Not sure if I asked it before but
if you had the power to learn between 1-3 languarge fluent without any efford at all, which would you choose and why?
for me it would be:
1. Japanese;
Because it so difficult to learn, and I could use it for reading manga or working with japanese turism.
2. arabic
cause I live in a area with alot of people from the middle east and somethimes I wish I understood more of what there talking about,
3. tyrkish/spanish.
cause spanish is a good languarge to know, or tyrkisk cause it sound so dam sexy and then I would know the lyrics of the tyrkish music I hear.
1. Spanish, to better communicate with and understand the growing hispanic population in the USA
2. Vietnamese, to revisit the country I helped ravage with warfare and politely ask for their forgiveness
3. French, because it does sound so very romantic when whispered in my ears
1. German, because es ist zehr cool;
2. Spanish, because that is rapidly becoming the de facto second primary language of the US;
3. Lichtensteinien, because that is the country I'd give my left nut (after SRS ;) ) in order to emigrate there, due to the barbarian hordes we're getting here in the US. (Und ja, ich kenne die sprechen Deutsche)
Spanish, many in US speak Spanish.
German, land of my ancestors.
Japanese, business purposes or Chinese, many people use it increasing the number of people I can understand.
Quote from: Beth Andrea on July 21, 2013, 05:52:03 PM
1. German, because es ist zehr cool;
2. Spanish, because that is rapidly becoming the de facto second primary language of the US;
3. Lichtensteinien, because that is the country I'd give my left nut (after SRS ;) ) in order to emigrate there, due to the barbarian hordes we're getting here in the US. (Und ja, ich kenne die sprechen Deutsche)
whats a horde?
1. Spanish - Many people in America speak it now.
2. Thai - Just in case I go to Thailand for SRS
3. French - So that when I go to Canada I can speak with some of the people North.
horde, often viewed an an angry army
1. Arabic (any dialect)-- because it sounds beautiful and I find the cultures in Middle Eastern countries fascinating, and I love the foods.
2. Punjabi -- I know a lot of Punjabis from Pakistan and India, it sounds cool, and the script is so alien-looking.
3. Brazilian Portuguese -- because I have all three levels of Pimsleur and it would be a waste if I didn't finish them. Also, Brazil looks beautiful and I'd love to visit. I live in an area where there's a ton of people from the Azores, and while they speak Iberdian Portuguese, it's similar enough where there's not much of a difference (it's like British English versus American English), so it'd be cool to speak with my Portuguese neighbor in her language and my sister's father-in-law in his own.
English, because I speak American which is a bastardized version of English
Espanol because of all the hispanics moving into the US.
Mandarin Chinese so I can be prepared when they send the repo man to collect on the US debt
and take the country we used as collateral.
German- It's the only language my ancestors spoke that I haven't learned yet.
Russian- There's just something I love about this language, it's almost harsh and soft at tha same time.
French- For the ladies lol I really like the fluidity of this language.
Heck... If I could speak at all that'd be a good start - but between my accent and recalcitrant tongue, I'm not much gifted in the speaking way... :)
But... I'd say:
1) Spanish (for reasons listed above)
2) German (having been born there, I am told that I was quite proficient in it... up until moving Stateside - but I have little recollection of it)
3) Hmmmm... I dunno.
Let's see, fluency in German wouldn't take me too much more effort. I really just need to live there for a year or so. So I'll skip that one for the purpose of this thread.
So, I'd go with:
Japanese - it's awesome, and I'm an anime/manga/video game buff. While I took a year of Japanese, it was only a year and I forgot a lot of it. So I'd totally be down for the free fluency on this one.
Chinese - it's a tonal language and highly advantageous right now.
Basque - because it's a language isolate. Not much use in most places, but it would be epic to know~
And if I could cheat and have a fourth, I'd take one of the African languages that use a lot of clicks (can't remember what any of them are called off the top of my head) Exceedingly hard to learn if you don't grow up using it, so again, I'd take this one for sheer awesomeness.
Spanish - It's more useful to know how to speak it in the U.S. as several people pointed out
Thai - I'm Thai and have have a lot of relatives who speak Thai. Would be very useful to me.
Japanese - It sounds cool! :D
German- i speak some of it but i would love to be fluent in it i think it is beautiful and i would love to live in germany
italian- its just a lovely language
Greek- i have an obsession with Greece.
Mandarin, not just for its utility, but because it's a tonal language, which opens up a whole category of punning and word play impossible in English.
Korean or Finnish because they're highly agglutinative and, thus, have a very robust, descriptive semantics.
Proto-Indoeuropean because I'd like to separate the good paleolinguistics from the crud.
Maddy
Quote from: MadeleineG on July 28, 2013, 09:18:04 PM
Mandarin, not just for its utility, but because it's a tonal language, which opens up a whole category of punning and word play impossible in English.
Korean or Finnish because they're highly agglutinative and, thus, have a very robust, descriptive semantics.
Proto-Indoeuropean because I'd like to separate the good paleolinguistics from the crud.
Maddy
Oh hey, another linguist. Brilliant choice on Proto-Indoeuropean! I should have thought of that, but I guess I was only thinking currently spoken languages. Once you learn it tho and I have Basque, we should compare them to see if we can learn anything more definite regarding its ancestry~
1- Icelandic, because I'm fascinated with the country, culture and history of the place and would love to be able to read the sagas, as well as communicate easily with the people there (and because I'd stop confusing "opið alla daga", which means "open every day" for "open all day" and go to the shops when they're actually open.)
2- Swahili, because pretty much the only thing on my bucket list is to spend an extended amount of time in Tanzania one day. It's something I feel I need to do to for personal reasons.
3- Latin, because I regret ditching those lessons when I was going through a rough week and quitting everything, and so much of our current languages stems from that.
Quote from: shadowcat on July 29, 2013, 09:57:59 AM
Oh hey, another linguist.
Always a pleasure! :D
Quote from: shadowcat on July 29, 2013, 09:57:59 AM
Brilliant choice on Proto-Indoeuropean! I should have thought of that, but I guess I was only thinking currently spoken languages. Once you learn it tho and I have Basque, we should compare them to see if we can learn anything more definite regarding its ancestry~
Thank you. As for basque, my best guess is that it's of extraterrestrial origin. :icon_weirdface:
Maddy
Japanese, Italian, and Greek, just as i am interested ???
Quote from: LordKAT on July 21, 2013, 06:40:17 PM
horde, often viewed an an angry army
ah okay thanks
So, I'd go with:
Japanese - it's awesome, and I'm an anime/manga/video game buff. While I took a year of Japanese, it was only a year and I forgot a lot of it. So I'd totally be down for the free fluency on this one.
[/quote]
I feel you, have studied japanese for years and been there but I have forgot so much since I quit.
Spanish - Because there's a high Spanish speaking population where I live who don't speak/understand English well or at all.
Somali or Hmong - Because, again, there is a high population of both groups in my city who don't speak/understand English well or at all.
Japanese - Because it's cool, and I could go over to Japan to teach English or just visit. Watching raw anime might be nice, too. ;)
Mandarin - The ability to speak with the largest number of people in the world 1.1 billion
Hindi/Urdu - again the number of people available and a growing economy 250 million
Danish - I would like to move there (kind of mercenary here isn't it ;D )
Japanese: because it's awesome and I would like to go there sometime
Swahili: because it's a beautiful sounding language
Gaelic or Welsh: just mmmh, sexy languages!
Latin - Sounds cool
Elvish - It would be cool to know a fictional language
Arabic - The third most widely used language (by number of countries), after English (which I already know) and French (don't care to know)
Spanish because many people in this country speak it.
Spanish - Because it's useful in the US (and my Spanish is terrible)
Russian - Because I love the way it sounds (and my favorite band is Russian (Arkona) and I'd love to understand what she's singing)
Norwegian - Because a lot of my family lives in Norway
English - Because it is so much dominant language now, and also because it is so much flexible and accommodating other languages.
Japanese - My son is learning it to understand Japanese animation movies
Mandarin Chinese - My daughter is learning it because her mate is learning it.
barbie~~
Welsh-I'm 3rd gen american, but I still have family in Wales
Japanese-big time anime fan!
French-just sounds so sexy...
Gwyn