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Several romance languages vs Chinese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| jtmc18 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7054 days ago 119 posts - 140 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 1 of 13 05 May 2011 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
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I've heard a lot about the importance of studying languages such as Chinese and Arabic versus the traditional heavy-weights like French and Spanish. In the US it is widely perceived that Chinese and Arabic are the languages of the future, although relatively few people study them and almost no one (other than immigrants) can speak them.
If one already spoke Spanish, might it be a better investment to learn the other major romance languages (French, Italian, Portuguese), or to focus entirely on either Chinese or Arabic? Or some other language? I want to be multilingual and I think I could acquire the romance languages fairly quickly, but it seems some people consider them to be in decline (particularly French and Italian). What are your impressions on this? Until now I had never seriously considered studying anything outside of the Romance group, as I thought that their collective usefulness would outweigh the merits of studying any other language by itself. I've also heard that acquiring all the major romance languages can be done in less time than it takes to learn Chinese or Arabic. This is another major consideration for me but, knowing very little about these other languages, I'm not sure how true this is. So, bottom line, would you choose between learning all the romance languages or just one of the others? I doubt that I would have enough motivation or time to do both, at least in the near-term. Are French, Italian and Portuguese being overshadowed by Chinese and Arabic to the extent that I should redirect my efforts? In other words, will Chinese and Arabic eventually be more useful for travel, career prospects, etc. than French and the others? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5190 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 13 05 May 2011 at 9:32pm | IP Logged |
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There is no definite answer, in my opinion.
Yes, Chinese will take 3 or 4 times longer than say French, but that doesn't mean that French is a better option, or that learning Chinese is any less valid an endeavour. It doesn't imply either that you would prefer or enjoy either language. It really depends on where you live, who lives around you, what real life usage is actually possible for you, etc. I firmly believe that questions about the relative world importance of a language are useless when it comes to learning a language. You will need to spend a big part of your life learning it and basking in the culture -- that's what matters most. Pick the language that attracts you the most. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5262 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 13 05 May 2011 at 9:33pm | IP Logged |
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There are no easy answers to this. You have to ask yourself questions like: Why do I want to study languages? Where
do I want to travel? What are my career plans? Do I like X language? Do I like X culture? Do I want to read X literature in its original? How much time am I willing to spend on language learning? Edited by tractor on 05 May 2011 at 9:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| guitarob Hexaglot Groupie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4896 days ago 95 posts - 138 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Danish, Portuguese, Italian Studies: German | Message 4 of 13 05 May 2011 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
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There is no arguing with Chinese being one of the most important languages already but I do not think Arabic will be more important than Portuguese or French, in the near future(Economically speaking). Having said that, I would probably go with Portuguese, which you will probably learn really fast, since it is so close to Spanish, and then with Chinese.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4983 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 13 05 May 2011 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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If you ever want to go to Europe, learn French. If you never see yourself traveling in Europe, then it doesn't really matter.
Personally, I would learn the Romance languages first, but that is mostly because I have been to Europe and want to go back. I'm not so interested in going to China. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5769 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 6 of 13 06 May 2011 at 1:18am | IP Logged |
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The huge economic importance of Mandarin has some excellent trickle down effects that you
should consider. For example, there are loads of good learning materials for Mandarin. Much more than say for Italian or Portuguese. The amount and quality of Mandarin-language entertainment and media is ever increasing. Right now the quality suffers because of the stifling of freedom of speech in China, but things are much better than say 15 years ago, and are likely to continue to improve. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Parpar Diglot Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4850 days ago 4 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Persian Studies: French | Message 7 of 13 06 May 2011 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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I've been weighing very similar considerations myself, regarding whether to learn the romance languages first or focus on Arabic first. Granted, my situation is a little different from yours (because I know Persian, which gives one a head start on Arabic) but if I were in your situation, I would do French & Portuguese (skip Italian) then go on to Arabic, if you still have the interest. Here's why:
First, Portuguese is already one of the languages of the famed BRIC economies (supposedly) of the 21st century (Brazil, Russia, India, China), and as you already intuited, you can pick this one up relatively easy (at least compared to mandarin or Arabic). Combining this with your Spanish skills, you pretty much have South America covered, which I believe would be attractive for career prospects, although I don't know what your field is. Second, I don't believe Arabic is as difficult for a native English speaker as Chinese. With this plan, you could pick up the most important remaining romance languages (Portuguese and French), skip Italian, Catalan, Romanian, etc. and also pick up Arabic, which is a bit more "unusual" for English speakers. Good luck. I'd be interested to hear what you end up doing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 4890 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French | Message 8 of 13 06 May 2011 at 3:17am | IP Logged |
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If I was you, I'd go for French and Portuguese.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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