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| ziffhasnoaim/password Posts: 221/292 |
But Chinese and Japanese alphabets are remarkably different. It is like the Latin alphabet plus EVERY SYMBOL in it, plus Cyrillic, and Hebrew all jumbled up together. I think the most appropriate allegory would be learning Latin if you were coming from Old English. Unrelated languages that shared some symbols. 
The Japonic languages are relatively alien for any Westerner - probably the most alien major language they can encounter. I'd love to learn Japanese. I intend to devote a few years of my life to studying it eventually (my love of the author Yukio Mishima pushes me towards this as do several other brilliant Japanese authors). However its only redeeming feature is its relatively atonal nature.  If you want awesomely fucked up grammar I'd practically insist on Sanskrit for the masochists of this board  But for the Japanese fans of this place...you're already putting pins to your eyes enough for my pleasure  |
| HyperHacker Posts: 2757/5072 |
Originally posted by ArwonOriginally posted by HyperMackerel Well if you know English, you should find it easier to learn Latin than if you don't know any language using the same alphabet. |
| Xenesis Posts: 126/200 |
My personal recommendation? A language that you'll use or find interesting.
Learning a language that you won't practice or use semi-frequently is kinda pointless. If your lifelong dream is to tour Europe, learn those languages. Likewise, if you want to explore Asia, learn those. If you're an anime slut, learn Japanese. |
| l0rca Posts: 5/70 |
Being that you already have a Germanic language, I can think of three good reasons to take German:
1) You learn more about the grammatical system of English, greatly improving your primary language. 2) German is a popular language, and despite what some might think, is very smooth to speak, and relaxing to hear. 3) Another reason to take an "easier to learn" and "more intuitive language" is because it will stick with you longer. If you do become semi-fluent with it, there's a better chance for you to practice German than the other languages, and there's a better chance you'll overall remember it better. German is more anchored into English, and will be easier to recall. Me being me, I'd pick german from that list quickly, probably mostly for the 1st reason. I love semantics. |
| Jilkon Posts: 139/227 |
Depends on if you want something relatively easy so you can slack (German or Spanish) or something cool that you probably won't master speaking without living at least 1 year in the country (Japanese or Chinese) I guess. I'm studying Japanese.. if you know how to pronounce vowels the way they're meant to be pronounced (ie. not the English way), it's not too hard. |
| Sin Dogan Posts: 667/861 |
Hindi's rather easy. (And yea, a ton of people speak it ) I can only speak/interpret the language from what I've picked up over the years and it was mighty helpful in India and Pakistan. (Albeit only a few people really conversed to me directly in Urdu or Hindi, otherwise most spoke in a mix of English and Urdu/Hindi, which most people do) Urdu and Hindi are pretty similar languages although the script is different, of which I know neither. The languages are not too difficult to get a grip on. However some dialects used by some people in India can seem rather strange even if you know the language. I think it's a pretty fun language and I have some desire to study it some more in the future. |
| Arwon Posts: 335/631 |
Originally posted by HyperMackerel I dunno, not really. Mandarin Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language, Japanese is a language isolate with no known relatives. They share a lot of vocab and an alphabet, but the underlying structures and stuff are totally different from each other. It'd be like thinking knowing English helps you learn Latin or vice versa. |
| ziffhasnoaim/password Posts: 219/292 |
All the seats in German were filled up before I could sign up. Stupid university. My start time is Monday. However, there are 7 more seats in Russian (total class size is 17, so that's a lot better than my 150 person Latin lecture!). I've pretty much been put into Russian. As for German, I'm going to teach it to myself on the side and sit on on the morning lectures when I can swing them in my schedule to listen to how I should sound. |
| Danielle Posts: 5269/6737 |
My Kill Bill side is screaming Japanese, but I have a feeing it won't be as useful as a more common language. German would probably be the easiest, and you'd have a better chance of using it at some point.
So, German. |
| Prince Kassad Posts: 200/321 |
I would say Russian, since you already have basic knowledge of Ukranian, and the two languages are similar to each other.
German is nice too, it's your preference if you choose this over Russian, since it is a bit complicated, but if you want, take it. |
| Surlent Posts: 70/103 |
Originally posted by HyperMackerel The kanji may be the same (Japan took them over; also some complex kanji got simplified in Japanese) and in Chinese you have only one reading instead of multiple in Japanese, but spoken Chinese is very different from spoken Japanese language. I could try to decipher an sentence with unknown kanji easier if I check some important "flags" like koto, the te-form of verbs or "toki", but I would not be able to understand a Chinese sentence unless it used some very basic kanji and was very short (such as 歳, number kanji and人 in one short sentence). As for languages, I would also recommend German. Not because I'm living here, but due to the similarities between both, as already stated. And you will be able to see what dumb mistakes (forgetting the "s" after he, she and it) we sometimes make, when trying to talk in English ...  |
| HyperHacker Posts: 2730/5072 |
One benefit of learning Chinese or Japanese is you're halfway to learning the other.  |
| PrincessPeach Posts: 217/381 |
I would go with either Japanese, Chinese or Russia.
I took English and Japanese, as I had to take German here (But it's a second language for me too, I'm more fluent in English than German, as a Swissgerman speaker). |
| Randy53215 Posts: 387/726 |
I say German because its a pretty cool langauge from what I learned which was a decent amount.
I like learning German prolly because some of my family members are from Germany. |
| Arwon Posts: 333/631 |
Go for Russian. It's going out of fashion these days, I feel bad for it. |
| Jagori Posts: 108/155 |
Yeah... learning a tonal language, if you don't already speak one (or have an ear for tones), isn't the easiest thing to do. Are you looking for one that's easy to learn, or did you have any sort of goals beyond fluency? |
| ziffhasnoaim/password Posts: 208/292 |
On terms of pure grammar it is an analytic language and can be quite easy to understand, particularly longer sentences It is the tonal aspect that makes it very difficult. Moreover the writing system is straight from hell. |
| Dr_Death16 Posts: 102/970 |
No, but I know friends that have taken it, if that helps. They have told me its not that difficult to learn, although obviously it is quite different from english... |
| ziffhasnoaim/password Posts: 206/292 |
Just a question of those who have suggested Mandarin Chinese. Have any of you taken a Chinese language course? |
| Dr_Death16 Posts: 101/970 |
Chinese is obviously spoken by the most people out of any of the choices... therefore there are many more opportunities for the select few who are fluent at both it and English. Sounds like the best choice to me. |
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