Know:
English
Arabic
Learning:
Spanish
Want to learn:
French
Italian?
German?
Turkish?
Idk I’m too indecisive
So I'm not a native English speaker. My native language is Chinese, I only speak Mandarin but grew up around 2 other dialects so I can understand most things in those 2 dialects but never spoke them.
Because of unexpected immigration to an English-speaking country, I had to learn English to the same level as my native peers from scratch. My parents are not fluent in English so I've never spoken with them in English. When I started school (which was completely in English except the 2nd language lessons), I basically didn't know any words except yes/no, numbers 1-13? and half-knew the names of the months. It took a few months for me to understand what was going around me in school and an entire year before I switched to thinking in English and dared to speak English in front of other people, then it took about 5 more years of dedicated efforts, regular tutoring, and daily immersion in school to catch up with the natives in terms of my grades. I got way better at English than my native language (but still struggle with things like prepositions and basic expressions in English sometimes because I lack native-level exposure from family and early childhood).
Throughout this time I also had to learn Chinese as a second language in school for 10 years, continued talking to my family members completely in Mandarin, and retained the ability to sound completely native while being at least 90% fluent while speaking in Mandarin. I notably struggle when I try to read some literary texts in Chinese with more sophisticated language, but I can understand everything else in Chinese without any translations into English. I can't really express *all the things* I want in Chinese whereas I can in English, so I could improve on that, but I just don't have a lot of interest and motivation to do that at the moment.
I mean, the languages that I already know are objectively really useful in today's world, and give me a huge advantage in the breadth of content and people I can interact with.
The reason I wanted to learn some Russian (other than it showing up on my feed a lot) is that I wanted to explore and understand another world of how things can be expressed, in a way that is notably different from both of the languages that I know. I don't want to learn a language just for the sake of being able to say that I learned "a" language or attained some level of fluency. As someone who likes history, it helps me understand more about parts of a culture and various historical eras that are not very accessible where I'm from. And as someone who likes (English) literature (which I took in school) and wants to explore ways to express myself, it can be very helpful in broadening my horizons. I will be able to read and appreciate some of the nuances in the original texts of some literary works, learn another mode of poetry and finally appreciate a whole other world of poetry. I do not expect myself to get anywhere remotely close to native levels of fluency because I have done that with English and know how much time, effort, resources, opportunities, and regular exposure it took, which I don't have in my life for another language.
I have no use for Russian in my daily life except for understanding more content on social media (yes a lot of the music/art from independent creators that appear on my feed are either in Russian or have a lot of Russian comments, I have to translate them, it's annoying, sometimes the translation is wonky or I don't even have the option to translate) and maybe swearing at things with a more variety. There is no notable Russian-speaking community in my small Asian country. I don't have the time *or budget* to go out of my way to actually practice speaking with real people.
But being able to get anywhere in a new language that's not too similar to either of the languages I know is even more difficult than I thought. I watched one (1) video introducing some basic grammatical conventions in Russian and wanted to crash out (I can overcome this but I realize that it's going to take a lot more getting used to than I expected). It is a lot of dedicated work which I have to be serious about, not expect myself to get anywhere with random bouts of curiosity and eagerness. I already know the alphabet but it's not like it's going to be of much help in the other things. Most importantly, I study something pretty intensive (and unrelated) in university and have a lot of other things to do in my life.
Should I just give up, focus on other things in life, and be happy staying within the languages I'm already fluent in? I could spend the time getting to a C2 in my native language and being a better bilingual.
I want to get a certificate in a language while I’m in college (sounds helpful in an increasingly conected global economy) and these were the ones with the most readily accessible requirements (ie. I can get started on them sooner). Which should I choose?
Reasons for each:
Dutch: Close to my native language
Russian: 150 million speakers worldwide
Polish: Less speakers than Russian, but uses the latin alphabet.
Swedish: Less speakers than dutch, but would help make dutch even easier.
So, I'm already learning Spanish (live in Texas, it'll be very handy) but I'd like to learn another one alongside it that's not a Germanic/romance language
Each of these languages have their pros and cons to me but I find myself going back and forth over which one to choose
Mandarin and Hindi both have insanely large populations that speak it but the cultures are both interesting
Russian would be interesting to know considering my genealogical roots
And Arabic speaking cultures are interesting and the script is the prettiest
Maybe one that's not as common of a second language in the US so it might help with job searches in the future/able to help groups that need more translators
Hello everyone,
As the title suggests, I’m looking for your guys’ opinion on the choice between German and Russian in terms of usefulness in Europe. For more context, I’m a trilingual Lebanese who speaks English, Arabic, and French. In addition, I’m a finance student targeting top European business schools for my masters and looking to live and work in Europe post-grad.
The reason why I am not jumping straight to German is that I’ve heard from a lot of natives and learners that the language isn’t particularly useful due to the fact that most Germans know and in fact do speak English while conducting business.
As for Russian, I find it a very cool language and I know there’s a decent sized diaspora in Western Europe, however I don’t know if I that’d allow me to reap any benefits of knowing Russian.
Lmk your guys’ thoughts and feel free to suggest any other languages you feel may be more beneficial to acquire given my background.
I currently am fluent in English, Spanish, and French and am currently learning Portuguese and can speak it at a conversational level.
I want to learn Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Navajo, Italian, and many more languages. However, I don't know if i could or should do that, and if I were to, what order should I do it in? I have family and a professor who speak chinese, and I have a very close friend who speaks Japanese and a lot of mangas (and I like watching JoJos & other Japanese shows). And my dad spoke some Russian to me growing up, usually when he was jokingly mad so I'm good at insulting in Russian. I have extremely basic skills in these three, but know nothing of the rest. What should I do? How should I go about this? Is it possible? Should I do it? How would I start?
family is gujarati, i understand a lot but cant speak. duolingo and most apps only have hindi. is it smarter to do hindi first because of resources, or go straight to gujarati with worse resources? anyone done this with another small family language