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How did you choose your target language? | ||
Tags: Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5568 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 25 of 28 23 November 2010 at 6:13pm | IP Logged |
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French - The first language I was exposed to as a child, and by far the most useful foreign language to know this close to Qulebec.
Spanish - The only other language offered by my high school, and the second most useful foreign language to know around here. German - At first I just thought it sounded really cool and wanted to understand the lyrics to the Rammstein songs I was listening to. Russian - A friend and I had a brief fascination with the USSR in high school. But even after we saw through the folly of Lenin's ideas the inescapable beauty of the language stuck with us both. Mandarin - When I got to university, there was finally a large number of languages available to study. I decided to continue with the languages I had already started and to try one more. I chose Mandarin for four reasons: (1) I had been doing a lot of reading on typology and really wanted to study an isolating language, (2) Chinese characters are really cool, (3) a billion people speak it, and (4) it is widely considered an up-and-coming language which will become more useful with time. I would say Mandarin is the third most useful foreign language to know here, thanks to the large number of Chinese exchange students at the local university. Edited by Levi on 23 November 2010 at 6:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6471 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 26 of 28 23 November 2010 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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For those who succeed in mastering them, languages are just like wands. They choose us
(call out to us) just as much as we choose them. We conceal it though by inventing rational reasons that we can tell parents, colleagues or the like. This forum should not be a place where you need to do that. Languages also have the magical ability to create opportunities of using them; NONE of the languages I studied, from Chinese to Italian to Esperanto to Latin and even my dabbling in Lithuanian, has EVER been useless. Instead, each of them brought me wonderous opportunities directly correlated to the portion of my heart that I gave them. No matter if a language has 1 million speakers or 100 million, the amount of friends that you talk to in that language is the same. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 27 of 28 23 November 2010 at 10:08pm | IP Logged |
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With so many great choices, I could well do with a language sorting hat right now... ;) Edited by Teango on 23 November 2010 at 10:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6126 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 28 of 28 23 November 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
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I study Japanese because I'm half-Japanese ancestry. That and I've been watching anime since, oh, since the 80's? I picked Finnish because because I'm half-Finnish, and it feels weird to spend all this time on Japanese but not to not study any Finnish at all. I'm still very much the total beginner at Finnish -- though, oddly, as the JLPT becomes closer and closer, Finnish somehow seems more and more interesting. The forbidden fruit is always the sweetest, I think.
My high school offered the option of Spanish, French, Latin or German, and I picked German and took 3 years of classes -- but for the life of me, I have absolutely no recollection of why I picked German. I do remember when we went to Finland, my mother was able to use her school-learned Germans to have have simple conversations while riding the ferries in the Baltic. Maybe she suggested it? I have no idea, really. One of these days, perhaps some time in the distant future, I'd like to be able to consciously 'pick' a language. Maybe I'll go on this board and I'll post one of those topics asking for advice. Edited by cathrynm on 23 November 2010 at 10:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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