Languages
One of my friends asked me this question a couple of weeks ago. She got it from another forum... somewhere. Anyway, I have a thing for languages, and I'm rather curious as to what you'd choose, especially for what reasons. To get to the point:
If you could instantaneously master any 5 languages of your choice, (in addition to those you already know), which would you choose? Any kind of language is acceptable. Chinese, Latin, American Sign Language (yeah, watch out with sign languages, there's a great many of them), Esperanto, Klingon, C++, you name it.
I suggest you stop reading now if you don't want to be influenced by my own list and reasoning, and think of your list first.
My personal choices, in no particular order, are:
* Spanish
* Russian
* Finnish
* Japanese
* Chinese
The first two are just to cover area. I already speak Dutch and English, and understand enough German, French, and Italian to get around in most of Western Europe, though I wonder if my French is good enough to get by in Africa. Spanish is useful in South America, and Russian will be useful in Russia (duh).
Finnish... I realized that until now, I only had Indo-European languages, and I desperately needed something from the Finno-Ugric language group, so why not Finnish?
Then there's Japanese and Chinese. This was a tough choice to make. I needed at least one of those two in there, but the other considerations were Arabic and Polish. Thinking of it, I may have originally chosen Polish instead of Chinese. Oh, well. I could, of course, throw away Finnish, since the majority there speaks English anyway, but dammit, Finno-Ugric languages >_>.
No artificial languages like Klingon or Sindarin. While they can be fun to use and learn, I think those 5 language-slots are a bit too precious to include these. If I'd had 10, then one of them would probably have made it.
Also no classic languages, like classic Greek, Latin, or any form of Gaelic. I took Greek and Latin in highschool, and I don't feel like getting into them more than that. Gaelic, while interesting, is not really high on my priority list. I'd like to get more familiar with the texts and culture associated with it. Same thing with anything Futhark.
As for programming languages, I tend to learn those anyway. I thought it'd be a better idea to put languages in here that I'd otherwise not get around to, or be troublesome for some reason.
I didn't include any sign language, or specialized alphabets like Braille or Morse, since nearly every language has its own sign language. When it comes to alphabets, they're just that. You can write English in the Latin alphabet (see this post), or you can write English in Braille. It's still English.
If you could instantaneously master any 5 languages of your choice, (in addition to those you already know), which would you choose? Any kind of language is acceptable. Chinese, Latin, American Sign Language (yeah, watch out with sign languages, there's a great many of them), Esperanto, Klingon, C++, you name it.
I suggest you stop reading now if you don't want to be influenced by my own list and reasoning, and think of your list first.
My personal choices, in no particular order, are:
* Spanish
* Russian
* Finnish
* Japanese
* Chinese
The first two are just to cover area. I already speak Dutch and English, and understand enough German, French, and Italian to get around in most of Western Europe, though I wonder if my French is good enough to get by in Africa. Spanish is useful in South America, and Russian will be useful in Russia (duh).
Finnish... I realized that until now, I only had Indo-European languages, and I desperately needed something from the Finno-Ugric language group, so why not Finnish?
Then there's Japanese and Chinese. This was a tough choice to make. I needed at least one of those two in there, but the other considerations were Arabic and Polish. Thinking of it, I may have originally chosen Polish instead of Chinese. Oh, well. I could, of course, throw away Finnish, since the majority there speaks English anyway, but dammit, Finno-Ugric languages >_>.
No artificial languages like Klingon or Sindarin. While they can be fun to use and learn, I think those 5 language-slots are a bit too precious to include these. If I'd had 10, then one of them would probably have made it.
Also no classic languages, like classic Greek, Latin, or any form of Gaelic. I took Greek and Latin in highschool, and I don't feel like getting into them more than that. Gaelic, while interesting, is not really high on my priority list. I'd like to get more familiar with the texts and culture associated with it. Same thing with anything Futhark.
As for programming languages, I tend to learn those anyway. I thought it'd be a better idea to put languages in here that I'd otherwise not get around to, or be troublesome for some reason.
I didn't include any sign language, or specialized alphabets like Braille or Morse, since nearly every language has its own sign language. When it comes to alphabets, they're just that. You can write English in the Latin alphabet (see this post), or you can write English in Braille. It's still English.
I already speak English, French, Japanese, a bit of German and of course Dutch.
I would still like to learn:
* Danish just for fun, good friend of mine is from Denmark
But the language is impossible to pronounce xD
* Spanish because it would be a great addition to my repertoire of useful world languages.
* C# because I always give up too soon.
I would still like to learn:
* Danish just for fun, good friend of mine is from Denmark
But the language is impossible to pronounce xD* Spanish because it would be a great addition to my repertoire of useful world languages.
* C# because I always give up too soon.
Well, if there were some, I would like to master, which I already speak quite a much or somewhat, they would be Iceland, German, and a very silly choice in other's minds probably, Zulu. Then there's of course Finnish and English, which there's always room to improve.
Let's see... I would master:
Spanish, German, Russian, Wolf and Latin.
Spanish, German, Russian, Wolf and Latin.
tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
long didn't read
edit:
since when does French work in Africa
must be northern
*a programing language
*Hindi (i can speak it but can't write it)
shet no ancient languages
well i break rules
*Sanskrit
*master the DinkC
*Polish (my best friend was polish was because he went back to Poland)
long didn't read
edit:
since when does French work in Africa
must be northern
*a programing language
*Hindi (i can speak it but can't write it)
shet no ancient languages
well i break rules
*Sanskrit
*master the DinkC
*Polish (my best friend was polish was because he went back to Poland)
I too should polish my polish... Haven't spoken it in years 
Well I speak Dutch,English and a bit German
Croatian, since I am going there on a holliday in september. (my first holliday in 9 years yippie!)
Spanish, I think it is a good language together with English to be able to make myself understandable in most parts of the world.
Since I always would like to be able to program things (finally started doing this by making a DMOD) I would like to learn 3 programming languages. This way I can program things without having to look up every command everytime I use it. Since I have very little knowledge about programming languages at the moment I'm not sure which three are most used but those three I would learn.
Croatian, since I am going there on a holliday in september. (my first holliday in 9 years yippie!)
Spanish, I think it is a good language together with English to be able to make myself understandable in most parts of the world.
Since I always would like to be able to program things (finally started doing this by making a DMOD) I would like to learn 3 programming languages. This way I can program things without having to look up every command everytime I use it. Since I have very little knowledge about programming languages at the moment I'm not sure which three are most used but those three I would learn.
Hellfire, there's a huge amount of people speaking French in Africa
I want to learn
-French
-Japanese
-Spanish
-Italian
-German
I picked these because I would want to visit those countries someday.
-French
-Japanese
-Spanish
-Italian
-German
I picked these because I would want to visit those countries someday.
Okay, let's see...in no particular order...
Russian(cuz I just think it's cool)
Dutch(so I could talk to my Dutch friends in their language)
Spanish(so I could speak to some of my Mexican relatives)
Punjabi(cuz I've always wanted to turn to some person who's
speaking it and shock the heck out of them by understanding
what they said and responding in their language)
Mandarin( cuz it's the language of Tibet and I think Tibet is cool)
Russian(cuz I just think it's cool)
Dutch(so I could talk to my Dutch friends in their language)
Spanish(so I could speak to some of my Mexican relatives)
Punjabi(cuz I've always wanted to turn to some person who's
speaking it and shock the heck out of them by understanding
what they said and responding in their language)
Mandarin( cuz it's the language of Tibet and I think Tibet is cool)
Russian, 'cos its Russian,
German, because my cooking tutor is German and 'cos its German,
Finnish because its a metal ass country; my favorite music genre, and uhm... that's all I can think of that I would like to know.
German, because my cooking tutor is German and 'cos its German,
Finnish because its a metal ass country; my favorite music genre, and uhm... that's all I can think of that I would like to know.
If you're into Tibet, check out Standard Tibetan as well. That is used in the more rural areas where Chinese hasn't taken over yet. You also see it on Tibetan prayer flags, and on waymarkers. The phrase Om mani padme hum is often written in the Tibetan script.
EDIT: Admittedly, Mandarin would be more useful in general >_>
EDIT: Admittedly, Mandarin would be more useful in general >_>
My list would mostly consist out of rational choices, languages I could one day need or at least use. My choices would be:
Spanish
Mandarin Chinese
Japanese
German
Hungarian
Spanish is because it's one of the most widely spoken languages around, especially in South/Central America. And I really should add a romance language in this list. While French would be a good inclusion too I'm not really planning to go to Africa any time soon and the level of French I speak already is sufficient to survive most basic situations.
Mandarin Chinese is the most the most widely spoken dialect of Chinese. (Just stating 'Chinese' is a bit vague as individual dialects can be almost completely unintelligible to speakers of other dialects.) This is obviously a career choice, about one sixth of the world's population speaks Mandarin Chinese and this part of the world is set to become a lot more wealthy in the near future...
Japanese is similar this way. Japan is a large economic power and many Japanese don't speak English very well. And while I'm not really into anything Japanese specifically I can't deny that I'd like to visit Japan someday too.
I already speak enough German to get around in most cases, but to have a technical business conversation my German is most definitely lacking. As Germany is just a short hop to the east of here and Germany is by far the largest trading partner of the Netherlands it makes it an easy choice. Also I really love the agglutinative nature of the language, you can see some really nice words around.
Lastly I've included Hungarian because, like Magicman, I would love to have a Finno-Ugric language added to the mix. My preference is with Hungarian over Finnish though, mostly because it looks even more alien to my eyes...
Maybe I should have added some ancient languages such as Greek and Latin or some modern languages such as Arabic or Italian as they let you understand a lot more about arts, religion and/or history, but since I've got only five slots these will have to do.
I only added natural languages because I can't see the point of letting a constructed language into one of my precious five slots. I wouldn't even use one if I had 15 slots I think. It just doesn't help enough in communication, and it doesn't really let me understand arts or sciences any better either. Also I think that adding a programming language is pointless. Programming is much more of a skill then knowledge, just because you know a language doesn't mean you can do anything with it, contrary to a natural language. And you already know what you can do with a natural language because you have learned one already.
Spanish
Mandarin Chinese
Japanese
German
Hungarian
Spanish is because it's one of the most widely spoken languages around, especially in South/Central America. And I really should add a romance language in this list. While French would be a good inclusion too I'm not really planning to go to Africa any time soon and the level of French I speak already is sufficient to survive most basic situations.
Mandarin Chinese is the most the most widely spoken dialect of Chinese. (Just stating 'Chinese' is a bit vague as individual dialects can be almost completely unintelligible to speakers of other dialects.) This is obviously a career choice, about one sixth of the world's population speaks Mandarin Chinese and this part of the world is set to become a lot more wealthy in the near future...
Japanese is similar this way. Japan is a large economic power and many Japanese don't speak English very well. And while I'm not really into anything Japanese specifically I can't deny that I'd like to visit Japan someday too.
I already speak enough German to get around in most cases, but to have a technical business conversation my German is most definitely lacking. As Germany is just a short hop to the east of here and Germany is by far the largest trading partner of the Netherlands it makes it an easy choice. Also I really love the agglutinative nature of the language, you can see some really nice words around.
Lastly I've included Hungarian because, like Magicman, I would love to have a Finno-Ugric language added to the mix. My preference is with Hungarian over Finnish though, mostly because it looks even more alien to my eyes...
Maybe I should have added some ancient languages such as Greek and Latin or some modern languages such as Arabic or Italian as they let you understand a lot more about arts, religion and/or history, but since I've got only five slots these will have to do.
I only added natural languages because I can't see the point of letting a constructed language into one of my precious five slots. I wouldn't even use one if I had 15 slots I think. It just doesn't help enough in communication, and it doesn't really let me understand arts or sciences any better either. Also I think that adding a programming language is pointless. Programming is much more of a skill then knowledge, just because you know a language doesn't mean you can do anything with it, contrary to a natural language. And you already know what you can do with a natural language because you have learned one already.
1) Russian
2) German
3) C++
Can't think of any more...
2) German
3) C++
Can't think of any more...
Interesting question...
I'd probably choose:
French, because it's useful and I like the sound of it. Actually I like the sound of many languages I don't know
Welsh, because, um, not sure. I just like it! And I live fairly close to where it's spoken.
Yiddish, I speak a little but it would be nice to be fluent.
That's actually all I can think of at the moment. Maybe Danish too?
Programming languages are kind of in a different category... but I've started learning a bit of C# so I'll throw that in as well
I'd probably choose:
French, because it's useful and I like the sound of it. Actually I like the sound of many languages I don't know
Welsh, because, um, not sure. I just like it! And I live fairly close to where it's spoken.
Yiddish, I speak a little but it would be nice to be fluent.
That's actually all I can think of at the moment. Maybe Danish too?
Programming languages are kind of in a different category... but I've started learning a bit of C# so I'll throw that in as well
I tried learning JavaScript once. I failed the class.
1.) Elvish
2.) Perl
3.) Klingon
4.) French
5.) American English
I like my list.
2.) Perl
3.) Klingon
4.) French
5.) American English
I like my list.
Russian, because it looks cool.
Mandarin Chinese, because it looks cool and I hear it's hard to learn.
Dutch, because you can't escape from them.
Finnish sign language, because nobody can hear me otherwise.
The "language" the brain uses for its most elaborate logical underpinnings. If it's even possible to understand something that makes understanding possible.
Mandarin Chinese, because it looks cool and I hear it's hard to learn.
Dutch, because you can't escape from them.
Finnish sign language, because nobody can hear me otherwise.
The "language" the brain uses for its most elaborate logical underpinnings. If it's even possible to understand something that makes understanding possible.
Dutch, because you can't escape from them.
I'm dutch and i(do not in the least ) find that offensive. but go ahead learn it and remember according to some statistics sits it is one of the hardest languages to learn.
ok i know Dutch(Duh! ). English and some German.
and the languages i want to learn are
*Japanese (just too much stuff i want to read are in that language but translations take forever to be made)
*Dog (who knows what interesting tales they are telling when barking)
*Martian (just in case they turn out to actually exist)
*C (and all of it's variations)
well that is all i can think of at the moment
I'm dutch and i(do not in the least
) find that offensive. but go ahead learn it and remember according to some statistics sits it is one of the hardest languages to learn.ok i know Dutch(Duh!
). English and some German.and the languages i want to learn are
*Japanese (just too much stuff i want to read are in that language but translations take forever to be made)
*Dog (who knows what interesting tales they are telling when barking)
*Martian (just in case they turn out to actually exist)
*C (and all of it's variations)
well that is all i can think of at the moment
"5.) American English"
I have a friend here in Aus that can't understand American English... When I use an "American" accent he can't understand a word either, but everyone else can...
I have a friend here in Aus that can't understand American English... When I use an "American" accent he can't understand a word either, but everyone else can...
Thou hath an donkey which smelleth like Cinnamon. HURRRRRRRRR.
Old English!! Of course!!
Why didn't I think of that one?
Why didn't I think of that one?
English.
Japanese.
Korean.
Mandarin.
French.
Japanese.
Korean.
Mandarin.
French.
* Japanese
* French
* German
* Spanish
I don't think I have a fifth...
My reasons for picking said languages are as follows:
Well, I'm already learning Japanese. I just want to be able to play never translated games, read never translated comics, and sometimes watch never translated series. Because there tend to be untranslated gems in all of those.
As for all the other languages, I picked the most spoken ones. Being able to properly communicate with others is very useful.
* French
* German
* Spanish
I don't think I have a fifth...
My reasons for picking said languages are as follows:
Well, I'm already learning Japanese. I just want to be able to play never translated games, read never translated comics, and sometimes watch never translated series. Because there tend to be untranslated gems in all of those.
As for all the other languages, I picked the most spoken ones. Being able to properly communicate with others is very useful.
