|
 |
Fun Languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5327 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 89 of 109 20 March 2012 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | ||
|
This isn't a serious hit list, but rather a list of languages which I might find
amusing to study to level A1 or so. 1. Icelandic / Old Norse. I enjoy the literature, the country is beautiful, and I find the terseness of Old Norse poetry appealing (compared to other old Germanic languages). I would probably attack this through Assimil's Icelandic phrasebook with a French base, because Gordon's Introduction to Old Norse is just brutal, and most modern Icelandic courses I've seen give me flashbacks to high school. 2. Egyptian. Really, who isn't tempted to learn just enough to puzzle out stock phrases in the Louvre? Of course, in practice, you're really looking at a group of related Afro-Asiatic languages with few recorded vowels, inconsistent spelling, and a complicated writing system. So it probably combines most of the difficult features of Arabic and Japanese. 3. Italian. I've lived in an Italian-speaking area, and I took a year of Italian in college. I've always loved the language. 4. Esperanto or a trade language. How much can you simplify a language? How do trade languages work in the real world? 5. A language with radically different grammar. But realistically, I need to get my French solid first before I start playing around with any other languages. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4498 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 90 of 109 22 March 2012 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
|
In no particular order:
1. Czech - I'm a big diacritics fan, and Czech scratches that itch. I also like all the chirping and whirring. It sort of reminds me of woodland sounds. 2. Danish - This language's sounds are so delightfully soft, and a lot of Danish music is beautifully melancholy. 3. French - I took this for six years through the end of high school and then dropped it three years ago when I entered college. I'm so tempted to take it up again, but I must be a good girl and bring up Dutch first. 4. Mandarin - Spoken Mandarin sounds very strong, resilient, and energetic. It not being an Indo-European language also lends it a certain exotic appeal. 5. Farsi - How can I not adore the language that produced Barobat? 6. Russian - Another mellifluous language (again with the soft sounds, I'm sensing a theme here) that also happens to be the mother tongue of my favorite authors. 7. Spanish - While I'm not as sloppily in love with Spanish as I am with the other languages on this list, it's dead useful in the U.S. and thus highly worthy of study. 8. Arabic - This list has made it very clear that I have a soft spot for, ah, soft sounds, but I am also a big proponent of guttural sounds, which Arabic has in spades. The three-letter roots are also absolutely fascinating. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4697 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 91 of 109 22 March 2012 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Irish
Amharic Cherokee Afrikaans Basque Portuguese Bahasa Indonesia Hawaiian Swahili Konkani If I could ask a genie just to give me the ability, these would be it. Who wouldn't want to speak Hawaiian? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Metaphrastis Triglot Newbie Australia Joined 4033 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Korean, Esperanto, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 92 of 109 30 April 2013 at 6:13am | IP Logged | ||
|
I wish I could speak the following languages:
Sanskrit Hindi Ancient Greek Latin Tocharian Armenian Russian German Italian Interlingua (I can read it, but cannot speak or write it) And I know it can never happen, but if there were a course available and I had the time (and ability?) I'd love to learn Proto-Indo-European. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5023 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 93 of 109 30 April 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, I'm sure you have the ability. I'd love to as well, but there's just no good training material. There's the Dnghu (http://dnghu.org/en/indo-european%20revival/) folks, but, crazy dreams of more than a handful of people ever learning the language notwithstanding, their material simply isn't very user-friendly. One of these days, somebody will simply have to write a beginner's guide to PIE. If I had time, I'd do it, but I don't see that happening soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 94 of 109 01 May 2013 at 1:10am | IP Logged | ||
|
To make my work even more fun I could learn Mandarin/Japanese/Hebrew/Turkish. (my work is spam analysis and I'm required to use google translate if needed)
As for pure fun and nothing else... already learning toki pona for that purpose; perhaps Belarusian and Dutch qualify too. Some others: Icelandic one dialect from Italian (maybe even two dialects), Norwegian, Swedish, English, German, Polish Breton Scots Walloon Corsican Luxembourgish Greenlandic Edited by Serpent on 01 May 2013 at 1:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4431 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 95 of 109 01 May 2013 at 3:38am | IP Logged | ||
|
Danish
Esperanto Neapolitan Catalan Basque 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6392 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 96 of 109 01 May 2013 at 4:22am | IP Logged | ||
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. |
