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Easy language to broaden culture | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| JasonE Groupie Canada Joined 4879 days ago 54 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 42 20 April 2011 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
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One of my aims in learning languages is to be able to understand other cultures better and to not be so anglo-
centric. The language that I am studying now (french) will help me to understand the french community within Canada and the other french speaking parts of the world. I'm looking ahead to my second language, and I'm wondering what will give me the most cultural perspective for my time invested. Surely learning Mandarin would be a huge culture shock and I would learn a lot, but is it an efficient way to get that perspective? Is learning one language in the same general culture (Western) enough to break anglo-centrism, or would learning a non-western language go much further towards that aim? Would it be worth the extra study time that comes from the hurdles associated with learning a "more foreign" language? I'm an economics major, so I'm looking to talk efficiency here. This won't be the sole determinant in choosing my next language, so lets not start saying that this is a poor method to choose a language to learn. I'm thinking that Africaans might be a reasonable candidate. I don't know too much about the language, save that it is derived from dutch and likewise shares a lot of commonalities with English. Any opinions? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jimbo Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6103 days ago 469 posts - 642 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, Korean, French Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 2 of 42 20 April 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
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Think low hanging fruit to get you started. It seems you've already started learning French so run with that.
You can learn something else later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Keilan Senior Member Canada Joined 4895 days ago 125 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 42 20 April 2011 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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French culture is definitely much closer to Canadian culture than say Kenyan (Swahili) or Egyptian (Arabic) or Japanese culture. However, like jimbo said, start small. Learning even one language is a great accomplishment, and it will certainly help towards your goal. If you're still wanting to explore more of the world's culture, you can move on to something more exotic. (And you are correct, that Afrikaans is probably a safe bet for a third language, as it is considered the easiest African language for an English speaker to learn.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6248 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 42 20 April 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged |
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Esperanto seems like an obvious option. It has about two million speakers, plenty of whom come from Iran, Japan, China, Brazil, Germany, etc.
It takes less time to learn to any given level than any other language you seem to be considering, and gives access to more cultures. Esperanto culture is also quite unique, and non-anglo-centric; native English speakers are under-represented, if anything. Also, cultural exchange seems to happen more, and be more valued, than in any other culture I participate in. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JasonE Groupie Canada Joined 4879 days ago 54 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 42 20 April 2011 at 8:27pm | IP Logged |
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While this discussion will likely influence my decision to some degree, I would also like to discuss this from a more
theoretical angle. So I would also be interested in hearing about languages which are relatively hard for the English speaking native to learn that won't do so much to increase cultural awareness. Perhaps German could be included as the contemporary culture is (relatively) the same, and since it doesn't have many foreign colonies which still speak German. Again, I should stress that this is saying nothing about the absolute merit of learning a language such as German, I'd like to look at this from a mainly theoretical, cultural discussion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5502 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 6 of 42 20 April 2011 at 9:06pm | IP Logged |
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I have to say that I think learning a language such as Afrikaans won't do much to expand your cultural boundaries if you don't plan on spending some time in South Africa. It's extremely similar to English, linguistically speaking, and just staying in Canada and studying a language so close to English won't do much for you, culturally speaking. Of course you'll be able to experience films/literature/etc. in the language, but I don't think the language ITSELF will broaden your mind much.
Something like Chinese, on the other hand, would likely change your whole way of thinking about language and communication, even before you get to native-language sources such as books and movies. Learning the characters alone is an experience unlike any other, and the whole system of how the language works is really thought-provoking for someone who's only accustomed to western languages. (By the way, I hope it doesn't sound like I'm insulting Afrikaans and raving about Chinese here! I think Afrikaans is a totally awesome language. I'm just trying to look at this situation purely from the POV of the original post.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6468 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 7 of 42 20 April 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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If you want to learn languages to become less Anglo-centric, you're probably culturally broader than many English-speakers already.
Many languages that are relatively easy for English-speaking people to learn are spoken by people with similar cultures. I'm thinking primarily of European languages here. Esperanto is a great choice because the people who speak it represent a variety of cultures. I'm not sure how culturally broadening Esperanto is unless you get involved in Esperanto activities and events where you actually meet such people. Indonesian might be a good choice. It's culturally different from English, and it seems to be one of the easiest Asian languages for Westerners. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4818 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 42 20 April 2011 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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Other difficult languages which would work as kind of "key to culture" for you might be Hindi or Arabic (a friend studied it for this purpose) but you said you were looking for something easier.
Perhaps Russian might be the right language for you as probably the only one of European languages. Or what about some classical dead language? I know it might sound crazy as it is probably completely different from what you've pondered so far. Latin or Ancient Greek will not be practical to you as to an economist at all but there is more to them than just history of the Roman Empire or Ancient Greece. They served as a base for cultures of whole Europe (and America consequently). And your French would definitely help you with the Latin. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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