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Next language you'd like to learn


tulosai

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If I were trying to learn a new language, I would try to learn Chinese. Not only does Chinese sound very cool, the Chinese characters also look very awesome and ancient. Also, since China has such a large population, learning Chinese would be beneficial in business and everyday life. I would be able to constantly speak and listen to Chinese people. Learning Chinese has always been a vision that I wished to endeavor, and I wish to learn it very soon.

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I really struggle to pick up languages, and the information seems to go in one ear and out the other. Im currently trying to learn Turkish as I live here. But my next language I would love to learn is Kurdish. My partner is Kurdish so it is his mother tonge. However it is a difficult language as there are so many different variations on it depending on where someone originates from, and it is hard to find it written anywhere. For example, I have two friends with husbands that are Kurdish, but we cannot teach each other because are partners are from different areas and it would be completely different. This means that my partner and his mother will have to teach me, I have heard it is alot like French and you have to roll your tonge alot.

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The next language that I would like to learn is Spanish.

The Spaniards have occupied my mother country, the Philippines, for almost 400 years since the year 1521 and we have incorporated many Spanish words into our language for everyday use. Most of our elders learned and spoke fluent Spanish as it was part of their university curriculum. I would like to think that learning this language and their culture would make me touch base with our heritage, and make me better understand how some of our Filipino words came about.

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The next language that I would like to learn is Spanish.

The Spaniards have occupied my mother country, the Philippines, for almost 400 years since the year 1521 and we have incorporated many Spanish words into our language for everyday use. Most of our elders learned and spoke fluent Spanish as it was part of their university curriculum. I would like to think that learning this language and their culture would make me touch base with our heritage, and make me better understand how some of our Filipino words came about.

This is very interesting. I did not know that Philippines had such a heritage. That is a great fact to know. Spanish is such a widespread language. Its roots go way back in history.

I hope you learn it. It is our heritage, that allows to search and expand our thirst for knowledge. This is why I am interested in learning Italian and French.

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The next language I would like to learn is Russian. Maybe I picked up this desire from eleven years of living in Hungary -- so close to that Russian sphere of influence. I think it's clear that Russia is ascendant nowadays economically and politically. I believe the ability to speak Russian would have many advantages, regardless of the field one chooses to pursue.

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I am currently learning French with English being my first language. I would love to learn to speak Italian or Arabic. They sound so beautiful to me when someone is completely fluent in them! The other language I've always secretly wanted to know is sign language. Seems like it could be extremely useful in the right situation

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With so much business being done with China, I would love to learn Chinese. However I do get intimidated by the unique script that the language uses. I am not sure whether learning the language without the script is possible or not.

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With so much business being done with China, I would love to learn Chinese. However I do get intimidated by the unique script that the language uses. I am not sure whether learning the language without the script is possible or not.

If you are serious about studying Chinese, you would definitely have to learn the script as well. The script is both fascinating and beautiful. Moreover it is what unites China in terms of communication -->there is a vast amount of Chinese dialects in Mainland China and it often happens that people can not understand their counterpart (because of dialectal differences in language) -->this is where the script comes into play and if you can write you can just write down the sentence in Chinese and people will understand.

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If you were going to start trying to learn a new language now which one would it be and why?

If I was going to choose another language to learn, I would choose french. The reason why I would choose this language is because it is a romantic language and I love the way you roll your tongue when pronouncing the words and most of all I am in love with French. French is hardly spoken by individuals who don't speak it and it will be lovely if I was one of the few who knows how to speak it. If there was someone visiting the country I am living in and he\ she does not speak English but french, I could translate for them in order to help them out especially if there is an emergency.  :love: :smile:

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I'm currently learning Japanese, and I expect it'll be a while before I'm done with that, but afterwards I was considering either German or Sign Language. I think German would be more practical but I'm more interested in seeing how it would be like to think in sign language...

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German. I took classes last year and finished level A1, but that's it. I ran out of time and money to continue. I tried to study by myself but that really doesn't work for me, I'd rather learn inside a classroom. Hopefully I could continue in the near future.

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For me it will be Japanese.

I studied it a tiny bit for few months on Rosetta Stone, and that was a year ago, so I practically don't remember much.

I have way too many languages I'm already trying to study, but Japanese is such a challenge, that it just tempts me....I don't really need motivation to learn it, since I wanted to even when I wasn't sure when will I use it, but if I had one it would be this: I have a friend I haven't seen in 2 years, who is Japanese and currently back home. I was invited to visit her, and she also suggested to do so in some spring (the blooming trees...). So, if I'm going to be visiting her, it would be nice to be able to try out my skills there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm currently studying Standard Mandarin Chinese, but when I feel I've learned a sufficient amount of that, I'm very interested in picking up Arabic. I attend a university with a large Arabic-speaking population, so I'm exposed to it regularly, and I think it sounds (and looks, my god, Arabic script is gorgeous) absolutely beautiful. I might end up going further into the Asian peninsula, though--Korean is very interesting and its writing system is fascinating, and Japanese is also beautiful and earns you a lot of geek cred. :wink:

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The next language on my list would probably be Malaysian. I plan to travel through most of southeast Asia, and learning the language would be a lot better than trying to get by with vague hand gestures. However, I found that my Spanish is still barely passable when I traveled to South America this year, so I think I will first try to become more fluent in Spanish first before trying out Malaysian.

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For me, it would be German.  Being a resident of the United States, German is pretty much useless where I live now.  However, I loved Germany when I visited last summer and I definitely plan to go again.  Additionally, I like listening to speeches and such from World War II and I am of the belief that translations do not do a speech justice, as there are special ways to say things which can only be understood by those who speak the language.

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I'd love to learn to speak, read and write in Latin. It seems like such a low-level language that it would be amazing of a skill to have by you at all times.

Spanish is also a language I'd like to learn, mostly because of the accent that comes along with it. If I were to choose between Spanish and Latin, the latter would have to be the winner!

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The next languages I would like to learn (provided that I have time and consistency to do so) would be the following viz.

i.) Ancient Greek

ii.) Latin

iii.) Pali

iv.) Sumerian Cuneiform

v.) Egyptian Hieroglyphics

vi.) German

and

vii.) Tamil

The reasons vary but in a nutshell, it is my passion to delve and research into lost civilizations. One can gain good insight in the cultures of ancient people by learning their languages.

As a scholar and philosopher myself, Pali was the language of the Buddha and this language is related to Latin and Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek culture also had influences to ancient Indian civilization. Likewise, the languages of Europe, India and Central Asia arose from a common ancestor: PIE (Proto-Indo-European). By finding common root words and etymologies between Latin, Ancient Greek, Pali and related languages, I can gradually piece them together as if I'm letting myself involved in solving a Proto-Indo-European puzzle. Proto-Indo-European connects many world cultures than I previously thought, and I hear uncanny similar sounds in words from the West to the Far East.

Here are examples of similarities I found:

English = Eel

*Ancient Greek: Egkelys

*Latin: Anguilla/Anguis

*German: Aal

*Sanskrit: Jalavyala/Ahi

*Sinhala: Aandha

*Mandarin: Mang Yu

*Japanese: Anago/Unagi

*PIE: Angwhi

or

English: Crab

*Ancient Greek: Karkinos

*Latin: Cancer

*German: Krabbe

*Sanskrit: Karkata

*Sinhala: Kakuluwa

*Mandarin: Pang Xie

*Japanese: Kani

*PIE: Gerebh/Gerbh

More research is needed on the similarities of words found in diverse cultures.

I included Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Sumerian Cuneiform as they are the world's archaic forms of writing. These forms of script are unique in their own right. Ingenious, mysterious and full of symbolism, it is also of my interest to decipher them and get to know more about humankind's unknown origins.

I like to try to learn German because I love the sound of the language. And once again, German has close linguistic similarities with Sanskrit and other Indian languages. I also have German friends so I'd like to practice Deutsche with them at some point  :smile:

Lastly, I like to learn Tamil as this language is currently one of the world's oldest surviving classical/ancient languages. Tamil is also a language with its own system and I was told that this language is very close to the speech of Sumeria and even Sub-Saharan Africa where humankind's origins might have began.

Sincerely,

The Antiquarian.

PS. I also like to learn the clicks and sounds of Bushmen speech  :wink:

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Well, I just recently moved to Quebec, so I'm trying to learn French. It was always the next language for me anyway because I love the way it sounds. I also speak Spanish, so it was a nature move for me to make to stay with the Romantic languages. Quebecois French is so different though! I also love French literature, so reading books in its original French would me amazing. It's a long way to go though since I just started, but I'm excited.

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