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Which language to learn?

Discussion in 'General Support and Advice' started by Cassindra Starlight, Jul 15, 2013.

  1. I'm getting ready to start college. I'm taking some introductory classes before I pick a major, but I do know I want a technology or lab science field so I can be a scientist, engineer, or maybe programmer.

    I've never studied a foreign language before, but I want to learn one. I plan to start my first semester and keep going until I graduate. Being from California, Spanish makes sense, but, as a science/tech major, I was thinking about Chinese, Japanese, or German, as all these countries have foregoing on in that area.

    Which should be most useful? How much harder to learn are Asian languages than European languages?
     
  2. Gravity

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    East Asian languages aren't harder, exactly, they just rely on different skills than some western European languages. Typically, Mandarin Chinese (just as an example) will have more vocabulary and rote memorization, both in writing and speaking, but the grammar is fairly simple. German, on the other hand, has a comparatively small vocabulary, and some compound words can be guessed if you know what the individual parts mean. German grammar is more complex though. Some people are good at grammar, some are good at memorizing vocabulary. It's up to you.

    And don't forget about languages like French and Portuguese, which are a lot more spread out in the world, and possibly more involved in scientific work, than people tend to realize. Especially French, but that may just be me.
     
  3. gravechild

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    You know, before anyone starts spouting nonsense like "learn this, it's easy/challenging" or "that is practical", I'll say that what you put in is what you get out. Choose the one that catches your eye, and go all the way with it. Assuming you're doing this purely for recreational reasons, it'll be even more important that you have strong interest in one to motivate to you to not only learn, but to carry your studies out for years.

    Asian languages are different, not only from English and European languages, but also one another. Chinese has a relatively straightforward grammar, but a complex orthography and foreign tone system. Japanese has a complex grammar and several writing systems, but pronunciation seems to be a lot simpler, like that of Spanish. German doesn't have the widespread use of Arabic, French, Portuguese, or Spanish, but is quite important economically, scientifically, and culturally. As far as difficulty goes, I and several others would rank it slightly higher than French: medium difficulty, due to case system, syntax, and three word genders.

    I should also mention that there is little difference between learning in a classroom setting vs learning on your own, if you have the time, drive, and resources, and some people are better off learning outside of a classroom setting. The advantages, for me, was a routine program, which was helpful since I get distracted easily, and constant contact with others to practice with in person. Other than that, I learned most of the language outside of and prior to registering for the class and only did so for an easy A.

    Either way, good luck!
     
  4. Gallatin

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    Honestly, I wouldn't worry so much about which one will be so useful, and instead pick one that you actually really want to learn. Being from Florida, it would've made sense for me to take Spanish, but I never did; not in high school and not now in university. I'm sure it's a fine language to learn, but I never had the desire. Once I got to uni, I thought I would try my hand at Russian because it was a practical choice for a possible career trajectory. Well, that lasted all of one semester.

    Eventually, (as cheesy as it sounds) I followed my heart and went with what I had done in high school and knew I loved: French. And not only have I done exceedingly well so far in my French courses, but I truly love going to them - just about the only class I can say that for.

    So, to come full circle and back to my original point, I would suggest you choose the language that most appeals to you. Language classes (especially at the college level) aren't the easiest, so do yourself a favor, and pick one you'll enjoy learning.

    Side note: My roommate takes German and boy, does it look a lot harder than French. I've read through his notes and book and things just look far more complicated. Also, I have a very hard time doing a German accent, but that's just me! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
     
  5. resu

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    Linguam Latinam amo!

    Also, I majored in biochemistry, and the truth is that English is really the language of science. Learning another language for science is not useful unless you know for sure you want to work in a country that uses that language (even then many of the scientists will know English). A short excerpt I found on wikipedia: "...Science Citation Index reporting as early as 1997 that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.
     
    #5 resu, Jul 15, 2013
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2013
  6. greatwhale

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    I agree wholeheartedly with the above. I am currently corresponding with an Italian researcher, in English, and all his journal articles are in English. It is the lingua franca of science and will probably remain so for quite some time.

    I would consider Spanish given your background, you would probably have more opportunities to use it than, say, Chinese or Japanese (practice is crucial).
     
  7. STM29

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    I'm form germany. Of course I say that you should learn german :slight_smile:
    But in your case it could also be useful.
     
  8. Tightrope

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    I'd go with Spanish. As Latin America continues to become increasingly important, they will also need technical people, or people who can communicate with them. True, Mandarin Chinese is very much in request, but if you can't practice it continuously, you can forget it easily too. As for German, they really didn't colonize, so it's about 85 million people who speak it as an official language, and Germans are impressively adept at the English language, except that they like to say "make holiday" instead of "take a vacation," which is always worth a chuckle.
     
  9. logos

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    I take chinese and I went an exchange to China for 4 months. Of course then I say you should try Chinese, but really its awesome! It isn't nearly as hard as people make it out to be, especially if you're a visual person. The grammar isn't to bad, there are no verb tenses, articals, or pluralization. Not to mention that chinese food is delicious and I doubt you'll meet a lot friendlier than the chinese! 学中文!
     
  10. Dublin Boy

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    Always fancied learning Punjabi :slight_smile:
     
  11. Fellow

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    In terms of technology, german would be the go to. As to asian languages, they are indeed quite hard to learn, I think chinese has a minimum of 7 to 10 years to learn it properly, while german has a regular 3.
     
  12. BMC77

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    This would be my advice, too, short of a strongly compelling reason to learn a specific language.

    ---------- Post added 16th Jul 2013 at 04:10 PM ----------

    One advantage of French, Spanish, or German instead of an Asian language is that all the above are related to English. (Part of English is Romance--that is, descended from Latin--and another huge chunk is Germanic.)

    ---------- Post added 16th Jul 2013 at 04:12 PM ----------

    I actually studied both when I was younger. German seemed a lot more rigid with rules, and more complicated than French. But at the time it was actually surprisingly easier for me: I had a really good German teacher, and the French teacher was beyond incompetent.
     
  13. BelleLey

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    What about French, it is such a beautiful language. (ok i may not be very ojective here )
     
  14. TwoMethod

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    If you're considering the science aspect, I'd be really surprised if anyone could make an argument for any language as well as you could with German. German and English, historically, were competing for the de facto language of science. English won out in the end, but since you already know that, German comes next.

    Asian languages are significantly harder to learn. Given that you don't want to be a linguist or a language teacher — or even any job focused on languages — then it makes little sense to burden yourself with the problems that Japanese and Chinese bring, and also given that German is already far ahead of them in the scientific literature.

    Plus, Germany has some fantastic universities, and a whole bunch of Nobel Prize winners.

    If you were going into politics or diplomacy of something, I would suggest French — but any mention of languages and science usually ends in German.

    (I'm more or less fluent in German.)
     
  15. resu

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    Besides Latin, Greek would be nice. Both come in handy when learning scientific terms and later on if you want to go to graduate school and have to take the GRE.
     
  16. Gallatin

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    That will make all the difference. I nearly walked away from French after my first of taking it in high school because the teacher was absolutely awful. She was one of those that just made you scratch your head and think, "what ever made you think you could teach?" I had a different teacher for my second year (thank god) and he was great. I learned more French in his three week review to start the year than I did the whole previous year! :lol:
     
  17. Kaoru

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    I think you should chose the language according to how useful it will be and if you really like it. It can be handy to learn a language that would help you with scientific terms, but i think it's more important to chose a language that you will be able to speak. The only real method for learning a language is talking with native speakers a lot, I've learned 3 languages that way.

    I speak 5 languages and my boyfriend speaks 6, so if you need help with anything you can ask me :slight_smile:

    Spanish might be helpful if you live in California, and it's a really helpful language overall. Also, if you learn ,a romance language learning others will become a lot easier. Same goes for Italian, Portuguese and French. They all have rules that are really different than English like a complex conjugation of verbs and "male" and "female" words, which makes it confusing to English speakers.

    Even though I don't speak German, I know it's closer to English so it might be easier for you to learn than romance languages. For me it seems really hard though lol.

    Asian languages like Japanese and Chinese are really hard and require a lot of time to learn. I've been with Japanese for six years now and I still have a lot to learn. With these languages you don't only need to learn the grammar but also a whole new writing system. Korean is easier because they have a syllabic writing system that isn't hard to learn.

    With Latin I don't think it might be too useful. You will never use it in a real conversation and it's really hard.
     
  18. Gerry

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    I think you should choose whichever language you have the most interest in. Since you're going to be taking college courses in this language, however, I think an Asian language such as Chinese and Japanese are going to require a lot more effort, time, and dedication over a European language. Since you live in California and the widespread use of Spanish in the US, I would recommend taking Spanish. Not to mention that Spanish is also one of the easiest languages for a native English speaker to learn. It's spoken in many countries and Latin America is starting to play a bigger role than it has before.
     
  19. gravechild

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    One of my good friends, a well-known and respected member of the online polyglot community, actually started out with Chinese some thirteen years ago, and went from that to Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Persian, Russian, and Arabic. It wasn't until very recently that he started delving into the world of Western languages: French, Spanish, German, among others, and actually tried his hand with Bulgarian, Estonian, and Icelandic first!

    His motivation was a deep interest in Chinese cinema and culture, starting with Bruce Lee and his films. The rest of the languages were motivated by his strong interest in communicating with others, specifically immigrants around his city. Similarly, when I told my friends I was interested in learning Hmong, I got "Why?!" and "You're crazy!" The assumption was, being Hispanic, living in CA, and having easy access to learning the language with friends and family, that I would want to reach fluency, but the spark was never there. In my case, it wasn't practicality, but sheer curiosity that drove me to learning this "other" - living side-by-side the community for so many years, there was always this sense of unknown, and at some point, I decided to take a leap and just go for it.

    So I think what someone values is definitely going to play a huge part in their motivation to learn. Some are driven by practicality, others by challenge, some by familiarity. For me, it's the associations with the unknown itself that drives me, and I've always been far more interested in Slavic and Norse languages over the more popular Romance. That's a rather one-dimensional explanation, but there it is!

    Again OP, take whichever you have the most interest in. This cannot be repeated enough times. :eusa_doh:
     
  20. resu

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    For someone who has learned multiple languages, you seem to think a lot of them are "really hard." :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: I just wanted to reply to stick up for all the Classics majors, including some of my school friends, out there since this uselessness argument pops up often.

    Latin is the source of so many languages that it really helps in understanding the etymology of words. IMO, it is not hard because it so so much more regular in its grammar/spelling than English, allowing words to be often out of order and still make sense. Also, Latin grammar helps a lot with understanding how any language, be it Romance, Germanic, even non-Indo-European, is structured.

    Yes, these languages may not be spoken out loud as often, but they still give us a very personal window into the ancient world so different from, yet also similar to, our own, something that just artifacts or drawings/art can't convey. For my Latin prose course, we read Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, about the beginnings of Rome, and Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, memoirs from his conquest of Gaul (current day France). It was humbling to think that 2000+ years later, people are still reading these great works of literature.