What other language you would like to learn?

[floatingmoon]

This forum is about learning Chinese. I am curious that, other than Chinese, what language would you like to learn?

I'd like to learn Spanish, because some of the music are interesting and so is the dance.

It's much easier to pronounce than French. Also, Spanish is useful in South America and Europe!

And also, I'd like to learn Japanese, this is just all for doing crafts, since many nice craft books are in Japanese. Sometimes I see some funny advertisement in Japanese, and I am curious to know what are they talking about.

[muyongshi]

Out of the "frequency" that I will pass through those countries I would like to learn Thai and Korean (In one time in korea my korean was 10x better than my Thai after 2 times...) and maybe a bit of cantonese too but I think mandarin can suffice in HK too...And if I just wanted to pick a random one it would be french, because so many different countries use it.

[DrWatson]

I'd really like to get my French back up to par this year. It is great for making me not feel so dumb since my ability to progress in French is much faster than my ability to progress in Chinese.

If I had a lot of spare time I'd love to learn Arabic or Russian. But Russian grammar tends to keep me away, and I keep my hands too full fighting with Chinese and working too much to give Arabic a serious attempt.

[wushijiao]

I've started to (finally) try to make the effort to learn Cantonese.

[Senzhi]

I already speak 4 languages fluently ... so I guess I have only a 156 more to go.

Seriously, I'd consider Spanish as my next option, once I get my 普通话 up to standard. But of course, there's also Cantonese, Shaoshanhua, Japanese ... it's sometimes difficult to choose.

[renzhe]

The languages I would really love to learn are Arabic and Japanese.

I'm also interested in Korean, but that's not a priority. Russian might also be interesting.

However, both Arabic and Japanese are considered extremely difficult, so I'm not starting either until I've really covered Chinese to the point where I'm fluent and unlikely to forget it. Hanzi will be a good basis for both Japanese and Korean, so that makes sense.

In the meantime, I'll probably tackle French. Since I speak Spanish and English, and have studied Latin for a long time, it should be comparatively easy.

[Senzhi]

Coming to think of it: isn't Chinese a lifetime piece of work? Will we really have the chance or time to study another language?

[opper567]

Are there any good languages to study for Historical Linguistic reasons relating to Chinese?

[atitarev]

Renzhe wrote: The languages I would really love to learn are Arabic and Japanese.

I'm also interested in Korean, but that's not a priority. Russian might also be interesting.

However, both Arabic and Japanese are considered extremely difficult, so I'm not starting either until I've really covered Chinese to the point where I'm fluent and unlikely to forget it. Hanzi will be a good basis for both Japanese and Korean, so that makes sense.

In the meantime, I'll probably tackle French. Since I speak Spanish and English, and have studied Latin for a long time, it should be comparatively easy.

Renzhe, hmm, we seem to have similar interests.

I mastered German and English long time ago, my native language is Russian. I did some self-study and 2 semesters at Uni of French - enough to know a school program as in Australian or European schools where French is taught as a foreign language. I learned some Polish long ago, which is very close to Russian and I had a period when I practiced it a lot.

I didn't learn Korean but I familiarised myself well with it and wrote a conversion program - Hangul to Roman letters (in C#.Net). It would take less effort to learn Korean - Hanja (=Hanzi) are not used anymore.

I switched to Asian languages - Japanese, Chinese Mandarinand a couple of years ago I started modern standard Arabic. Yes, learning more than language at the same time, especially if they are hard is very tough, I must be crazy but I don't have any deadlines, besides, I am enjoying the process of learning and talking to people from different parts of the world in their language.

Making a cross-reference between Japanese Kanji and Chinese Hanzi is actually time-consuming and sometimes confusing, although I am doing that rather consistently.

Chinese and Japanese will remain my long--term goals. Learning Chinese formally too and with friends and colleagues. I read Japanese short articles and stories, have penpals. As for Arabic, I am fascinated by it but I can't use it much, besides, the Arabic diglossia is a very de-motivating factor. Well, I've mastered the alphabet and the basics of grammar and vocab, this will stay with me. I have to yet find an Arabian person with similar interests.

[fireball9261]

Japanese -- I am learning it now.

Mongolian -- It looks interesting.

Russian -- It also looks interesting.

[renzhe]

Interesting stuff, atitarev, and we're more similar than you think.

My mother tongue is Croatian, so Russian is not such a far-fetched idea, especially since I know the Cyrillic script already.

I also speak German and English fluently. Spanish a bit less so, but I can understand movies and communicate, so I'm keeping it fresh with some reading and movies from time to time.

I've been doing Taekwondo for many years, so I have a certain fondness for Korean. You are right in saying that Hanja is hardly ever used today, but it is still used for names and the older generation are still quite well versed in them. It's not a crucial issue, but I think that knowing Hanzi can't hurt when learning Korean, and may even be of some use.

In fact, I've started with Chinese because I found that most European languages (with some notable, but not very useful exceptions like Basque, Finnish/Hungarian and Gaelic languages) would be quite easy, since I know a Germanic, a Slavic and a Romance language (+Latin). Chinese was completely different, and I was looking for a challenge. Boy did I find it.

I'm a bit hesitant to start with another really hard language like Japanese or Arabic until I have a better grasp of Chinese. I can follow very simple TV shows, read over 2000 characters and a couple of thousand words, have simple conversations, but that's not enough. I'll probably need another year or two before it "sits". I spend a lot of time on Chinese and I think another hard language will really confuse me. I do know the Arabic script already (I started learning it once, but dropped out after a while) so I'd like to finish what I've started.

In a couple of years, I definitely intend to try one of those. I'm quite a language freak. I won't stop until I can speak 8 languages fluently. With Chinese, I'm approaching 5, so there's still plenty of work to do

[atitarev]

I'm quite a language freak.

Quite a few language freaks here

My Chinese seems poorer than yours but my Japanese is about the same as Chinese, if it makes up.

[bhchao]

Korean - Would like to become conversationally fluent

German - Was my second choice in high school, but learned French instead.

Shanghainese - Always fascinated by the dialect.

[fireball9261]

bhchao, my father did exactly opposite to you. He was thinking to learn French in College but decided to learn German because he felt it would be easier to learn than French due to the pronunciations.

If you have learned Shanghainess, you could probably either converse with most of the Zhejiang people (who like to converse in Shanghainess with each other anyway) or understand better of most of the dialects in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces (at least Jiangsu and the North Zhejiang dialects).

[tooironic]

A European language would be cool, but, nah, too easy

Korean.

Now that would be fun!

[Hero Doug]

While I don't feel Chinese is that difficult to learn I don't really want to devote too much time another language; memorizing characters/words takes up a fair amount of time.

Seeing as how I took French in school (Canadian) I've decided to make this my third language. I've just (literally yesterday) picked up my old French book and started learning the vocab and grammar again. Since a lot of barriers have already been broken when I was younger it shouldn't be too hard to pick up the language.

There's actually one more that I don't think anyone else has (or will) mention. I'm actually going to study my native language as well. While I can speak and write well in English, I want to have a through understanding of the language like you get when learn a foreign language. Plus my spelling has went downhill since living in China so I have to do something about that ;)

[marty]

Japanese will be:mrgreen: my first choice

[Lu]

Now working on Taiwanese. Would like to try my hand on Cantonese somewhere in the future, if I happen upon a class. I once started on Spanish, but left the country and that kind of stopped the process. I really need a class or I don't study at all.

Will never (unless I happen to move there or marry a guy from there) learn:

Japanese, Korean, Russian, Estonian.

[Hero Doug]

I would consider Korean. It has an interesting (if whiny) sound to it. I think it's unique even among the Asian languages. Apparently the Korean alphabet isn't too bad so it would be easier than Chinese in that respect.

[heifeng]

Warning, I've suddenly been hit with the urge to write a long post...that and I still have a few yuan-a-roo on my wangba card.

To be honest I don't think I could deal with learning any more E. Asian languages, other than a Chinese dialect, even if knowing Chinese would somehow give me a bit of a mild advantage...That little glimmer of hope to possibly learn Korean or Japanese was extinguished long ago...

However, SE Asian, and central Asian languages are fair play.

I wouldn't mind learning/relearning (some) tagalog. Long story, but this is what I should have studied instead of Chinese but those Tagolog classes were just not working with my schedule in school. I wouldn't need to learn Tagolog for any particular reason, other than back in the day I could have used it with all of my friends parents growing up. I still think I let them all down by learning Chinese instead.... But of course that would just be a side project ( in my imaginary world where I actually motivated myself to study another language). Mostly, as long as I could hold a conversation while tearing off pieces of roasted pig skin at a block party, bust out some karaoke, and I'd be happy

Moving right along. I would like to learn Polish. Why not. I guess growing up I heard too many stories about the 'old country' yet I have no connection to it, other than my 3rd grade teacher like to call us lil' pigs in Polish and I can eat a packzi or three in record time*, and would try to convince neighbors at Halloween throwing on a 'babushka' scarf WAS infact my costume. However I would probably feel like I could never really use Polish, unless I traveled there, sure those sexy plummer tour ads from a year or so ago weren't bad, but maybe I should just study Russian instead. It's a sexy sounding language...in my opinion at least. I actually have friends that I could practice on, or just find some old timers in China who studied Russian before English was all the rage. Apparently there are sappy soap operas in Russia, so I think Russian wins over Polish. Well, that's good I settled that....but wait some of those dramas are already dubbed in Chinese...so maybe I'll just concentrate on mastering my Chinese after all.

Anyway, good thing this is just a 'What other language you would like to learn?" Thread...because having the desire to learn something and actually doing it are completely different:mrgreen:

*technically a 'fake' Polish food heheh