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Trying to choose an Asian language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| MBrecht92 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 3943 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes Speaks: French, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German | Message 1 of 14 20 February 2015 at 8:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everyone,
So far I've only seriously studied European languages and now I'd like to try my hand at one which is spoken primarily in Asia or the Middle East. For the past few weeks, I've been trying in vain to decide between the following languages: - Persian - I've wanted to learn this language for years. Not only do I find it beautiful, but it would also serve as a sort of introduction to the Indo-Iranian languages, which have fascinated me for quite some time. The biggest drawback that Persian presents is the relative complexity and ambiguity of the writing system. I've thought about learning Tajik, but I've found very few resources intended for students of this particular dialect. - Japanese - I've studied Japanese before, and am already somewhat familiar with Hiragana and have basic knowledge of the language's grammar. I'm not exactly an "otaku", but there are a lot of Japanese films and/or tv series which I'm interested in watching and which would provide me countless opportunities to practice my understanding of the spoken language. On the other hand, I CANNOT say that the idea of having to learn 2,000 kanji in order to read newspapers fills my heart with glee. - Indonesian, of which I've already managed to learn the basics. I rather like the language (and have had no trouble whatsoever finding people to practice it with), but there isn't all that much media produced in Indonesian which I find particularly interesting or entertaining. Also, I get the impression that many native speakers are fond of gratuitously using English words (at least online), which I find both irritating and somehow discouraging. I should probably add that a friend of mine has Indonesian as a native language, which is one of the reasons that I'm considering the possibility of learning it. - Hindi - I have a friend whose family is from India and who's strongly encouraging me to learn Hindi. Like Farsi, Hindi is part of the Indo-Iranian family (more specifically the Indo-Aryan branch thereof) and thus by studying it I could satisfy my numerous curiosities pertaining to this part of the Indo-European family. However, I'm not overly attracted to Indian popular culture and find that Hindi speakers tend to use anglicisms even more often that Indonesians. I should add that I'd like to become a translator or interpreter in the future, so I'd prefer to learn a language for which a certain demand exists in those fields. Edited by MBrecht92 on 20 February 2015 at 11:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6371 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 14 20 February 2015 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to be an interpreter, you'll have to choose very carefully. You're going to have to learn the language to a very high level and you're going to have to spend a lot of time on that language, likely meaning you'll have to somewhat neglect your other languages. Translation is, as far as I understand, a hard business to get by in nowadays, and it's getting more difficult every year, as machine translations improve and gain ground.
Disregarding that, I'd say go with Persian or Indonesian. You don't seem that into Hindi, and if you don't enjoy learning a difficult language, Japanese is probably not for you. If you don't have an attitude of loving the kanji and being happy when you're encountering new ones you haven't seen before, then learning even 2,000 ones will be tough and motivation-sapping. Persian is Indo-European, which is a clear advantage for you, and Indonesian is reputed to be one of the easiest non-IE languages out there. As for media, have you considered that you get Malay pretty much for free? Malaysian and Indonesian are the same, pluricentric language. So the question is: Is the beauty of the Persian language enough to motivate you despire your fear of the difficult writing system? As far as I understand, except for Japanese and the Chinese languages, the writing system is rarely a significant factor in language learning. You get used to it pretty quickly, though of course with Persian you'll have to look up more words in the dictionary to know how to pronounce them, which will probably delay your reading fluency quite a bit. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jbadg76421 Groupie United States Joined 4177 days ago 51 posts - 92 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, French, Esperanto | Message 3 of 14 20 February 2015 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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My vote would be for Japanese, for the following reasons:
1. Because I'm biased...It's the only Asian language I have any interest in learning. I find it to be very pleasing to the ear, almost beautiful sounding. I understand your lack of enthusiasm about learning the Kanji, but that's something that you could maybe postpone until later (?) 2. Hindi and Persian are both still technically Indo-European languages, so if you want to really move out of your "comfort zone" and try something more exotic, that leaves you with Japanese and Indonesian. Maybe you could do Persian later, when you "come back" to the IE languages after your Asian adventure :-). 3. You wrote that while you have plenty of opportunities to practice Indonesian, there isn't really any media that interests you, whereas with Japanese, you have a wealth of choices. That's a big motivating factor for me...If the culture doesn't interest me, or if there isn't enough media (books, films, songs) to keep me occupied when I'm not practicing with native speakers, then I won't invest the time, effort, and money into learning a language, no matter how interesting it may seem. Eventually the novelty will wear off, the "honeymoon" will be over, and I'll have to actually start using the language. 4. Then again (and I'm kind of arguing with myself here) you stated that you want to become an interpreter. I know nothing about this field, so I don't know what the demand is for translators in any of these languages, but I have to agree with Ari: Japanese will prove itself quite challenging, and will require more time than the other three to get to a good enough level where you could actually work as an interpreter. When you get into the more advanced stages, you may even find Japanese so demanding that you have to postpone any other languages you might have planned to learn. That's one reason I'm saving Japanese for near the end of my language studies - German and Russian require enough time to work on for just an intermediate level, so I can imagine that Japanese would require my full attention. So if you started working and Japanese, do you think you would enjoy it enough to make it full-time? If not, perhaps you should go with what you're really passionate about. Whatever you choose, make sure you let us know, I'll be interested to find out! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4496 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 14 20 February 2015 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Complexity is an overrated part of languages. Go for Persian. You seem to like it the
most and then you'll overcome complexity in no time. People always bitch about the complexity of Russian but it's my favourite foreign language and one of the ones I'm the best at. You'll overcome that complexity. Edited by tarvos on 20 February 2015 at 4:05pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4561 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 5 of 14 21 February 2015 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
One more thing about Japanese though: I'm afraid it isn't much of a safe haven from anglicisms either. Thankfully most Japanese people seem to grow out of using truly gratuitous English phrases in internet comments by the time they leave middle school, but pop songs (including theme songs from TV shows) without random English words and phrases sprinkled all over the place are pretty hard to come by. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6386 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 6 of 14 21 February 2015 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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About Indonesian, I also have an Indonesian friend but she finds it puzzling that I want to learn her language, calling it useless etc. I would also call it the most European language in Asia. I'm not saying it's a bad choice but keep this in mind and especially try to find out what your friend's attitude is.
For your career as a translator/interpreter, I recommend you to learn one of your European languages to a high level. Maybe especially Portuguese, as if you go for Spanish you'll be competing with bilingual native speakers. (Also, does 92 refer to your birth year? are you already getting some kind of higher education or job experience? it's never too late to learn a language but if you want to be an interpreter you need to start asap) Edited by Serpent on 21 February 2015 at 8:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| MBrecht92 Triglot Newbie United States Joined 3943 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes Speaks: French, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German | Message 7 of 14 22 February 2015 at 1:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you all for the responses!
Yes, I was indeed born in 1992 and am currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Spanish, which I speak at a relatively high level. From what I've read there's relatively little demand for Portuguese within the field of interpretation, although perhaps I'm wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4123 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 14 22 February 2015 at 6:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a translator, not an interpreter, but I had an acquaintance that did Brazilian Portuguese interpretation and he was constantly out of the city, working with companies from Brazil. I guess as long as you find your niche, there's always work.
Now, regarding your original question... I'd like to split my vote: half for Persian, half for Japanese. Like Tarvos, I think you should go for a language that you've been attracted to for some time. Complexity be damned, once you fall in love with that language any barrier feels easier to overcome. However... if you're aiming for demand, Japanese is a much better choice. I'm a little bit biased here because it's the language I do best and the one I like the most, but it's no exaggeration to say that it's not a hard language to learn, and that once you mechanize the learning process, reading and learning kanji comes as second nature. (Also, for reading newspapers you need somewhere between 1000 and 1200 kanji, but I'd understand if that comes as no comfort.) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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