Best language to learn?

[johnr]

My first week in college my tutor invited us all to tea at his house. Discussion turned to the best way to learn languages and his wife said: 'Have an affair with someone who speaks no English. That always keeps the motivation to communicate going.' Not tried it, but I'm sure it's better than linguaphone.

I learned Arabic by living with a family where no one spoke English. The kids loved having and idiot adult to make fun of and constantly test and correct. Knackering, but three months or so later, I found I was talking all day without the accompanying sound of giggling.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

what's french for 'freckle' ?

Le spot

 

[Fnaar]

My first week in college my tutor invited us all to tea at his house. Discussion turned to the best way to learn languages and his wife said: 'Have an affair with someone who speaks no English. That always keeps the motivation to communicate going.' Not tried it, but I'm sure it's better than linguaphone.

Sounds like tutor and wife had ulterior motives and perhaps a failing marriage that needed spicing up a bit...
I've done the affair thing...you learn a lot of prepositions, and get quite sweaty.

 

[mikebriscoe]

Spanish is easy to learn and to pronounce. Trouble is, it´s not really Spanish, but Castillian. Down here they speak Andaluz, which involves dropping every letter "s" from the end and middle of words, and speaking faster than the human jaw is designed to achieve.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Well, to be honest, if English is the international language of the airlines, then it's good enough for me.

 

[Creamcrackered]

Spanish is pretty useful because as well as Spain it opens up most of South America. I'm learning Russian - very difficult at first but quite satisfying when you are finally able to decipher the letters.

 

[Globalti]

Lots of conflicting advice here. I speak French fluently having lived there 3 years, as well as reasonable Spanish. In the end it comes down to your character and the character of the people you most admire - French suits me because I love the sound of it, it fits well within me and I love the French. Speaking their language allows you to penetrate beyond the shyness - often mistaken for xenophobia - and get to know the real French, who I find charming and very correct.

On the other hand I make no effort to speak Spanish because I find Spaniards noisy and irritating. (Lived there nearly 1 year as well)

So who do you most admire and would like to get to know?

 

[NickM]

I'm about to start learning Maori - don't suppose it's very useful though!

Excellent! I have (very rarely) seen/heard Maori Kiwis on the Tube in London. I'd love to see their faces if I could ask them how they find our weather in their own language

May I ask why Maori?

 

[pw2389]

My daughter speaks reads and writes some Japanese and when we went to China she could read quite a lot but not understand a single spoken word. Weird.

The Japanese 'borrowed' a lot of the Chinese characters (Buddhist monks going to Japan brought the Chinese writing system with them around 1000-1300 years ago), and whilst the characters kept their meaning they were given Japanese pronunciations. There's been some divergence in the intervening period but essentially they remain the same symbols.

 

[bonj2]

learn one of those languages that immigrants on the bus who yabber on in foreign to each other thinking people can't understand them talk, then you'll be able to secretly know what they're saying. Probalby arabic, polish or urdu or whatever.
There's also obviously a more serious reason to learn the language immigrants speak - there must be countless jobs for interpreters.

 

[asterix]

..
There's also obviously a more serious reason to learn the language immigrants speak - there must be countless jobs for interpreters.

Maybe the immigrants have already bagged the interpreter jobs? A lot of those I encounter already sprechen ze English.

 

[bof]

The Japanese 'borrowed' a lot of the Chinese characters (Buddhist monks going to Japan brought the Chinese writing system with them around 1000-1300 years ago), and whilst the characters kept their meaning they were given Japanese pronunciations. There's been some divergence in the intervening period but essentially they remain the same symbols.

It's not so much "pronunciations" as utterly different spoken words. The oddness is that if you read a sign in say Turkey out loud without speaking a word of Turkish, you would probably not be a zillion miles wrong in your pronunciation especially if you'd taken a few minutes to understand their spelling conventions - this applies to Cyrillic, Hindi etc. too if you take the time to bother to learn their alphabets - but if its not a word with a similar one in English, no idea what it says - China and Japan are the opposite.

 

[Andy in Sig]

Norwegian has got to be the easiest language on the planet although it's only spoken by about 4.6 million Norwegians. That said it would be a good language for reading heroic tales in. Icelandic would be better for that but it is allegedly a little more difficult. Danish is nice and it has the nearest sounds to English of any other language. The closest relative to English in terms of content is Frisian but that is spoken by relatively few people. Dutch is fun and German is a little harder but each of those opens up the other for you.

Spanish sounds barbaric but it is probably a good language to be cruel to animals in if you are that sort of pervert.

French is for girls and dubious men.

Anything oriental is for masochists. It would be more sensible to pay for a thrashing and then learn a language you have a chance at.

BTW I'm doing an MA in Applied Linguistics at the moment which lends no authority whatsoever to the above views but you probably recognise the truth when you see it.

 

[wafflycat]

How do they deal with mediocre French? Pretend they're deaf, is my experience. Germans at least will correct your errors, if not with a smile

I've had nothing but kindness and appreciation from any French folk I've at least made an attempt to speak French to. Indeed I've had French people say they really appreciate the attempt to speak their language - it's been a great icebreaker and made my visits to France interesting & fun. 2003 - last day of Tour de France. Did Randonnee du Centennaire on the morning of the final stage. Jean-Marie Le Blanc was greeting we cyclists (10000 of us) as we crossed the finish line. I spoke to him in French, thanking him for putting on the randonnee as it was a great experience. He spoke in French and then in English. What he said to me in English was that he appreciated me speaking to him in his own language.

 

[bof]

In most places I have been, once you get away from major tourist spots, people seem almost embarrassingly grateful when you manage to murder a couple of phrases in their language. The Dutch are the main exception I know of - they like the fact that its something relatively few outsiders understand and certainly learning the language I got little or no encouragement, often the opposite.