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So You Want to Learn 5...

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6438 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 113 of 580
03 July 2007 at 6:07pm | IP Logged 
leosmith wrote:
Volte wrote:
1) Indo-European

I believe that's a language family, not a language.


I'm aware than Indo-European is a language family. I decided to write it for several reasons, despite this. One is that it allowed me to sneak a longer list of languages in. Another is that some people speak of the branches of Indo-European, such as the Germanic and Romance branches, as dialect continuums; I believe Ardaschir said that he likes to consider each of these branches as a language. Thirdly, I was somewhat inspired by people who wrote other things which are not, in any meaningful sense, languages - namely, proto-Indo-European. There is no written work whatsoever in this language, nor is it currently spoken orally; if it can be listed, why can't some of its descendants be considered together?

Also, I have a somewhat odd sense of humor. The irony of listing 'Indo-European' and specifying learning at least one language from each top-level branch, combined with the list of languages outside of it which I'd definitely like to achieve a reading knowledge of being rather short, bringing in the possibility of saying "maybe I'll stop at 3", via admittedly an odd way of counting, amused me. I apologize if this was out of place.

uman wrote:

Maybe she was talking about Proto-Indo-European?


No, though it was a motivator for the form of the list. I'm rather skeptical of language reconstruction, and all the more so for something as remote as Proto-Indo-European. I can appreciate why it would be extremely nice to know about PIE; but, at the end of the day, there are merely many inferences. If there were solid information available about PIE, I'd try to learn it in a heartbeat.

1 person has voted this message useful



johntothea
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6627 days ago

193 posts - 192 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, French

 
 Message 114 of 580
03 July 2007 at 10:51pm | IP Logged 
hm....this is a tough one.

1.Spanish
2.Polish
3.French
4.Italian
5.Norwegian



1 person has voted this message useful



An'ka Banan'ka
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6374 days ago

46 posts - 48 votes
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Swedish, Russian

 
 Message 115 of 580
04 July 2007 at 12:10am | IP Logged 
Hmmm...

1. Russian
2. Swedish
3. Serbo-Croatian
4. Italian
5. French


1 person has voted this message useful



sergiu
Diglot
Senior Member
Romania
freewebs.com/invata_
Joined 6438 days ago

105 posts - 108 votes 
Speaks: Romanian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 116 of 580
04 July 2007 at 8:19am | IP Logged 
Why do you think it's such a hard choice to make?
Mine is
1.German
2.Swedish
3.French
4.Spanish
5.Japanese
1 person has voted this message useful



uman
Diglot
Groupie
United States
umanwizard.com
Joined 6934 days ago

58 posts - 61 votes 
Speaks: English*, French

 
 Message 117 of 580
05 July 2007 at 8:17am | IP Logged 
Volte, sorry for the mistake on your gender!

I agree that it'd be impossible, today, to learn Proto-Indo-European, but if a genie came out of a magic lamp and offered me the ability to suddenly know five languages, I'd definitely consider putting it on my list (next to Pirahã and other impossibilites)
1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6438 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 118 of 580
05 July 2007 at 9:04am | IP Logged 
uman wrote:
Volte, sorry for the mistake on your gender!


No problem, so far all 3 or so people on this forum who have guessed have made the same mistake.

uman wrote:

I agree that it'd be impossible, today, to learn Proto-Indo-European, but if a genie came out of a magic lamp and offered me the ability to suddenly know five languages, I'd definitely consider putting it on my list (next to Pirahã and other impossibilites)


Absolutely; if a genie appeared, I think it would make sense to get a perfect knowledge of 5 languages that there would be -no- other way to learn. There would be a huge number of benefits to this. That said, until you tell me you've found a genie, I'm not holding my breath.

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reineke
Senior Member
United States
https://learnalangua
Joined 6446 days ago

851 posts - 1008 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 119 of 580
07 July 2007 at 9:20am | IP Logged 
"This is a spin-off of the "10" thread - but harder. The question is, if you could learn only 5 languages to perfect (native) fluency (reading/writing/listening/speaking), in addition to any which you already have a native or advanced fluency in, which five would you choose as of today?"

No genies mentioned, I'm afraid, so your learning efforts would involve booking frequent trips to the Amazon jungle and building a time machine. You have to study the old fashioned way and give up on any ideas about learning other languages.

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LuckyNomad
Groupie
Korea, South
Joined 6346 days ago

79 posts - 89 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Korean

 
 Message 120 of 580
12 July 2007 at 6:42pm | IP Logged 
1. Mandarin Chinese
2. Korean
3. Japanese
4. Vietnamese
5. Indonesian


1 person has voted this message useful



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