Which language should i learn ?

a reply to: maddy21

If you are just out for something fun, German is very logical and a good choice. Russian, is a little difficult but could be useful as you say. French depending on where you are from could be useful, and it is a secondary language in many parts of the world. Spanish is great if you are on the western hemisphere, many nations speak spanish or languages that are similar in nature giving you the ability to communicate some what or pick up those languages much easier.


IF you want to be business savvy, mandarin or Punjabi. Look at two of the fastest growing economies in the world. Granted both of these countries teach english for this reason it could be a smart move in a business sense to learn one or both of these languages.

a reply to: maddy21
My experience of language-learning;
French and Latin at school, with a little Italian because the Head thought we had too much free time.
New Testament Greek and Hebrew self-taught for getting into a theology course. I still read the Greek easily enough when required. But as for the Hebrew; "The examiners wish me to inform you that your Hebrew paper was of a bare passing standard". I remember almost nothing of it, and trying to check a Hebrew point for one of my threads is ruddy hard going.
I also have a book on the Etruscan language.
All this is reading knowlege, not speaking knowledge. Speaking is not my forte.
And I've known a couple of people studying Chinese.

On the strength of all that, I suggest that a very important factor is the ease or difficulty of the script. That affects how easily you can vocalise what you're reading, which makes a lot of difference.
In the case of languages using the Roman alphabet, you can plunge straight into them. (If you have any knowledge of Latin, that helps you get running with Italian or Spanish)
Greek and Russian have alphabets with a similar structure to the Roman alphabet, even though the letters have different shapes. So learning them is just a preliminary stage which need not increase the difficulty very much.
But once you get into languages like Hebrew and Arabic, you're moving into a different world. The scripts are vastly different, and the grammatical structure of the language is vastly differentfrom anything you may have learned for English or Latin.
And I understand that the Chinese symbols are about representing concepts rather than sounds. I get the impression from the people I knew that learning Chinese, for a westerner, is intensively difficult.

As for speaking, I imagine that the languages would group themselves in the same way in terms of the ease or difficulty of getting the tongue round alien sounds.

P.S.

I've studied bits and bobs about many different languages, just because it's an interest of mine.

For beauty and simplicity, the constructed languages Latino Sine Flexione and Interlingua are hard to beat.

Speaking them is almost a form of art...even if you don't know what you're saying.

Most gratifying.

For practical purposes, English is the future.

Already the first language of USA, UK, Australasia, and soon to be that of the EU too.

Also a major spoken language of many countries.

No need to learn anything else.

a reply to: maddy21

To learn how to ask for a crapper and a beer or to learn as in having mastery?


The military taught me Arabic and Chinese. But I became a master of Spanish. And now I can hear Portuguese, Romanian and French and pretty much get the conversation. I say master Spanish... One of the best moves I did in life.

i speak 4 languages fluently: english, farsi, arabic and french. To be completely honest, you cant learn a language if you dont use it everyday. Arabic is my least fluent, because I had tutors 4 times a week for 16 years for 2 hours a day. So....................it doesnt work that way. You have to use it everyday. Not for 2 hours, not for 4 hours of lessons.....you have to talk to ppl that speak that language.......

French i learned from my french stepmother........and we talked a lot in french........and thats why i know it very well.........farsi........my father is from iran and we talk only in farsi. My dad spent thousands of dollars over the years bringing french tutors over our house to help with my french, and arabic tutors to teach me arabic. They even LIVED with the family sometimes for years. My father was very dedicated.

What also helps with me is that i have two sisters that speak 6 languages. I also lived in egypt for three years and that greatly improved my arabic. If you want to learn a language, go to the country. Chinese is EXTREMELY HARD tho. one sister who lived in china for 2 years could BARELY pick it up. and im telling you right now, shes SMART. my sister is very good at picking up languages, but not chinese. Dont know why. I was deaf till the age of 3, so maybe thats why I cant learn as fast?

Anyway, go for german or russian. Move your job over to a country that speaks the language that you want to speak. Dont do that freaking rosetta stone crap.

originally posted by: crayzeed
One of the maddening facts that rile a lot of people and is generally ignored(on purpose) is that the English language is the language of the future.

Hmm nope. "Universal" language would be whoever has the most control in the world.

The reason in this era english seems "universal" is because fo british empire.

Empire rise and fall, so will their influence, which includes language.

English is getting less and less universal every year... i see Mandarin climbing up... heck, some banks where i live its normal to have somethingin chinese written underneath, just to cater that population.. or when having a bilingual person is a requirement instead of optional.