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Hypothetic question: Your native language | ||
Tags: Native Language | Choosing a Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6515 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 25 of 31 28 December 2011 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
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How different could I be and still basically be me? If I was born in another small country in Europe I might still have decided to learn as many European languages as possible, and then Danish would definitely have been an option. If I was born in Germany or France or Russia my risk of becoming basically monolingual (or bilingual native language + English) would have been larger, but then I would probably be slightly less myself. If I was born in Korea my chances of learning Danish would have been limited, but I might have learnt Chinese and Japanese instead. If I was born in the Inca empire I would certainly not have learnt Danish. And if I had been a citizen of Athens in the times of Pericles I would have seen everybody who didn't speak Greek as barbarians, and I would probably not have bothered about their languages - and Danish would not have been there to learn yet.
The question is what being me is, apart from having a language craze right now. I have earlier been just as music crazed as I'm language crazed now, but I would have learnt a different kind of music as an Inca citizen. Is all music the same so that you could substitute some proto "El condor pasa" for Beethoven? Would I have been the same me with 16 siblings and no TV in a village in Bourkina Faso? The less I had been me the less likely it is that I would have had the opportunity and desire to learn Danish. And that would have been a pity. Edited by Iversen on 29 December 2011 at 1:14am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| birthdaysuit Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4629 days ago 48 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Swedish | Message 26 of 31 28 December 2011 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||
I agree with this. For the career that I'm in I couldn't imagine not learning it, though I would hate to learn it as an adult. I commend everyone who does because it's just a wacky language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5230 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 27 of 31 29 December 2011 at 11:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Aside from the status of English as such a useful language in many fields, I would definitely learn it for the wealth of media available.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4527 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 28 of 31 29 December 2011 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well. People usually love Brazil because of the beaches, the carnaval and the Samba/Bossa Nova. I love the beaches, but not carnaval or Samba/Bossa Nova, so probably learning Portuguese wouldn't be my priority. Though, I really love Romance languages, so it would be an option after Italian and French.
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| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5147 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 29 of 31 30 December 2011 at 1:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I do think I would be interested in Dutch because few speakers and small countries haven’t stopped me from being interested in languages like Swedish and Norwegian. I also have a particular affinity for Germanic languages and I like harsh sounding languages like German, Arabic and Hebrew.
However, I don’t think I would ever invest enough time to become fluent because I would probably be just as (if not more) focused on my current target languages. All of this is based on the assumption that my native language would be English, or perhaps German. If it were a non-Germanic language, I would probably not be as interested in the Germanic languages and that would change everything. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5736 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 30 of 31 30 December 2011 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know if I'd be interested in learning English as a second language or not. I guess it would on where I was born and where my family lived. I would probably be unable to avoid learning at least some English if I lived in Mexico, Singapore, South Africa, Puerto Rico or any country in western Europe so I may have become at least partially bilingual with English as my second language. I could imagine knowing, and being interested in, a different combination of languages had I grown up in a country like Georgia or Mongolia where Russian would be more accessible and more useful to know. If I lived in Eastern Asia I doubt I would bother with English or other European languages unless I was required to learn them.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| crafedog Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5630 days ago 166 posts - 337 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean, Tok Pisin, French | Message 31 of 31 08 January 2012 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||
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I would've studied English, mainly due to American movies, cartoons and TV shows. I
obviously also like British TV shows as well but these are less wide-spread so I might not encounter classics such as Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses and Green Wing if I were not from Britain. Plus English is really useful for travelling. However I think English spelling/stress patterns would've driven me nuts and most likely put me off the language, at least for a while/in the beginning. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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