So, as I'm nearing my 5th year of learning Spanish I'm in the honors level at this point with next year being AP. mi espanol no es bueno o malo en mi opinion pero yo no creo lo es mal. I was thinking I wanted to learn other languages, The first few I am thinking about is german Italian and Japanese. I don't know what colleges offer Italian, I know two that offer either Japanese or German so I was curious to know which I should pick up? Now im sure i could find a college with italian easily but i didnt want to look atm untill i was sure i would take it first, any thoughts?
Which would you recommend?
-
-
i would not chose german , it is not spoken worldwide and it is pretty hard.
japanese should ofcourse be interersting but ofcourse very hard.
cant you chose french?
-
Don't choose French if it's an option.
German, while the grammar is a little more on the difficult side, I like quite a bit. It's a pretty regular language and easy once you pick up the grammar rules.
Since you're on a manga forum I'd assume Japanese would be useful for you. Grammar in Japanese is pretty simple as far as I can tell, at least for what you'll be learning in the class. Verbs conjugate to tense instead of person, pronouns are sparsely used, that kind of things. Although this makes Japanese a little harder since you have to understand things in context. Also the kanji might be a little difficult.
Italian is a beautiful language but you said you don't know where you could learn it.
Honestly it's up to you. I'd learn all three if it was possible but that's just me
. -
Chose German . If you are a native english speaker you will find lots of similarities that will help you in learning . Whereas Utalian has only a very very very distant relation , if any , to english . And Japanese…..yeah .
I learned German mainly thanks to having already learned english but I never learned by using textbooks or writing down words so I guess I'm not the usual common denominator .
-
But Italian is pretty close to Spanish and since he's taken 5 years of it it should be no problem.
-
I love German too kairouseki, I have family in Germany so that's partly why, and i would like to visit with my grandmother since shes from Germany and i dont know how long ill have to do that. on the other hand Japanese is very useful and i like the language as well, same goes for Italian, and I'm sure there's a college nearby that has Italian its probably easier to find than German or Japanese. right now I'm leaning on the side of Japanese as there is a foreign exchange student at my school atm from japan (who loves one piece hell yea) most likely if i choose Japanese ill be starting by 2nd semester (i think that's winter semester? idk) whereas German ill have to wait two years most likely, the same is probable for Italian. I agree with you though Kairouseki I would learn all three if i could, I will, but not at once, so far my order is going to be 6 semesters by the time I'm out of highschool (supposedly a semester=2 years on it in highschool so going on that I would be at 12 years of japanese had i taken it in school, although i doubt how valid that is), then German most likely or Italian (since that could be faster than german because of my spanish history). Do you guys think thats appropriate to just be at the point that my future japanese studies would be fine with just reading non translated manga and kanji and learning new vocab? if it is by then ill probably be ready for my next language.
I might be one of the only americans learning languages for the hell of it, not even planning to be a translator, although it looks good when i apply for the fbi in many years, and when I apply for
schools.
@metteminne Honestly, french never really appealed to me, maybe after i become fluent in these three and maybe learn mandarin or russian possibly polish. -
So, as I'm nearing my 5th year of learning Spanish I'm in the honors level at this point with next year being AP. mi espanol no es bueno o malo en mi opinion pero yo no creo lo es mal. I was thinking I wanted to learn other languages, The first few I am thinking about is german Italian and Japanese. I don't know what colleges offer Italian, I know two that offer either Japanese or German so I was curious to know which I should pick up? Now im sure i could find a college with italian easily but i didnt want to look atm untill i was sure i would take it first, any thoughts?
What are your goals for learning those language? Interest? If that's the case I'd just suggest Italian because it's such an interesting language.
French is pretty useless but became more prominent as the official language of the EU (supposedly). I wouldn't imagine it being used in casual convo outside of France though.
Germans + Russians seem to grasp English pretty well, so while it would be cool to speak to them in their native tongue, I don't see a whole lot of use for it. Unless you want to read German literature in its original language (Kant) under which circumstances I would highly recommend it.
-
I wouldn't realy suport the idea that "they can understand english so their language has no value to be taught" . It's stil widely spoken in europe , if you compare it with , say , Portugese .
-
The best part about learning languages is that they deal with how people think and form ideas. As an academic, I urge you to consider not which would be most useful, but which you think would be the most interesting.
-
I do French, German, did Latin and am starting Japanese on Tuesday.
German was the easiest for me. A lot of the words are very similar to English. And the basics are very easy to learn. Once you know them it's just a matter of Vocab to expand what you can say. I started French like 3 years before German, and I think I find German easier.
-
Be warned though . German has this one quriky tendency to glue words onto one another in cetrain cases , making for some real alphabetical monstrosities .
-
I think that's a pretty cool part of the language.
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
-
@Kairouseki:
I think that's a pretty cool part of the language.
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
Me too! And once you learn what to expect, the pronunciation is fun.
-
Not only do I find those three pretty useful, they are also languages that are interesting to me, also flux was it hard learning more than one language at once?
that does make german sound pretty fun hahaWant to hear your favorite song from an animation played on guitar? http://www.apforums.net/showthread.p…28#post2317328 Click the Link
-
As long as they're different I don't really see the problem. I took German and French last year and had no problem with differentiating them. But if you want to learn say Afrikaans and Dutch at the same time you might have a problem.
-
@Kairouseki:
As long as they're different I don't really see the problem. I took German and French last year and had no problem with differentiating them. But if you want to learn say Afrikaans and Dutch at the same time you might have a problem.
alright, I was just think it might be hard to keep them from getting mixed up you know? haha but japanese are germans pretty different so i shouldnt have a problem, after those will be italian than idk whats next
-
also flux was it hard learning more than one language at once?
That's a common perception. In some ways, a little - In some ways no. Like if you can do 2 fact based subjects at the same time, I suppose you could for languages.
In ways I found it a lot easier. Because you'd learn things like the Subjunctive, the Cases, Dative, Genitive, Accusative, Nominative etcetera, and when you were learning German, you'd already know all that stuff, it was just the basic sentence structure you learn, then the vocab to make yourself sound more refined and expand what you would say.
You start to see the patterns in the languages the more you do.
German is very simplistic to learn. Whereas Japanese was (I tried to learn it by myself before, just research and execises) really hard. Because you'll need to learn to only to speak it, but to write using a different 'alphabet'. So the challenge is doubled.
-
That's a common perception. In some ways, a little - In some ways no. Like if you can do 2 fact based subjects at the same time, I suppose you could for languages.
In ways I found it a lot easier. Because you'd learn things like the Subjunctive, the Cases, Dative, Genitive, Accusative, Nominative etcetera, and when you were learning German, you'd already know all that stuff, it was just the basic sentence structure you learn, then the vocab to make yourself sound more refined and expand what you would say.
You start to see the patterns in the languages the more you do.
German is very simplistic to learn. Whereas Japanese was (I tried to learn it by myself before, just research and execises) really hard. Because you'll need to learn to only to speak it, but to write using a different 'alphabet'. So the challenge is doubled.
hopefully I become "fluent" in japanese haha ill be doing german after 6 semester of japanese and i might continue japanese during it
-
That's a common perception. In some ways, a little - In some ways no. Like if you can do 2 fact based subjects at the same time, I suppose you could for languages.
In ways I found it a lot easier. Because you'd learn things like the Subjunctive, the Cases, Dative, Genitive, Accusative, Nominative etcetera, and when you were learning German, you'd already know all that stuff, it was just the basic sentence structure you learn, then the vocab to make yourself sound more refined and expand what you would say.
Ooh. Sounds fun. I'm starting Mandarin this fall after three years of Japanese (while still continuing Japanese). But at least I already know 1000+ kanji that are essentially used by both, which is knowledge that I will exploit as much as possible.
Obviously I'm biased (like most people), but I would recommend Japanese, TC. If you have a genuine interest in cultural applications of a language then even the hardest ones are made fun and interesting.
-
@CCC:
Ooh. Sounds fun. I'm starting Mandarin this fall after three years of Japanese (while still continuing Japanese). But at least I already know 1000+ kanji that are essentially used by both, which is knowledge that I will exploit as much as possible.
Obviously I'm biased (like most people), but I would recommend Japanese, TC. If you have a genuine interest in cultural applications of a language then even the hardest ones are made fun and interesting.
ohh yesss, manga
and ive always wanted to watch raw episodes haha.
ill be able to get into the novels for znt and shakugan too -
you said you can take one of those languages right now. take that one. then in 2 years, you can choose between the other 2. They all sound like beneficial languages to learn, both for practical reasons, and your own.
