I wonder how many Antimooners were motivated to learn a certain language because it seemed challenging, and if so, what language or languages?
Foreign Languages as Personal Development
Chinese certainly looks challenging.
Unfortunately, I'm not up to the challenge.
Unfortunately, I'm not up to the challenge.
I see learning Chinese characters or Chinese calligraphy as a form of mental Tai-chi which really does a lot of good to your mind.
German isn't that challenging, but living in Germany is definitely. There are always language barriers, cultural shocks, misunderstandings...
When I gave up my religion i considered that as a personal development.
...most of the languages i have studied it has been basically for
personal development. only in one case, latin, have i learned a language
specifically for professional development. as for picking a language
because it seems "challenging," i think this would be a big mistake.
for example, if someone were to choose to learn to speak mandarin
because they thought it would be challenging, i think they might be
disappointed (now, learning how to write and read with chinese characters is a whole 'nother matter!). i've known lots of people who actually did that and ended up thinking that spoken mandarin is actually pretty easy. after studying latin for my job, and french, greek, german, and japanese for fun, i can tell you that in the end, the "challenging" aspects of each of these languages (at least the spoken forms) balanced out in the end, so that i could not honestly tell you which was more challenging. even when it comes to writing, there is some balancing: the greek alphabet is different from the latin, but is far more regular when used to write greek than the latin alphabet is for french. japanese kanji is quite challenging in the sheer number of symbols that must be learnt, but then again there is a huge payoff because so many of these symbols are shared with chinese orthography that you almost get 2 languages for the price of one!
personal development. only in one case, latin, have i learned a language
specifically for professional development. as for picking a language
because it seems "challenging," i think this would be a big mistake.
for example, if someone were to choose to learn to speak mandarin
because they thought it would be challenging, i think they might be
disappointed (now, learning how to write and read with chinese characters is a whole 'nother matter!). i've known lots of people who actually did that and ended up thinking that spoken mandarin is actually pretty easy. after studying latin for my job, and french, greek, german, and japanese for fun, i can tell you that in the end, the "challenging" aspects of each of these languages (at least the spoken forms) balanced out in the end, so that i could not honestly tell you which was more challenging. even when it comes to writing, there is some balancing: the greek alphabet is different from the latin, but is far more regular when used to write greek than the latin alphabet is for french. japanese kanji is quite challenging in the sheer number of symbols that must be learnt, but then again there is a huge payoff because so many of these symbols are shared with chinese orthography that you almost get 2 languages for the price of one!