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The last language you would want to learn | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cage Diglot aka a.ardaschira, Athena, Michael Thomas Senior Member United States Joined 6419 days ago 382 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 33 of 346 08 July 2007 at 2:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Have you tried learning French on your own? I have been able learn languages on my own better than in formal classes.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6345 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 34 of 346 08 July 2007 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
yIDoghQo' 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6234 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 35 of 346 08 July 2007 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
majQa'. Good answer. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| orion Senior Member United States Joined 6816 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 36 of 346 08 July 2007 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey what's wrong with Klingon? You'll never truly appreciate Shakespeare until you read him in the original Klingon. :)
btw, to you Klingon speakers out there, why don't you guys use the cool writing system, instead of the Latin alphabet? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6369 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 37 of 346 08 July 2007 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think instead of calling this the last language you would want to learn
we should rename it the last language you would learn (or perhaps they are seperate questions). In any case, the first I'd choose in terms of the last I would learn would be languages that everyone who can speak them can also speak English (IE Irish, Welsh, Scottish, American Indian languages in North America, or Australian Languages) not because I have anything against the languages or culture (I actually like those cultures a lot), it is just from a communication point of view there would be no point in me spending the time because I could already communicate with everyone who speaks those languages and I have no compelling reason to learn them (nor the time). I can still appreciate the Celtic Languages by listening to music in the languages with translations of the words or watching Ras Na Run (not sure about the spelling, its actually shown here in Philly, USA) but if I go to Ireland and Wales I'll just speak English with them, maybe learn a few pleasantries but nothing more. As far as American Indian languages I can appreciate the cultures by listening to music in the original language or watching movies and TV shows in the languages. The same is true for me with the minority languages in Spain, I have no reason to learn Catalan or Galician or Euskara because there is no point communication wise as I speak Spanish, not that I have anything against those languages either. As far as which I wouldn't learn due to sound or difficulty, I'd have to say something like Yoruba that has both tones and complicated grammar or languages like Mohawk in which everything is based on verbs, I'm just not that smart to get it down I think. In general also I think its wise to avoid anything that is spoken by a very small number of people in a place I'll never get to (many possibilities). I like Spanish because it is so wide spread and also because its widely known in areas where its not spoken (I used it in Sweeden with an Italian who spoke no English for instance). Yiddish also can come in handy anywhere in the Americas or Europe or Israel (not likely but strange things invariably do happen with languages, I used it in Costa Rica with an Israeli tourist who spoke no English or Spanish and was lost). I only learn languages to communicate, not for interestingness (although I admire people who do). I think in this respect that English for better or worse is the king of languages in terms of communication because its about the most likely to be known in any place (besides the local languages) of any language in the world and is the most likely to be used between two foreigners from different countries who meet in a country that is not their own and speak a language that is not the language of the country where they are (IE a Russian and a Greek running into each other in France if they don't speak French to each other the first language one of them would try would probably be English). On the other hand Irish would only be useful in Ireland (and no tourist who doesn't know English is going to study Irish for a visit) and Catalan would only be useful in Catalunia. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zorrillo Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 6179 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French, Sign Language, Spanish, Polish Studies: Greek, Georgian, Indonesian | Message 38 of 346 09 July 2007 at 3:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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I really am interested in all languages, and would learn them all if I could, but if I was to select the major world language I am least likely to learn, it would be Arabic. Not because I dislike it- in fact I like the sound of it- but rather because of its extreme difficulty and the script, which my eyes can't seem to get used to. The truth is that Arabic is the language which intimidates me above all others. Who knows, one day I may study it for that very reason...
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6738 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 39 of 346 09 July 2007 at 7:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I just look at the FSI table of how long it takes an English speaker to learn various languages, and exclude anything that requires 2200 hours, except Japanese. The starred entries in the 1100-hour categoy, except Hungarian, Finnish, and Mongolian, are close runner-ups.
A less obvious category used to be all Slavic languages besides Russian, but, seeing the (nearly) free lunch Romance language speakers are having with each other's languages, and having run into a few Polish authors lately, I've been warming up to the idea of Polish, so this no longer applies. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| blindsheep Triglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6155 days ago 503 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 40 of 346 09 July 2007 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hmm... I actually am far more inclined to want to learn a language or not based on the cultural attitudes associated with it than perceived difficulty or even its 'uglyness' or 'beauty' in sound...
So with that said, and being that my only experience living in a culture that I didn't feel I would ever be comfortable in was when I lived in Korea... so I suppose I would say Korean... I found living there too norms based... too many required codes of behaviour... but of course other people may enjoy the very aspects of the culture I did not... to each their own... But who knows... perhaps if I fell in with the a large counter-culture group in Korea sometime in the future this could alter my stance. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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