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Learnin a third...
Hello, everybody, My name is Isaac. I moved from the Dominican Republic to the states about three years ago. When I first arrived I was afraid that I was never going to be able to lose my Latin accent, but fortunately and thanks to websites like antimoon I have accomplishes my goal.
Everybody I talk to thinks I was born in the US and I'm really happy about it; not only because I makes me feel satisfied, but also because in the process of learning English I've also learned tons about phonetics, which has given me an understanding of English and other languages that most native speakers don't have.
Learning English was very hard. I went through a lot of confusion. I had to learned the accent of the area where I live in order not to sound that way, because my objective was to sound more standard, of course.
But now I want more. I figured that since I already speak two languages; Spanish and English, and the range of sounds that I can pronounce has improved greatly, in addition to the fact that I can read many systems of phonetic notation, It shouldn't be hard for me to learn a third language.
The problem that I'm having is that I don't know what way to go. I like Italian and French, and I'm also interested in asian languages.
What language do you think would be easier for me to learn?
Has any of you guys learn a third language? Which? How hard was it?
If you were in my shoes ,what would be your choice?
Besides Spanish and English, what language do you think is more convenient to learn in this so-called globalized world?
Congratulations on learning English, Isaac. Of course if you choose to learn another language it's up to you and it really depends on what you're doing it for--are you just doing it for fun or are you thinking of entirely practical reasons? Maybe both?
I'm a native English speaker and I started learning Spanish about 10 years ago when I was 12. After I realized how much fun I had had in learning Spanish I decided to look at some other languages. I worked on French since it was pretty similar (being a Romance language) and then I decided I wanted to do something completely different so I did Korean, which was great because it satisfied my urge to do a non-Indo European language. This past year I've been taking German because I wanted to take a language which was in the same language family as my own native one.
I think in my experience I really just go for what interests me at the moment and you may find that if you look around at the basics of different languages (you can find a lot of basic intros to languages online, of course) you'll find one you may want to study further.
Good luck and have fun :D
W hyMandarin Chinese Presley?
Because a sixth of the world's population speaks Mandarin Chinese as their native language, and another 300 million speak it as their second dialect?
Plus, China is the world's third largest economy by nominal GDP if you include Taiwan (also Mandarin-speaking, you know). By purchasing-power-parity GDP, China is already the world's second largest economy.
And besides, I'm Chinese, so of course I hope that everyone would learn my language ^^
As for myself,
I speak Chinese and English natively, I've learnt French at school, and I'm just beginning with Japanese.
To be honest, Mandarin Chinese may be hard to learn because the language is separated into three rather different systems I suppose: writing, common pronunciation and local pronunciation.
There are three reasons for learning Chinese as a foreign language, as far as I'm concerned: (a) You have no choice but go to China in the foreseeable future for a living, (b) you are fascinated by Asian cultures/arts/history... or (c) you had been looking forward to having a feeling of discouragement. (Two difficulties for Chinese language learning: first of all, I think you have to get used to drawing each word like a picture instead of writing Romanic phonetic symbols that you have familiar with. Second, you are required to use 4 (or 5) different pitches to distinguish words from words.)
Anyway, I agree with Kirk. Kirk's advice sounds cool to me. Just go after some language that may interest you.
One more thing:
I learned French as my fourth language 5 years ago. I don't like it, to be honest. I learnt it because I was reading for a module of 18th-19th world literature at that time. Today, I have completely forgotten how to speak French instead of some common greetings, such as "Bon Jour"!
Rolandkun, thanks a lot for your analysis! I want to clear up a point, though...
"You have to get used to drawing each word like a picture instead of writing with Romanic phonetic symbols"
--> Actually, Chinese characters, like alphabet-formed words, are made up of a few "parts" that are common to most characters. It's just that sometimes, these "parts" have no relationship to the pronunciation whilst sometimes they actually do. Yes, you do have to memorise which "parts" form each character and there are many more "Chinese character parts" (around 200?) than there are Roman letters. However, memorising each character as a combination of parts is still much less daunting than memorising each character as an individual picture. Don't you agree?
I have a few more things to say...
"Different writing, common pronunciation, local pronunciation"
--> Yes, Chinese writing and pronunciation are VERY different from those of European languages. However, that's the challenge and fun of learning a non-related language!
Also, there IS a "standard Mandarin pronunciation" and if you get it right, around three-quarters of the Chinese will be able to understand you. So... that's not so alarming after all either.
"Today, I have completely forgotten how to speak French..."
--> For how long did you learn French? My impression is that if you learn a language for one or two years and don't use it, you're likely to forget it because (1) 1-2 years isn't enough time, and (2) if you didn't bother to study the language for a few more years, most likely you weren't interested in it and if you're not interested in something, you'd never learn it well.
Well, I learnt French for five years! At the beginning, I didn't like it too much and learnt it because I didn't have a choice (Japanese and German, which I liked, weren't offered at my school). However, from the third year onwards, I began to like French and my French kept improving and improving! And now, after two years of not using French at all, I can still read Le Monde and hold a fairly decent conversation in the language.
<<Also, there IS a "standard Mandarin pronunciation" and if you get it right, around three-quarters of the Chinese will be able to understand you. So... that's not so alarming after all either.>>
You may be right. Majority of Chinese people will be able to understand you if you're capable Mandarin Chinese speakers. Nevertheless, this situation is also applied to English, I guess. Many people in Asia seem to understand English very well, and if they don’t, they will try their utmost to compensate for this loss. The best example can be found is Hong Kong, as far as I can tell. If you're a traveler to Hong Kong, you can speak English all the time and no worry of being misunderstood.
<<And now, after two years of not using French at all, I can still read Le Monde and hold a fairly decent conversation in the language.>>
Cool! I have learnt French for two and half years and then discarded it away for about two years as I got my BA in arts. I thought I could handle some basic conversation with French speakers with no difficulty. It turns out that I was wrong, completely. I met a French guy a few months and didn't know what he was saying to me during a rather formal conversation. In the end, we all spoke English.
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