Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Tr Trapt
On 2008-05-13 20:29:49
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I have to choose a foreign language to learn as part of my curriculum for next year. I can choose either spanish, french, german, dutch, italian, japanese, or esperanto. For all the linguists out there, which would be the easiest language to learn?
-Trapt
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about german
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Posted by Beta Mar CHi
On 2008-05-18 15:37:01
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I think it's besides japanese the hardest language to learn. I think you should learn Spanish or French. Both are a bit easier.
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different reasons for schoool
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Posted by Delta Tr dopel
On 2008-05-14 23:47:00
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We all take away different experiences from college, but the point is to learn something. I have taken my share share of easy A's to pull up the GPA, but I would argue that language should not be one of them. Learning to be fluent in another language can be incredably usefull. Depending on your career path it can give you an edge and open up opportunities that those who only speak English would not have.
On 2008-05-13 20:29:49, Trapt wrote
>I have to choose a foreign language to learn as part of my curriculum for next year. I can choose either spanish, french, german, dutch, italian, japanese, or esperanto. For all the linguists out there, which would be the easiest language to learn?
>
>-Trapt
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Well, I've got my answer.
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Posted by Tr Trapt
On 2008-05-14 20:24:24
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I'm taking on Esperanto. I just PhotoRead 11 books on Esperanto and I can already read and write in it. All I have to do now is work on the pronunciation so that I can speak it. I don't know if it's me or if the language is just that easy, but damn, you guys should check it out.
Dankon pro viaj sugestoj ĉiuokaze.
-Trapt
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I think more people speak Klingon+Orcish ;) //nt
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Posted by Delta Gen int16h
On 2008-05-14 23:44:49
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One final question though...
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Posted by Tr Trapt
On 2008-05-14 20:26:53
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Do you guys think it would be worthwhile to translate some articles into Esperanto for the Library?
-Trapt
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Any addition to the library is good, but
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Posted by Delta Tr dopel
On 2008-05-14 23:41:23
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I would rather you contribute something new rather than transalate (badly)into a language that will probably not be read.
On 2008-05-14 20:26:53, Trapt wrote
>Do you guys think it would be worthwhile to translate some articles into Esperanto for the Library?
>
>-Trapt
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Gen Halley
On 2008-05-14 15:05:30
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You should choose what you want to do for fun - you have plenty of time at university to decide whether you want to learn something else for job purposes. There's also no such thing as an "easiest" language - every language has different problems for different learners. There are, however, grades of difficulty: Spanish, French, and Italian aren't that hard for a native English speaker (and are similar to each other); German and Dutch are a bit harder (though also similar to each other), and Japanese is the hardest, because the writing system, grammar, and syntax are totally different from any of those other languages.
It's also not very useful - as a non-native and relatively fluent speaker of Japanese myself, sefo is correct; between the numbers of Japanese-speaking foreigners and English-speaking Japanese, the job market is just not there anymore. The reason Digital Poet says Japanese works in tech fields is because most technically-gifted people have trouble learning languages, and language people aren't as good at tech.
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Ker sefo
On 2008-05-15 10:14:05
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>Japanese is the hardest, because the writing system, grammar, and syntax are totally different from any of those other languages.
The japanese grammar is very very easy. Easier than any European language.
The writing system takes some time to learn, but there is also the equivalent of our alphabet (hiragana / katakana) that helps you pronounce any japanese word and read and write text. This alphabet can be mastered in 1 week if you have no special gift for languages or 2 days for the others.
Also, most of the vocabulary comes from the english and is just transcripted (orth?) using katakanas. This way if you say "fork" or "knife" to a japanese, even if he doesn't know 1 word of english, he will understand you.
The grammar is just learning 2 tenses, some sentence construction rules and after 1 year you can start focusing on learning vocabulary and chinese characters.
Americans did an amazing job simplifying (ruining) this language after the war.........
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Gamma Tr The Digital Poet
On 2008-05-14 23:42:35
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The reason Digital Poet says Japanese works in tech fields is because most technically-gifted people have trouble learning languages, and language people aren't as good at tech.
Well that last part is probably true, I am certainly not a gifted linguist, infact I struggle with english most of the time. I do know a limited amount of French and German and also some Portuguese, personally I found German to be easier as a native English speaker as there are less major pronouciation differences. Both French and Portguese have sounds that do not exist in English, German doesn't seem to have this problem to such a great extent.
Actually, when I mentioned Japanese a pro for business, the logic is that the other languages mentioned are European and (much to the disgust of the French), English is largely the de-facto language used for business purposes across europe. Not so in Japan as I understand it.
However, you state you are a fluent speaker of Japanese and obviously know the situation far better than I. It is very possible that my information is out of date, but several years ago, I worked at a company that was desperately looking for a fluent Japanese speaker and strugged to find someone qualified.
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Ker sefo
On 2008-05-14 07:47:42
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-Esperanto: you can remove it from the list. You will go nowhere with this.
-Italian: Although it's a nice language, unless you have a special affinity for the country and the culture, I wouldn't choose this language with business in mind as it's only used in 1 country.
-Dutch: see Italian above
-Spanish: Spoken in many countries, it's not a bad choice for business, but you will need a VERY good level to compete with all the other people speaking this language.
-French: see Spanish above
-German: Only spoken in germany, austria, swiss, luxembourg and Liechtenstein...
Big German companies are always looking for bilingual / trilingual people to work abroad and the language will also help you if you plan to do business in east europe (good thing)
-Japanese: Always seen by employers as a hobby for manga readers. (which is 80% true) It will lead you nowhere unless you're lucky enough to find a job against the millions non-japanese people learning and already living there.
So if you need to choose a language to get credits for your diploma, choose japanese, it's fun, interesting and not so hard.
If you want a language for the future, i'll go probably for german and in the future learn some russian + an east europe language.
If you have other choices, choose vietnamese, indian, chinese or russian
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Tr Trapt
On 2008-05-14 17:50:15
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Well, initially I was thinking I should go with Esperanto because it's supposed to be easier to learn other languages if you have learned Esperanto first. But then I was told by a friend German is a lot like English so try that. But I read online somewhere that German declensions are almost impossible to learn for a non-native. Spanish on the other hand is used so much in the US that it would be a benefit to know, but having to memorize the conjugations of irregular verbs makes me a little reticent about Spanish. Then a friend at Berkeley told me he took Dutch and learned it pretty fast. French on the other hand has so many words congruent with English it's amazing, but the pronunciation rules scare me a bit lol
Anybody have some statistics or anything to help solidify any of this information?
-Trapt
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RE: Question about foreign languages
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Posted by Gamma Tr The Digital Poet
On 2008-05-14 01:08:25
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If you are looking for the easy ride then you will probably find that German is the easier of the set for a native english speaker.
Personally, when faced with this choice I would choose Japanese without a second thought. Being about to speak Japanese will be a *huge* advantage in many jobs.
Esperanto though?? Suprising that is even under consideration. Thought that idea died a long time ago.
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Can you speak Janaese now?
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Posted by Delta Tr dopel
On 2008-05-14 23:37:30
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I remember having a discussion with you some time ago about jobs in finance. That skill alone will get you at a good firm.
On 2008-05-14 01:08:25, The Digital Poet wrote
>If you are looking for the easy ride then you will probably find that German is the easier of the set for a native english speaker.
>
>Personally, when faced with this choice I would choose Japanese without a second thought. Being about to speak Japanese will be a *huge* advantage in many jobs.
>
>Esperanto though?? Suprising that is even under consideration. Thought that idea died a long time ago.
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