NationStates Jolt Archive

Considering that I'm American, particularly Californian.

I've already learned English.
I'm taking my second year of Spanish next year in high school. And I'll be taking 4 years of spanish in total.

But in college I want to take up a third language. What should it be?

I always thought German would be a fun language to learn. Everything sounds more angsty in German. I've already learned a very small bit of it. Not enough to communicate at all though.

Japanese would be interesting, and it's not like there's no benefits to it. I mean, hey, I'm sick of waiting 5 months for a video game already released in Japan.

Mandarin just seems too complicated and I think I'll lose interest beforehand.

Russian is always interesting.

French...just...no. I see no point in the language, and my friends taking French class says they would rather be taking Spanish had they not already learned the language.

Keep taking Spanish until you're completely fluent. Better to be fluent in one language than kinda/sorta fluent in two.

Try Mandarin.

Arabic- this will open lots of job opportunities as the Middle East's political geography changes.

Arabic- this will open lots of job opportunities as the Middle East's political geography changes.
Parents tried to teach me.

Failed. Miserably. Like so insanely miserably.

russian. we have some awesome drinking songs, which sound really good when you're drinking vodka. admittedly, if you're not careful, people will purge yo for being a commie.

Arabic is a difficult one to master. I know enough to get around. Yet I feel I dont know anything. But it is worthwhile if doing business in and around the middle east. Other than that if you are travelling to China or plan on a business career dealing with them. Learn Mandarin, Hong Kong primarily speaks cantonese though.

Learn French. Come to Montreal. Have a good time.

I'm trying to learn French now, so that's how I voted. I think it sounds sexy.

But may I suggest ASL (American Sign Language). It's the third most popular language in America. I want to learn it so bad so I can interpret.

Do what I did: stick with Spanish (and become a Spanish major) and take up Russian just for the hell of it (and become a Russian minor). Russian has its quirks and can be difficult at times, but it's a really fun language. I love it. And you should totally become fluent in Spanish; it's becoming increasingly important to be able to speak it fluently (plus, it looks good on a resumé).

Russian!

Saying everyday sentences in Russian just sounds so cool.

Definately take more Spanish. You will not be anywhere near fluent in 4 years. Four years in high school plus 4 in college, and you'll be proficient enough to get around a Spanish speaking country. You'll still probably need a dictionary to use it in the business world.


I can only speak about Russian, French, and German. I've never had any experience with the others. French will be easy if you are accustomed to Spanish. You will have an easier time learning French with a decent background in Spanish.

German is interesting in it's own way. There are some vocab similarities between English and German, but German word order is tricky. I think that's the hardest part of the language.

Russian is also fun especially it's small number of tenses. The alphabet is not hard despite looking wierd. The thing that Russian and German share in common is case endings. Both languages use them quite a bit.

You should really go with the language that interests you most. It really makes learning it much easier and more fun if you enjoy it.

That Arabic comment is very true. Become a CIA analyst; they're really low on them ;)

French.

You already know Spanish. You could learn to speak French in a couple months of class, with a teacher working at your pace. If its a normal classroom enviornment, then maybe german, or russian. But make an effort to learn french;Very useful, yet easy to learn for you.

I'm told learning Latin makes it a lot easier to pick up on other languages that have some basis in Latin.

So yeah...learn Latin. :p

Definately Japanese. It's really not as hard as everyone thinks. Plus I thought it was interesting to see how words work in Japenese compared to English. But then maybe I'm just a nerd. But it's still a pretty cool language.

Of the choices, French or Russian, on the grounds that they're fun to learn and they sound cool.

However, I'd like to put in a vote for some obscure or semi-obscure Other. There's an awful lot of really interesting and beautiful languages out there that never seem to get much coverage in American high school and college classes. The Scandinavian languages are pretty cool, as are several of the Eastern European tongues. Be special - teach yourself Estonian! :)

You already know Spanish. You could learn to speak French in a couple months of class, with a teacher working at your pace.
I don't agree 100%.
From Spanish, here are the languages that you can learn very easily: Portuguese, Italian, Romanian.
But French is a special case; it's the most germanic of all latin languages. Lexical proximity to the other latin languages is not so high.
Well anyway, from "Spanish as 2nd language" you can probably be quite fluent in French after a year or so.

By the way, did you know that 40% of the English vocabulary comes from either French or Latin? English has germanic bones but latin flesh. The verbs and phrase structure are very germanic, but a large part of the vocabulary (and the plural system) is latin.

PS: I speak French, English, Spanish and a bit of Portuguese. Portuguese is so sexy to hear, but so hard to pronounce correctly. It's a very subtle language... deceptively simple in its structure.


A few words...

English: DAY
Spanish: DIA
Portuguese: DIA
French: JOUR (but "daily" is "DIUrne")

English: NIGHT
German: NACHT
Spanish: NOCHE
Portuguese: NOITE
Italian: NOTTE
French: NUIT ("at night" is "NOCTurne")
Albanian: NAITE
Celtic: NOKTE
Sanskrit: NAKTI
Slavic: NOITI
Latin: NOCTIS/NOXT
Greek: NUKS

English: CITY
Spanish: CIUDAD
Portuguese: CIDADE (pronunced "ciDADjii")
French: CITÉ (even though the common form is "ville")

Old germanic: FADIR/FADER
English: FATHER
Greek, Latin: PATER
Italian: PADRE
French: PERE
Iranian: PEDAR
Sanskrit: PITAR ("a father")
Tadjik: PIDAR

In fact, the words "father", "mother" and "daughter" are extremely old, they can be traced back to the original indo-european language.

Mandarin will be useful for when China becomes the next superpower :(

French. Might as well know all three major languages of North America... and if you already know Spanish, it's a snap.

Keep going with the Spanish. It's the second widest spoken language in the US...especially there in California. It'll help you get around the big cities and yeah, it's a good thing to put in your resume.