|
 |
Most Studied Foreign Languages ? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| neurosport Diglot Newbie United States diy-av.net Joined 5449 days ago 12 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English, Russian* Studies: French, German, Spanish | Message 17 of 32 01 February 2010 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Very nice! Thanks! It is very weird for me as a Russian living in America to see that in Europe almost as many people study Russian as Spanish. In US everybody is studying Spanish due to out of control immigration from Mexico. Dominance of Spanish in the Latin America is of course also a factor. Russian on the other hand is not even on the radar, since we don't have any pipelines going that way. It is also weird to see that French and German are so far ahead of Spanish. After all, Spanish is much more commonly spoken worldwide. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| GauchoBoaCepa Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5418 days ago 172 posts - 199 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish | Message 18 of 32 01 February 2010 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't mean to include Chinese and Arabic because I based on the European table... All right, here we go....Mandarin: 2% Arabic 1% 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5452 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 19 of 32 01 February 2010 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is not so weird when you consider that French and German are much more widely spoken than Spanish in Europe. When you compare the economic power of the German speaking countries as opposed to that of Spain, it is not so weird either. After all, people and businesses in Europe are much more likely to deal with France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland than with Latin America. Then you have tradition and history. French and German have for decades, if not centuries, been popular foreign languages in many European countries. There are probably a lot more French and German language teachers available than Spanish teachers. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ulmo Diglot Newbie Joined 6085 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 20 of 32 01 February 2010 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
There might also be a good percentage in the number of Japanese language students in Brazil. Interest on Japanese has grown amazingly over the last few years.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5676 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 21 of 32 01 February 2010 at 8:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
True, but I wonder how much Islam's population boom will actually effect language learning in the Americas. Even in so called Islamic places such as Pakistan, Iran, and Malaysia, Arabic takes a back seat to the likes of English and French. Similarly, South America, which is predominately Roman Catholic, does not show much interest in Latin. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ulmo Diglot Newbie Joined 6085 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 22 of 32 02 February 2010 at 12:29am | IP Logged | |||||
There's a great difference between Islam and Christianity concerning the holy books: translating the Bible into as many languages as possible has been firmly encouraged over the last few centuries, while a good Muslim, in order to avoid mistranslating, is supposed to read the Qur'an in its original language. After all, Latin isn't even Bible's original language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5611 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 23 of 32 02 February 2010 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm all for translations, as long as they are accurate. There are many poor translations of the Qur'an that bigots use to bash Islam and Muslims. That's what concerns Muslims. If you know Arabic, you would know that translating the Qur'an is a more difficult task than translating the Bible. Off-topic: If anyone is looking for a good translation of the Qur'an, I recommend Tarif Khalidi's "The Qur'an: A New Translation". 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
