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What do you love about your languages? | ||
Tags: Reasons for study | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5027 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 9 of 18 03 November 2010 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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Mandarin- Despite being considered a harsh language, I find it very chic. I have come to appreciate the way the history and culture intertwine with the language. I love the look on peoples faces when I speak to my Russian classmates in Mandarin :-) Bottom line: it's a very satisfying language to speak.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6378 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 10 of 18 03 November 2010 at 10:15am | IP Logged |
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French: I'm pretty ambivalent about French. It wasn't really my choice to study (when I was very young I got to choose between French or German) and I don't have any particular feelings about the culture one way or another. It's just a language.
Mandarin: A love affair turned sour, largely because of politics but also for the classic reasons of actually going there and being disappointed that the culture is so much less exotic and so much less appealing than you originally thought. There are still many things I love about Mandarin, but the problem is that Cantonese always has more of them. Mandarin has four tones, Cantonese has at least six. Mandarin has cool characters, Cantonese uses traditional ones, which are even cooler (and it has a load of characters unique to Cantonese, so the number is also greater). Mandarin has lots of cool idioms, Cantonese uses all the idioms found in Mandarin, with the addition of a bunch of Cantonese-only idioms. But Mandarin sounds really cool when reciting poetry, giving the tone contours free reign and all the funky initials come out properly. Cantonese: The love of my life. I love the raw power of Cantonese. I've never seen a language so irreverent. Other languages take in loanwords and preserve them carefully, slowly changing them over time. People are upset and feel they're "poisoning" the language, until they're old enough for nobody to remember that they're loan words. Cantonese takes English words and treat them as playthings. Within a few years of an English term entering Cantonese it's found usages that no English speaker would recognize. How about things like "唔啱key" for "to not match" (literally "not suitable key") or "揸fit" for "to take charge" ("揸" literally means "to grab" or "to control")? My favorite is breaking the words up when asking questions like "你o唔ok呀?". Cantonese also has a ruggedness to it that I find refreshing. Creative vulgarities ranging all over the scale of "mildly emphasizing" to "violently offensive" abound in the language. Since you can draw from the formal Mandarin language (it's what's used in writing, so everyone knows it), Cantonese has a phenomenal range from stiff and formal to vulgar and colorful. I could write an essay on what I love about Cantonese, but this'll have to do for now. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5003 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 18 03 November 2010 at 11:43am | IP Logged |
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I wouldn't say I'm in love with French (I love studying it but that's more out of a love for languages in general); I'm mostly learning it for utility and because it was the first language I started off with at school. But there are certain things I like about it; it seems very elegant and well-structured, especially in the written form, which appeals to my mathematical side. I also find the culture interesting - they seem more realistic and no-bullshit and less politically correct than the UK and the US which is very appealing. The rudeness and unfriendliness aspect just isn't true in my experience, although they do tend to take their time to open up to new people rather than being really friendly right off the bat.
Italian appeals to me a lot, far more so than Spanish, but I can't put my finger on exactly why. It just seems like a cool language, it sounds nice, and unlike French it's quite easy to pronounce so you can spend more time learning the fun stuff like grammar and vocab rather than spending hours trying to perfect your nasal vowels and "ou"/"u" sounds and remember exactly which letters are actually pronounced. Whereas the only appeal that Spanish really holds for me is its usefulness. I'm sure I'll learn both in the future; it seems a waste not to learn Spanish if you already know French and Italian, and it would be cool to understand what all my Spanish friends are talking about during their all-night parties... German is another language I plan to learn in the not too distant future. Compared to the Romance languages it seems like something different, with new and exciting features like noun declension. I love the sound of spoken German, it's got a cool harshness about it; I think it's just as nice as Italian and its own different way. Also Germany seems like it has a culture I'd fit right into, more so than France or Italy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6138 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 12 of 18 03 November 2010 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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Mandarin: This is the national language of China, the language in which most literature
is written and the most understood dialect inside Mainland China. It is also needed (to some extent) if one wants to learn other dialects. Cantonese: Hong Kong's official language and spoken by nearly 100 million people in China, this language represent an important part of the culture of southern China. While I'm not particularly found of its sounds, I still consider it an important dialect that carries a lot of history and influence. Shanghainese: I just love the sound of this dialect! Not only does it sound better than any other language to me, but I also happen to love the city in which it is spoken. Since very few people bother learning Shanghainese it makes its native speakers even more appreciative when I speak it. Wenzhounese: I haven't started studying the language very seriously yet but I am attracted by its exotic appearance. Within China, even in the cities near Wenzhou, very few people can understand this dialect since it is so different from standard Mandarin and does not have the same influence as Cantonese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5445 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 18 03 November 2010 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
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Korean and Japanese: dramas, variety shows, music, movies, games, girls.
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| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 4986 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 14 of 18 03 November 2010 at 7:34pm | IP Logged |
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What I like about Arabic is its extreme logic and its timeless quality (it hasn't changed for 1,500 years).
I like the fact that a lot of the vocabulary comes from the desert and that there are words for the most surprising things - such as the spot on a date pit. I don't like the way foreign words aren't easily assimilated into Arabic and have to eventually be changed to fit the Arabic word structure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NotKeepingTrack Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4963 days ago 19 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, German | Message 15 of 18 04 November 2010 at 2:34am | IP Logged |
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This has been an interesting thread to read!
French - I absolutely love this language. I actually started studying it when I thought I would be doing European history in graduate school, but have since changed my mind. I'll be continuing my study of French though. I love the way it sounds, the literature, the ideas of society. And learning French, having to pay attention to every word I put down on paper (conjugations of verbs, words that combine/drop letters, verb-subject agreement, etc.) has also taught me to slow down while writing essays and such in English, making my work much better. German - I have to say, this is my least favorite language. It is probably because of the professor I have though. Her teaching style just doesn't mesh well with my learning style. Also, since I know I'll be dropping this language after this semester, it is hard to force myself to study. Spanish - I love the culture and people of Latin America. It is just very interesting to me, and the language is an important step in understanding that way of life. I also enjoy the music. The history materials I'm able to (slowly for now..) decipher are very interesting (and as a history major, very useful!). I also enjoy the way the language sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tapachula111 Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6075 days ago 22 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, French | Message 16 of 18 06 November 2010 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
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When I hear a really good female vocalist sing a soft melody in Spanish, it always sends shivers down my spine. Italian does that for me also. Regards, Paul
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