Cameron Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 So its pretty simple. All I know is English, and lately I've read in several different studies when it comes to the brain knowing a different language is very useful in a lot of different ways. Any suggestion of what I should try to learn. I have an interest in Italian as I'm 1/3 Italian. But also I think Chinese would be nice, I just don't know how difficult it would be to learn. Any suggestions? And what all languages do you know & how was your experience learning them?
CaptainPanic Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 I'll go straight offtopic (sorry!) but how can you be 1/3rd Italian (instead of 1/2 or 1/4th)? Personally, I speak Dutch (native language), English, French and German. I learned all those in school... and I hated every minute of it. The system sucks (why learn to write when you need to speak??). However, now that I can express myself in different languages, I absolutely love it. I still suck at writing in French and German... but at least I can talk. As for which language you should choose: it's a difficult choice. I guess that it's important that you have someone to talk to in that language. That can be some friends for practicing, a job opportunity in another country or just a long holiday. Obviously, the closer you are to a country, the more likely you will visit it, and use their language.
rktpro Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 Try 'Sanskrit' and you will really enjoy it! It's difficult to learn but when you have it, you gonna love it!
ewmon Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 I have natural fluency in English and a smattering in various languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Latin-based Italian with its Roman alphabet is relatively easy for English-speaking people to learn. Chinese does have its positive points: no declension of nouns and pronouns (one mouse, two mice, I, me, she, her, etc), no inflection of verbs (I was, I am, you were, you are, go, went, gone, etc), not so many long/tongue-twisting words (apostrophe, chrysanthemum, administration, perpendicular, etc) and so on. Here's some reading on the relative language learning difficulty for_English speakers and levels of proficiency.
Mr Skeptic Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 Spanish is a good choice. http://en.wikipedia....panish_language In 1999, there were 358 million people speaking Spanish as a native language and a total of 417 million speakers[10] worldwide. Currently these figures are up to 400[3][4] and 500[5] million people respectively. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese.[6] Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and used as an official language of the European Union, and Mercosur. Spanish is the second most studied language in the world, after English.[11][12] Also knowing Spanish has helped me understand a bit of other languages. When I visited Brazil I would speak Spanish to them and they would speak Portuguese to me and we could understand each other. This seems to be rather common: Spanish and Italian share a similar phonological system. At present, the lexical similarity with Italian is estimated at 82%.[156] The lexical similarity with Portuguese is greater at 89%. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or Romanian is lower (lexical similarity being respectively 75% and 71%[156]): comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is low at an estimated 45% – the same as English. The common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages allow for a greater amount of interlingual reading comprehension than oral communication would. Italian wouldn't be a bad choice either. It is less popular than Spanish but its also closer to French, and closer to the original Latin. If you're Catholic it would definitely be the best choice: http://en.wikipedia....talian_language Italian ( italiano (help·info), or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as a native language by about 70 million people in Italy, Malta, San Marino and parts of Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia and France,[1] and immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia. Many native speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and regional varieties.[2] In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages, spoken mainly in the Swiss cantons of Grigioni and Ticino. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City.[3] It is co-official in Slovenian Istria and in part of the Istria County in Croatia. The Italian language adopted by the state after the unification of Italy is based on the Tuscan dialect, which beforehand was only available to upper class Florentine society.[4] Its development was also influenced by other Italian dialects and by the Germanic language of the post-Roman invaders. Italian derives diachronically from Latin and is the closest national language to Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary.[5] Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Sardinian, 85% with Catalan, 82% with Spanish, 82% with Portuguese language, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance and 77% with Romanian.[1][6]
Marat Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 The advantage of knowing a variety of languages is that each one has some unique vocabulary which expands your mind by giving you concepts you would never have been able to develop on your own. Icelandic has a word which designates any object which is the same turned inside-out as it is when not turned inside-out. Can you imagine how knowing Icelandic could have deepened the reasoning geometers or physicists trying to find the conceptual apparatus to develop more sophisticated concepts? Also, each language you know literally 'expands your mind,' since you build the structure of your intellect on the logical structures of the languages you know. The more linguistic structures you command to organize your thinking, the better you can think. Thus, for example, Latin has the word 'ut' meaning 'in order to.' Just think of how much more complex your sentence structures can be if you can codify the entire logical relation of 'in order to' in a single word rather than using so many words to do so that the relation of the terms in the sentence starts to break apart. Even the clumsiness of certain languages in expressing certain ideas can deepen your mind by drawing your attention to the problem of how concepts and pictures of reality can be factored into linguisitic codes. Thus while in English it is easy to "I am waiting for the bus," in German you have to say "I am waiting upon the fact that the bus comes" (I warte darauf, dass der Bus kommt). Knowing that makes you realize what I bold assumption English makes in pretending that "for" in "waiting for the bus" can make that whole complex relationship clear. Why shouldn't it mean, "I am waiting for the sake of the bus"?
Ringer Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 First there is no whole Chinese language. China has a bunch of different languages spread throughout the country; the reason they are all called Chinese is that they use the same writing system. The two main languages are Mandarin and Cantonese. Both are extremely difficult to learn after a certain point due to the tones used in these languages. Personally I am going to start learning Japanese soon because I plan to visit there sometime soon, I don't like going places I don't have some way to communicate with local population. Latin is a good language to learn if you just want to learn a language and not have to worry about speaking it.
A Tripolation Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 I'd like to add onto Mr Skeptic's post that Italian and Spanish are quite similar. I'm fairly fluent in Spanish, and I find that while I can't speak Italian too well, I can easily read it. The languages are very similar to one another. So learning Spanish or Italian would be beneficial in my opinion, as you can then easily expand to one or the other.
michel123456 Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 I wrote a lot of rubbish about how wonderful it is to learn languages, and I deleted everything. It is wonderful to know foreign languages, and very painful to learn. If you don't have any use of it, you will loose everything in a very short period of time. I know French (mother language), English (as an obligation), modern Greek (residence language), and I knew Dutch (12 years of learning) but I don't use it now than 25 years. Through French I almost understand Italian & Spanish. Through Dutch I should understand German but I don't. And I learned Latin for 6 long years that left nothing but painful memories. Too bad. My daughter knows fluent Greek, French, English, Spanish & basic German.
Mrs Zeta Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 It is wonderful to know foreign languages, and very painful to learn. If you don't have any use of it, you will loose everything in a very short period of time. This is true. I used to speak fluent German but have never used it outside school, and now I cannot remember a single word. I never learned Spanish but being fluent in Italian I survived for weeks in Spanish speaking countries with no language problem. If I was more clever and had the time I would learn Russian, Arabic and Mandarin. Also, at risk of appearing ageist, I would say that it is quite difficult to learn a new language if you are of a certain age, even if you are very motivated.
Xittenn Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 I think the best way to choose a language to learn is based on choice in profession: Business: Mandarin Technologist/Robotics Engineering: Japanese Computer Programming: Hindi Mechanical Engineering: German Mathematics: Russian Fashion: Italian Culinary: French International Goods Delivery: Korean Medicinal Research: Swahili etc. Most of these are gross stereotypes and are only intended to convey the point. I'm just saying, often one chooses a language for more practical reasons than pure enjoyment and you might want to review this decision introspectively.
Cameron Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 I'll go straight offtopic (sorry!) but how can you be 1/3rd Italian (instead of 1/2 or 1/4th)? Idk lol. I just have a lot of Italian in me. I just have been told the main races in me are German, Dutch, and Italian. I really don't know much about my heritage. I apologize if I'm incorrect lol. & Thank you everyone for your input. I thought about it long and hard and started Italian this morning. I think bc of its easy transition to Spanish it seems to be the way to go.
CaptainPanic Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Idk lol. I just have a lot of Italian in me. I just have been told the main races in me are German, Dutch, and Italian. I really don't know much about my heritage. I apologize if I'm incorrect lol. & Thank you everyone for your input. I thought about it long and hard and started Italian this morning. I think bc of its easy transition to Spanish it seems to be the way to go. (Going off-topic again)...Contrary to what some of my countrymen think, "Dutch" is absolutely not a "race". We're at best a nation or a culture. Historically, the Netherlands is a melting pot of a lot of different kinds of people... and it still is. Good luck with the lessons! Make sure to do a lot of practice (talking in Italian to someone who has the patience to talk slowly and translate things if you don't understand it). Don't be afraid to make mistakes... making mistakes is part of learning a language. You're likely to be making mistakes for the next several years to come... and that's perfectly ok. Remember that you will get a lot more credits/respect if you try to speak Italian with a lot of mistakes and a big accent than when you just talk English because you're afraid/embarrassed to make mistakes in Italian.
michel123456 Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 (...) Good luck with the lessons! Make sure to do a lot of practice (talking in Italian to someone who has the patience to talk slowly and translate things if you don't understand it). Don't be afraid to make mistakes... making mistakes is part of learning a language. You're likely to be making mistakes for the next several years to come... and that's perfectly ok. Remember that you will get a lot more credits/respect if you try to speak Italian with a lot of mistakes and a big accent than when you just talk English because you're afraid/embarrassed to make mistakes in Italian. Right. Never be afraid of mistakes and never feel embarassed. Just jump.
Marat Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 If you have an academic interest interest motivating your concern to learn a language, then learning Spanish or Italian will be useless for any other academic disciplines other than those directly related to those languages, such as Italian history, Spanish literature, etc. All the great works of scholarship not readily available in English are primarily in German and French.
Cameron Posted February 4, 2011 Author Posted February 4, 2011 (Going off-topic again)...Contrary to what some of my countrymen think, "Dutch" is absolutely not a "race". We're at best a nation or a culture. Historically, the Netherlands is a melting pot of a lot of different kinds of people... and it still is. Lol I obviously have got some learning to do when it comes to my heritage but thanks I'll remember that. I've been putting a lot of time too and I plan to for the next few days. I think it would be great to know a new language and how good it is for my Brain XD If you have an academic interest interest motivating your concern to learn a language, then learning Spanish or Italian will be useless for any other academic disciplines other than those directly related to those languages, such as Italian history, Spanish literature, etc. All the great works of scholarship not readily available in English are primarily in German and French. Its pretty much for fun. And in the scenario in the future where I might need to learn a new language for a job or something. Plus I would like to learn a language like Chinese but with how hard it is, I could use this as my first step if not into that, but into harder languages like Hungarian, ect. ect.
lessAbsolute Posted February 4, 2011 Posted February 4, 2011 学语言就是这样，不常用就会忘，我学了这么多年英语，现在依然是这么差劲，特别是口语。如果没有语言环境想学好地道的语言太难了。
michel123456 Posted February 4, 2011 Posted February 4, 2011 学语言就是这样，不常用就会忘，我学了这么多年英语，现在依然是这么差劲，特别是口语。如果没有语言环境想学好地道的语言太难了。 Agree.
Marat Posted February 4, 2011 Posted February 4, 2011 A friend of mine recently learned Mandarin and he insists it is easy, mainly because it lacks the complex grammatical inflections and tenses that plague Western languages, such as Russian, with its seven cases; or French, with its subtle varieties of verb tenses; or German, with its arbitrary noun genders on which so much of the rest of the accidence depends. However, when I asked him how he typed using Chinese characters, it took him about ten minutes to explain how each sound was formed. I don't see why the difficulties of using computer keyboards don't make using China's languages so cumbersome that they fall far behind us in the modern age of information technology -- but obviously that is not the case.
Ringer Posted February 4, 2011 Posted February 4, 2011 Chinese tend to use pinyin to spell for ease of use instead of using the tons of characters.
lessAbsolute Posted February 6, 2011 Posted February 6, 2011 A friend of mine recently learned Mandarin and he insists it is easy, mainly because it lacks the complex grammatical inflections and tenses that plague Western languages, such as Russian, with its seven cases; or French, with its subtle varieties of verb tenses; or German, with its arbitrary noun genders on which so much of the rest of the accidence depends. However, when I asked him how he typed using Chinese characters, it took him about ten minutes to explain how each sound was formed. I don't see why the difficulties of using computer keyboards don't make using China's languages so cumbersome that they fall far behind us in the modern age of information technology -- but obviously that is not the case. our Chinese use pinyin to explain how each sound was formed is so easy that like taking foods to mouth
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