Learning Languages..

[dmash]

I thought this would be great for me to ask on here as SZ has members from many different countries!

Right now I'm dabbling in Spanish (learned a small bit in high school, just now getting reacquainted with it) but I would like to go ahead and study another language as well (I enjoy learning language and find it fun). I started learning Spanish again as I live in Florida, obviously there's a large Spanish speaking population here. The other language I want to start learning will be purely for recreational purposes.

Right now I'm between German & Italian for the next language. I really enjoy Europe and cities in both of those countries (however clubbing in Berlin is the BEST ). I would like some feedback as to what you might view a pro/con to either one of those? I've sort of weighed out both and I'm sort of getting an even amount of 'pros' for each one.

Any feedback would be appreciated as this is something that I will invest years of my time into, so I would love to hear other opinions before I make a decision. Thanks in advance!

[Heirloom]

if you learn spanish, adding italian and portugese would be easier. however, with german you would be able to branch out into dutch and flemish.

How about french?

[dmash]

It will be just to do it, in all honesty. However I won't halfass it and study for a couple months and give up, it's definitely something I plan out putting some years into and actually conversing in.


One of the turn offs for me learning German though was that almost everyone I ever talked to in Berlin, spoke VERY good English. This wasn't the same for me at all when I visited Italy, especially Milan. I guess Italians like their language a bit more


As for French, eh, IDK, I've just never really had that much of an interest in it.

[Heirloom]

As well as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

that's taking it a bit far. german is not that close to the scandinavian languages.

[Heirloom]

I speak Swedish, English, understand well and speak a bit of farsi, speak a teeny bit of german, and on tuesday my dutch class begins.

One day i hope my farsi is fluent and that I will have time and energy to spend on icelandic.

[nadir]

that's taking it a bit far. german is not that close to the scandinavian languages.

German will definitely help with Danish though. I speak German fluently and can understand quite a lot of written Danish.

[widmerpool]

lol það eina sem ég get gert & not even that well nowadays

if i didn't have to speak russian for work on a daily basis, i'd probably pretty atrocious at that too. that said though, rusty knowledge of any tongue goes up exponentially through regular use..if you end up sort of speaking something and then having to deal with it on a regular basis professionally, a good five to ten years will have you at native or expert/technical discourse level even if you don't live where the language is spoken. then again, i watch a lot of russian television & read a lot.. not so much with icelandic lately

Nothing can be worth watching Russian television.

I can never motivate myself enough to study Western European languages. You can enjoy any of those countries with English. If you're learning a language for personal amusement why not try Arabic or something Asian?

[DRRRK]

^I hope you just mean it is enough to speak english when you visit the country. I would agree then. When you decide to live there and forever expect others to speak english when you're around would not be respectful at all.

[widmerpool]

But of course. OP says he wants to learn a language for recreation. I think a non-European language is both more challenging and more interesting. I know I got more pleasure out of Chinese than French.

If you go to live somewhere for any period of time I think it goes without saying that you should learn the local language.

[thaiison]

German is of course a very good language to be able to use. Now that you're well known with spanish you'll find it easy to learn italian. I would chose italian simply because it's one of the most beautiful languages. I can speak a little but not close to how well i want to.

on another note, i just started a chinese class. very hard, but really exciting

[shah]

I thought this would be great for me to ask on here as SZ has members from many different countries!

Right now I'm dabbling in Spanish (learned a small bit in high school, just now getting reacquainted with it) but I would like to go ahead and study another language as well (I enjoy learning language and find it fun). I started learning Spanish again as I live in Florida, obviously there's a large Spanish speaking population here. The other language I want to start learning will be purely for recreational purposes.

Right now I'm between German & Italian for the next language. I really enjoy Europe and cities in both of those countries (however clubbing in Berlin is the BEST ). I would like some feedback as to what you might view a pro/con to either one of those? I've sort of weighed out both and I'm sort of getting an even amount of 'pros' for each one.

Any feedback would be appreciated as this is something that I will invest years of my time into, so I would love to hear other opinions before I make a decision. Thanks in advance!

well you already know english which is a west germanic language of anglo-saxons. if for nothing else, to really delve into philosophy this would be useful

if you know spanish, then the latin flavours are going to be easy to learn. i speak french, and having spanish friends and living for some time near the border of mexico (yes different accents etc) i can communicate sufficiently in spanish. it also took little time to pick up italian

i also speak persian which makes great use of arabic vocabulary so i understand context, especially when watching aljazeera streams of champions leauge matches hehe (though grammatically they are completely different -- afro-semitic vs indo-european). and enough people have assumed me to be pakistani that i can now make basic phrases in urdu. well, i can say i don't speak urdu and i'm not pakistani but from some other country and please tell me where to get some tea

if i may suggest one thing, just pick up the pattern of the language and the rest is cake. accent, pronounciation, vocabulary, all come easily after that.

[Faust]

To me the best criteria for learning the language is what kind of literature has been written in it. So German wins. But I love the sound of Italian - it's such a beautiful language.

And I agree - if you don't immerse yourself, you will probably forget it. I really want to move to Paris for a couple of years to learn French. Alas, it's not a possibility for me :(

[b_z]

if i may suggest one thing, just pick up the pattern of the language and the rest is cake. accent, pronounciation, vocabulary, all come easily after that.

Lucky you... Learning foreign languages is really difficult for me...

If I were to learn another language (besides French and English), I'd choose it on two factors :
-is it the language of a place I would like to live in for a long time ?
-am I interested in books, films, music in this language ?

Given this, my 3rd language would be japanese.

(Well, it would be my 4th language theoretically, since I spent 5 years on German. I don't remember a thing though, thanks to my lack of facilities with languages and to the poor French language teaching)

[shah]

Lucky you... Learning foreign languages is really difficult for me...

heh, i didn't mean to suggest learning a new language is very easy, but once the pattern is deciphered the rest comes easily. though it did help having learned several since childhood

immersion is the easiest way to acquire because you're forced by your environment to adapt. however, anyone with full dedication can learn without having to travel long distances--the internet has facilitated this now with a plethora of material in so many languages !

i think your criteria are good, as interest is really what will drive someone to learn. utility should be considered, as well.

[interest1]

To me the best criteria for learning the language is what kind of literature has been written in it. So German wins. But I love the sound of Italian - it's such a beautiful language.

And I agree - if you don't immerse yourself, you will probably forget it.
I really want to move to Paris for a couple of years to learn French. Alas, it's not a possibility for me :(

Likewise. I think I could be content living almost anywhere in Europe, but Paris tops my list. 2 years of high school French & several pocket language guides later..

No matter how often I may go, it still pulls on my heartstrings every time I leave.
*And not just because my aunt & uncle, who live there, were both pastry chefs for 20+ years.. and force me to eat & drink things such as THIS, every night.. ;)

As much as I like your criteria for language-learning, E, I prefer to judge a country based on the intensity of their cuss-word burn factor.
I'm a firm believer that the more creatively you can tell someone to go "%*&#^!!" their mother/sister/self/god, the more likely you are to whip your 'new tongue' out & use it.