Language to learn

Deadbeat said:
I hear Japanese is surprisingly easy to learn, once you get the alphabet down.

Edit: Of course, so many Japanese people speak English that it may be pretty pointless. Are you looking for something practical or something to enhance your profile?
Click to expand...
It can take years to learn all the characters, so good luck with that.
Even the Japanese can't read newspapers until they're 18..

Also, very few Japanese people speak English. Why would they?
 
Last edited:
turboduck said:
Swedish! just look at the women!
Click to expand...
Robboftw said:
Norwegian.
Click to expand...

Both are very easy (and mutually intelligible) languages, but there really isn't a reason to learn them. Everybody in Scandinavia speaks English, so your skills won't be that highly valued.

FWIW, I studied Norwegian (at university, I might add), purely because Norwegian women were hot. Worked out (job-wise) in the end though :p
 
franco_22 said:
I agree with you that learning a Latin language is useful because it's easier to learn the others. I don't agree with you not including Portuguese and Italian in the list thou, Portuguese is the 7th most spoken language in the world and Brazil and Italy have a massive industry.

On a side note, the same can be said for scandinavian countries, Danish ,Finnish ,Swedish, Norwegian, Czech Republican, Latvian, etc, are very very similar languages.
Click to expand...
You're right, I was a bit biased. If you're in Europe I'd say the most important languages would be French or German. French would give you speaking access to Paris, the biggest financial hub after London and also Zurich and Brussels. German would do the same for Frankfurt, Geneva and Vienna and obviously many other places for both the languages because they've spread a bit beyond their borders.

For Portuguese I don't know if there's much value in learning it unless you really need to speak to people in Brazil much. Only Italy really speaks Italian I don't think it's as major a language myself, it's up to what you want out of the language I guess.

Depends on what reasons you have for learning a language, I don't like how German sounds myself.

Also French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese have significantly closer lexical similarity than German and English.
 
Last edited:
dazzerd said:
Got to be Mandarin, the chinese will rule the world in the next 10/15 years.
Click to expand...

See this is another thing, our company, could become huge (its pretty big already) quadruple the value of the company. all this is down to a company in malaysia, if i learn their lingo, it will lead to me going over there very often, very often
 
Update us on which language you pick and why, just wondering.

Would imagine a day release college thing would be better than Rosetta Stone.
 
You can do French, German, Spanish and Italian through the Open University. You'll get optional classes/lecture/workshops to attend which I'm sure are useful although I'm not sure how it works in other areas (I'm in London). You'll get qualifications too.

http://www.hotcourses.com/community/homePage.jsp?x=16180339&y=&a=0
If you decide on a language do a search there might be something nearby, choose 'adult learning courses'. I think evening courses at colleges tend to start mid-October so you never know.
 
Last edited:
alex_tank said:
You're right, I was a bit biased. If you're in Europe I'd say the most important languages would be French or German. French would give you speaking access to Paris, the biggest financial hub after London and also Zurich and Brussels. German would do the same for Frankfurt, Geneva and Vienna and obviously many other places for both the languages because they've spread a bit beyond their borders.

For Portuguese I don't know if there's much value in learning it unless you really need to speak to people in Brazil much. Only Italy really speaks Italian I don't think it's as major a language myself, it's up to what you want out of the language I guess.

Depends on what reasons you have for learning a language, I don't like how German sounds myself.

Also French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese have significantly closer lexical similarity than German and English.
Click to expand...


ehh, they speak French in Geneva, try Zurich instead.
 
Italian is an excellent language to learn if English is your first language.

Many many, Italian words are identical to English because English is made up of Latin words and Germanic words. So all the 'able, ible, cal, ion ending words are from the latin.

So political, musical, probable, station, situation etc etc etc become politico musicale probabile, statzione, situatzione.

So to pass a musical evening becomes passare un seratta musicale......easy!

All the countries of the world that were invaded by the Romans share much of this Latin heritage, so, Italian is key to many of the european languages!


Ciao!
Ouch!
 
Ouch! said:
Italian is an excellent language to learn if English is your first language.

Many many, Italian words are identical to English because English is made up of Latin words and Germanic words. So all the 'able, ible, cal, ion ending words are from the latin.

So political, musical, probable, station, situation etc etc etc become politico musicale probabile, statzione, situatzione.

So to pass a musical evening becomes passare un seratta musicale......easy!

All the countries of the world that were invaded by the Romans share much of this Latin heritage, so, Italian is key to many of the european languages!


Ouch!
Click to expand...

Funnily enough the biggest chunk of English vocabulary comes almost directly from (old) French rather than directly from Germanic languages or Latin. Mind you, Of course you could argue that French is obviously derived from the Latin language and therefore what you say would be ultimately correct.
 
Since this thread, I have bought Michel Thomas' foundation course cds to learn French and after the first two hours I have got to say that I learnt absolutely loads already and have already surpassed what I learnt in 6 years of school French lessons!

I highly recommend these cds. I will move onto his advanced course once I have mastered this.

I would add though, that you would definately need a book to complement your learning.
 
physichull said:
Since this thread, I have bought Michel Thomas' foundation course cds to learn French and after the first two hours I have got to say that I learnt absolutely loads already and have already surpassed what I learnt in 6 years of school French lessons!

I highly recommend these cds. I will move onto his advanced course once I have mastered this.

I would add though, that you would definately need a book to complement your learning.
Click to expand...

Can you advise on how much these cost you?/
 
CoxyBoy123 said:
Can you advise on how much these cost you?/
Click to expand...

About £35 from a popular online retailer. I got a book on grammar and verbs too which helps with writing out French etc.

Have got to say, I have only listened to the first 3 hours of Michel Thomas. Five minutes in and I already felt like I was winning. Can't recommend him highly enough, he teaches all the basic rules of thumb and points out the origins of most of the words.

After like 2 hours you already know about 2000 words as a lot of English words come from French, you just have to know which ones. All words that end in -ence -ance -ion etc all come from French.

I am going to go through the book eventually, but one step at a time and I am almost certainly going to buy Michel Thomas Advanced course. He also teaches pronounciation very well, which is VERY hard to learn from a book, such as knowing how to pronounce grand and grande depending on the masculine and feminine form.
 
Last edited:
physichull said:
About £35 from a popular online retailer. I got a book on grammar and verbs too which helps with writing out French etc.

Have got to say, I have only listened to the first 3 hours of Michel Thomas. Five minutes in and I already felt like I was winning. Can't recommend him highly enough, he teaches all the basic rules of thumb and points out the origins of most of the words.

After like 2 hours you already know about 2000 words as a lot of English words come from French, you just have to know which ones. All words that end in -ence -ance -ion etc all come from French.

I am going to go through the book eventually, but one step at a time and I am almost certainly going to buy Michel Thomas Advanced course.
Click to expand...


Spot on, will have a look now
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom