much and wish I could stay longer than the typical short trip I'm growing accustomed to 3- Mandarin: a possible community language in a few years... be it the mainland, Taiwan or Singapore 4- Indonesian and Malay (I still group them together because I study them comparatively)... I miss both Indonesia and Malaysia and speaking these languages Dreams...? ..Realities of me using those below in my daily life are pretty limited 5- Arabic: beauty 6- Turkish: intrigue 7- Taiwanese: more intrigue 8- Nepali: love the people 9- Mongolian: several of my students are Mongolian and I'd like to motivate them more 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| artemidora Super Polyglot Newbie Spain Joined 4997 days ago 27 posts - 39 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Catalan, Hindi, Russian, Swedish, Danish Studies: Greek, Japanese, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Persian, Ancient Egyptian, Romansh, Tatar, Sanskrit, Lithuanian, Kazakh, Basque, Hawaiian, Arabic (classical), Finnish, Czech, Turkish, Indonesian | Message 22 of 28 30 March 2011 at 3:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, my dream list of Asian languages:
-Russian, and then some siberian native tongues: Tungus, Yakut are the ones that appeal to me more. -Mongolian, and let's begin with the list of turkic languages: Kazakh, Uzbekh, Kirguiz, (their Tatar brothers at Europe) and elegant Turkish and I stop there for now. -Dreamland, dreamworld, dreamlanguage, the most beautiful language on this planet: Persian, the language of the fairies.......and Tajik and Pashto must be fantastic too. -Of course Hindi and Sanskrit, the language of the gods. -Indonesian is so cute. Such a beauty. -Japanese, wow, the language of the deep soul and contemplation. -(and far far east, outside Asia, the powerful language of the mana energy: HAWAIIAN, and Maori and Tahitian) Edited by artemidora on 30 March 2011 at 3:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kmfw72 Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4996 days ago 3 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, French | Message 23 of 28 31 March 2011 at 1:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I already speak some Indonesian and Malay. The great advantage of these languages is that unlike most other Asian languages, they're written in Roman script, not with a different alphabet or characters, the pronunciation is phonetic, not tonal, and a lot of vocabulary is derived from Western languages, in the case of Malay, English, and in the case of Indonesian, Dutch and Portuguese as well.
However, Malay and Indonesian derive even more vocabulary from Sanskrit and Arabic, so I would look to learn Hindi (or Urdu) and Arabic, and also Persian. The other Southeast Asian language I would look to learn would be Filipino or Tagalog, which, like Malay and Indonesian, is an Austronesian language, but with a large amount of vocabulary borrowed from Spanish. The other Asian language I speak is Tetum (or Tetun) which is one of the official languages of East Timor, along with Portuguese, from which it has derived a lot of its vocabulary. Unfortunately, this website doesn't include it in the list of languages. :( Edited by kmfw72 on 31 March 2011 at 1:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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