Learning languages...your take on it.

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Well, lets say that you'll never go to another country ever. You stay in the country your currently in for life. Would you still bother to learn another language?

I ask because it is my last year of spanish, and I am getting more annoyed with the fact that I will never go to a spanish speaking country in my life, making this class completely useless to me.

so, say a group of spanish people come into your country, shouldn't they have to learn to speak your language, not a group of spanish enter your country, suddenly, your entire country must learn spanish?


(This holds true for any perosn(s) in any country(s)
 
This is the 21st century. You don't have to be in a country that utilizes a language predominantly to get a lot of use out of it. There's the internet, there's the potential for job opportunities where you might be required to be bilingual or multilingual depending on who you're dealing with.

The Spanish language won't be useless to you, I don't think. It's a hugely popular language in the western half of the world. You not only have Spain, but also nearly the entire south and middle Americas, as well as a growing percentage of North America.
 
This is the 21st century. You don't have to be in a country that utilizes a language predominantly to get a lot of use out of it. There's the internet, there's the potential for job opportunities where you might be required to be bilingual or multilingual depending on who you're dealing with.

The Spanish language won't be useless to you, I don't think. It's a hugely popular language in the western half of the world. You not only have Spain, but also nearly the entire south and middle Americas, as well as a growing percentage of North America.
Aye, however, if I visit a website, and I don't understand it, I just leave (most are useless to me.)
Now, my point may come from a biased hatred of my teacher, but I find myself wanting to visit such countries as-
Germany
England
Russia
Czech
Canada
Italy
Greece
Some arabic country
China
Japan
South Korea


unfortunately, my options are only Spanish and French...
And I WILL NOT go to South America or Spain or Mid America UNLESS there is an uber necessary reason (city in bubble during astroid collision)
 
Willie, why do you keep calling me a whore?


your right Willie, learning languages can be fun, if its a language you want to learn.
 
Because I love you that much Bow.


Also, **** the Canadian language. It's hard.
 
I tried that a while, I gave up.



I'm sticking with Antarctican from now on.
 
All I can say is that I am really bad at foriegn languages
 
I'd like to learn French.

Anyone know French? Is it hard?

No, in fact it's really easy to get the grasp of! When you learn it in school you will probably have to do a bit of conjugations and studying verb tenses and the whole lot. I liked French quite a bit.
 
I really want to learn Welsh! Either Welsh or Scots Gaelic! Maybe one day in the future I'll learn Anglo-Saxon or old Norse, something beautiful that I can serenade the ladies with :naughty:
 
Japanese is delicious. If i knew it, I would get a lot more use out of it.

Chinese is useful, especially in Australia.
 
Dude, just take your 2 years of foreign language and get over with it. Everyone has to do it.
 
I was a big fan of French up until I got to the subjunctive. Then I just started wanting to smash things.
Subjunctive is overrated. No one's going to bash you for not spelling 'j'anticipais que nous corrigeassions' properly, at least not in Quebec (can't speak for the French though).
 
I took 5 years of spanish, and now that im two years out of highschool, I can honestly say that I have forgotten almost everything i learned. I once bought a dvd to try and recover some knowledge of the language, but I openened up the package, put it on a stand by the tv, and its been there for 8 or 9 months now.

Also, wtf pesh? 2 years is all you needed? I had to take at least 4 years of it.
 
I took 5 years of spanish, and now that im two years out of highschool, I can honestly say that I have forgotten almost everything i learned. I once bought a dvd to try and recover some knowledge of the language, but I openened up the package, put it on a stand by the tv, and its been there for 8 or 9 months now.

Also, wtf pesh? 2 years is all you needed? I had to take at least 4 years of it.

To be fair, I took three years of foreign language, but that's only because I took a year of it when I lived in Belgium. I dunno if it was required, though.

I thought 2 years was the minimum in the state of Florida?
 
Yes, have you ever worked in a restaurant? I have worked in my fair share and a lot of times the cooks don't speak any English at all. It helps a lot to know Spanish, or at least enough to get around.
 
To be fair, I took three years of foreign language, but that's only because I took a year of it when I lived in Belgium. I dunno if it was required, though.

I thought 2 years was the minimum in the state of Florida?

I grew up in Connecticut, so i wouldnt know about that.
 
Well, there's your problem.

Although the Floridian educational system can go suck a cock and drown in piss and shit.

I'm looking at you, FCAT.
 
Yeah, it depends a lot on where you life, or if your country has a lot of international presence...

For instance, I know Japanese, English, Korean, and Chinese... (not very good at the last two) and that goes a long way if you're applying for a job involving trading or travel where I live.
 
Well, there's your problem.

Although the Floridian educational system can go suck a cock and drown in piss and shit.

I'm looking at you, FCAT.

Tell me about it. All they teach us it seems like is how to take that damned test. They even base teachers salaries on how well the students do. Not to mention the amount of money the school gets. You MUST pass it to pass the grade. If you dont, you fail, and are put remedial classes all year.

Everyone here hates it. I hate it. The teachers hate it. Spay the FCAT!
 
Also, **** the Canadian language. It's hard.

Ah, bite moose and fuddle-duddle you angishore, blinch yor 'ard feelins in yer fecky and bumbuy we can glom a brewskie, though they've drashed the stubbies:flame:. Now, what are you chuckleheads going on aboot?

I had to learn french in school. Wasn't too too hard.
 
Learning a language is kind of mind-expanding, not to mention useful.

I know a fair amount of German, and am currently learning Old English. That's functionally pretty much useless for communicating with anyone, but it's very interesting and allows me to study anglo-saxon literature, which is awesome.

Anglo Saxon rocks.
Someone else?
 
Anglo Saxon! My name originated from Anglo-Saxon[Garrett].

I'm going to be taking Spanish, since it's easier than french and I already know the basics. I do hate all languages, I really just don't want to bother learning them. I suppose being a commercial pilot means going around the world, and knowing other languages would be useful, I 'spose.
 
Well, lets say that you'll never go to another country ever. You stay in the country your currently in for life. Would you still bother to learn another language?

I ask because it is my last year of spanish, and I am getting more annoyed with the fact that I will never go to a spanish speaking country in my life, making this class completely useless to me.

so, say a group of spanish people come into your country, shouldn't they have to learn to speak your language, not a group of spanish enter your country, suddenly, your entire country must learn spanish?


(This holds true for any perosn(s) in any country(s)
You are correct. When in Rome do as the romans do. However, the numbers are getting a bit on the steep side, they are gaining power, and you are seeing the result.
 
Learning another language is good for de mind.

You break free of your normal routine of "talking", and actually begin to analyze general sentence structure, and become more aware of the different elements of a coherent sentence.
 
I loath learning another language. But I can talk French, Spanish or to a lesser extent, German, in an emergancy.
 
Languages are definitely a plus, I really regret not paying more attention and putting more effort to learn more languages when I was younger.

Aside from the whole communication aspect, it can help help increase salary / job potential, as employers will always prefer an employee who knows a second (or more) language over someone who only knows one if their assuming their CV / resume are the same.
 
I loath learning another language. But I can talk French, Spanish or to a lesser extent, German, in an emergancy.

Really?

I'm only in Spanish 1 atm, but i'm finding it to be a TONNE of fun! Definitely my favourite class.
 
Learning other languages is never a bad thing even if you don't think you'll use it in the future. I have limited Spanish proficiency, I know a little German and Russian and I'm taking Italian at the moment working towards fluency.
 
Learning other languages is never a bad thing even if you don't think you'll use it in the future. I have limited Spanish proficiency, I know a little German and Russian and I'm taking Italian at the moment working towards fluency.

Why Italian all of a sudden man? Stick with Russian <shakes you>
 
"Who needs english, I'm never going to England" - Homer Simpson.
 
I have a year of Spanish at secondary school and GCSE A*-level French - in other words I know a couple of profanities in either language and how to fake an accent, and that's where it ends. On top of that, I have learnt Japanese to an advanced level.

Back in my school days I was as skeptical as the OP as to how useful it is to be compelled to learn a language you have no personal interest in. Later, though, I had kind of an epiphany as to the nature of language itself, which helped me to understand why the act of learning a language is itself an act of expanding the mind, as others have said.

Take, for example, the word 'chair'. It evokes an image in your mind of what you understand a chair to be; the type of chair you commonly use, commonly see, the various types you've used throughout your life, etc etc.
Dwelling on the word for any length of time might remind you that any number of 4-legged contrivances for sitting on - from chairs in a school classroom to some antique chair behind a long dinner table - can be defined as 'chairs'.

Now imagine Hypothetical Language X, used in Country X. They are far away and have a completely alien culture to yours. They don't really use chairs - let's pretend they sit on big fancy cushions filled with feathers from a species of bird which is exclusive to their country, or they're nomads so they can't be bothered to carry big chairs around, or whatever. Nevertheless, Language X does have a word which translates into 'chair' in your language, because they occasionally use something to sit on, which you would define as a 'chair'.

But think - what they mean by 'chair' is different to what you would ever mean! Maybe their word for chair is derived from a word for 'hippo skull', or maybe it has a very negative connotation and is evolved from the words 'lazy bastard device' all added together. Therefore, whenever you and some dirty immigrant from Country X were talking together in English, there might be a faint miscommunication between the two of you whenever the word 'chair' cropped up. Unless you actually learnt Language X and spent some time using it (and preferably contextualising it by spending some time in Country X), you would never really know what that guy meant - and thought and felt - when he said 'chair'.

Now multiply that failure to understand by by hundreds or thousands, because every language has countless words which contain some kind of coded information about the culture of the country of origin, and which it is often difficult or near impossible to translate directly. In Japanese, for example, they have commonly-used words for what they consider to be the Japanese sense of aesthetics - Mono no aware and Wabi-sabi. Sure, the clumsy, literal translation could be just 'the pathos of things', but to understand what is really meant, the full translation would have to be the whole damn wiki page and then some. Same with 'sugoi', a word which has about 50 different meanings including 'amazing' and 'horrible', or the way the Japanese say 'try your best!' in the same way english-speakers say 'good luck!' A language is a codex of how a particular race or people interprets the universe, not just some pain-in-the-arse word puzzle where you have to find out which words to swap out for ones you can understand.

tl;dr: Language learning is important, yo.

Is Hungarian a fairly moderate challenge to learn?
I've actually heard tell that it's the toughest language in the world to learn :|
 
Really?

I'm only in Spanish 1 atm, but i'm finding it to be a TONNE of fun! Definitely my favourite class.

Yeah, but I learned French + Spanish since middle school. German I have just picked up basic things along the way.

But I just find the lessons so boring, esspically French (in high school anyway, since the teacher was so boring D: ).
 
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