- Arabic (165 - 206 million speakers) - It sounds awesome. People would likely be as impressed that I spoke Arabic as they often are when they learn I speak Chinese. Arabic would open up a very large portion of the globe and new culture to me. It would be pretty difficult to learn on my own though. Also, there is a lot of variation between different kinds of Arabic, so that would be difficult.
- Japanese (120 million speakers) - Also sounds pretty cool. I've already done half the work by learning Chinese (Japanese uses a combination of Chinese characters and its own syllabaries which are kind of like alphabets). Learning Japanese, I would be moving more towards a 'Mr. Asia' sort of identity, which I guess isn't really a good or a bad thing. I could go to Japan or to sushi restaurants and order sushi, but I can't afford sushi anyway. Japan is one of the major players in Asia, although it is becoming less important with the rise of China, although Sino-Japanese relations are a major point of tension, so knowing both of these languages could be an asset. Japanese would probably be easier to teach myself than Arabic.
- Korean (65 million speakers) - Going along with the 'Mr. Asia' idea, learning Korean would also move me more towards Asian specialization. There is a lot going on between China and the Koreas as well. China is North Korea's best friend. Also, I would venture to say that South Korea is almost as important as Japan these days in East Asia. Korean also sounds pretty cool, a little less delicate than Japanese I think. And with just a syllabary, it is considerably easier to learn/read/write than Chinese or Japanese. I don't really like Korean food though. Also, I kind of want to learn the bigger languages (those spoken by more than 100 million people) first, and this doesn't meet that criteria.
- Hindi (180 million speakers, plus 40 million Urdu speakers) - In its spoken form, Hindi is virtually identicaly to Urdu which uses an Arabic-based script instead of Sanskrit like Hindi does. I don't know how hard Hindi is to learn, but it would open up another large part of the world with over 200 million speakers. And I love Indian food.
- Portuguese (155 - 177 million speakers) - Since Spanish and Portuguese are so close, learning Portuguese would almost be like a vacation. I'm not sure how useful Portuguese really is, although I think Brazil is growing more and more important these days, I don't really know that much about it though.
- Romanian (24 million speakers) - This would be virtually useless to me, but it sounds cool and how many people do you know who speak Romanian? I would guess not many.
- Russian (about 155 million speakers) - I've heard Russian has some difficult grammar structures, but for the most part this shouldn't be all that difficult to learn and it represents a signficant population. Also, Vodka is good, but borscht is not so good.
So please vote for which one you think I should learn next. Thanks!
14 comments:
Well, after much thought, I vote for Russian because I really like borscht. I just read Dwight's blog and your comment, "I love tofu" which is not at all the reaction I got when I would cook a lovely tofu dinner for you. So I think it's just a matter of maturing food tastes. I think you might also say, "I love borscht" if, as how you learned to love tofu, you would spend a year eating it.
I think China turned me into a tofu lover. But I doubt I could ever learn to love borscht.
Arabic, man...Arabic
Speaking of borscht...while I was waiting for the phones to start ringing while I was doing community service last night, the whole group was playing trivial persuit, and a question came up asking what borscht was, and I was the only one who could answer. All the other computer geeks and sports fans were able to answer all the other questions that I couldnt, but I got that one right. So, thanks mom for making it possible for me to kinda fit it! haha....anyway...about the languages. I think my vote would go for either russian or arabic cause they are both cool and usefull, and japanese and korean and stuff are too much like chinese. you've gotta mix it up a bit. i think that is more impressive if you can speak a bunch of really different languages!
PS I hate you cause Im still working on my first language. you bastard. I'll probably never be able to be fluent in a second even, and your moving on to your 3rd already. GOSH!! You have so many skills!
arabic then japanese. why is your brain so cool????????? *cries*
So I have the most votes for Arabic now, which is good because that's kind of what I was leaning towards too.
Arabic. GOSH.
Um, definitely Arabic, although Hindi/Urdu always sounds so cool, not really practical though.
I'm gonna do Arabic next, after I can reach the Dustin level of coolness with proficiency in two foreign languages. Not quite there yet. You should check out German just for fun though. Simply everyone in Europe will speak it one of these days.
Or you could try Denglish, the strange amalgam of Deutsch and English that I hear a lot over here.
oh yeah, and say hi to Mike for me. How is that international language policty class? I remember him being really excited to teach the last time I saw him over the summer.
I'll tell him hi. It's a good class, I would say it's one of my better classes this semester.
You're right, I haven't voted, so here are my thoughts: If you want to get rich, stick to Korean or other Asian languages. If you want to be an activist, take Arabic and go over there and try to straighten out that part of the world. If you want to be a spy, take Romanian, because you could go undercover there the best. I know a someone who is a junior at CSU majoring in Arabic and Spanish, if you want someone to practice with. And she's very cute, too.
Hmm, well I do like cute multi-lingual girls...
Depends Dustin - cute bi-lingual girls are one thing, but if you stick with either the Asian or eastern European languages, they might all look (and behave in bed) like gymnasts - how cool is that??)
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