What Languages Are You Currently Studying?

Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:39 am GMT
What languages are you studying currently and why?
L'italofilo   Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:46 am GMT
I'm a Chinese who speaks Mandarin, now I'm learning Japanese(main language), French & Italian (odditional language).
Gues   Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:58 am GMT
Spanish and Latin. I think that Latin provides you a good basis for learning Romance languages (specially advanced vocabulary) and also it's important culturally speaking.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:07 am GMT
Latin may provide a basis for learning Romance Languages, but so does any modern romance language. With the additional plus that modern ones are actually useful...

As for me, I'm learning Classical Sanskrit.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:33 am GMT
I know that Sanskrit is beloved by many people who study languages like Latin and ancient Greek. Are you studying it for pleasure or another reason? Okay, frankly, I'm curious. What is the charm of Sanskrit?
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:48 am GMT
<<What is the charm of Sanskrit? >>

Isn't Sanskrit one of the most morphologically complex of all languages, with stupendously elaborate inflections?
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:53 am GMT
Is that the answer or another question? I have no idea. One of the local polyglots suggested it to me recently.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:58 am GMT
<<Is that the answer or another question?>>

I was suggesting that perhaps the main charm of Sanskrit is its overwhelming complexity. I suppose learning Sanskrit is like climbing Mount Everest.

Complexity isn't my cup of tea, however, nor is mountain climbing.
Rolando   Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:13 am GMT
learning & Debating on French or Italian... But I will stick with French, I don't know why if French and Spanish have nothing in common... dispite the fact that that they are both from Latin & My mother toung is Spanish, I see no similarities between French & Spanish, nothing what so ever. But I would love to be fluent in Spanish. :-)


Anyone elaborate on any similarities between French & Spanish...? Thanks in advance.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:04 pm GMT
For me, the charm of Sanskrt is finding those Indo-european similarities with my language.
Skippy   Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:10 pm GMT
I just started trying to pick up Dutch, but once the semester's over I hope to start learning some Polish (and maybe Hungarian, if I'm feeling up to the challenge).
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:15 pm GMT
Rolando,

There are many similarities between French and Spanish. I speak both of them and a smattering of Italian. They are romance languages, IE languages. These languages are as easy as pie compared to some of the other languages out there. Don't be afraid of French. The sounds will probably be the toughest for you if you are native to Spanish. Just listen a lot, learn IPA (if you don't know it already) and relax.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:18 pm GMT
"I just started trying to pick up Dutch, but once the semester's over I hope to start learning some Polish (and maybe Hungarian, if I'm feeling up to the challenge). "

How do you pick your languages, Skippy? By sound? For the challenge?
Have to choose them for school? Just curious.

I feel a little sad that I will probably never learn Finnish or Hungarian. I have too many languages now and I never meet Finns or Hungarians.
Guest   Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:24 pm GMT
"For me, the charm of Sanskrt is finding those Indo-european similarities with my language. "

I can accept that. That's a good reason. I love IE languages. The more you know, the more you understand how they are connected. Believe it or not, knowing romance languages has helped me understand Russian conjugations. There are "m" or "n" sounds in the first person plurals of French, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The second person plural of Russian (present tense) reminds me of Italian. Maybe others will disagree, but it really speeds things up if you can make (even tangential connections).
Xie   Sun Feb 24, 2008 3:17 am GMT
I don't know what Russians think, but I'm quite sure that the Germanic and Romance peoples (if I may recall) have the best advantages to start with. While it could be fantastic to get down with the hurdles in learning Sanskrit or Latin, you'd probably enjoy very soon, when you are native in any Germanic/Romance language, such that you have a lot of cognates to rely on for a bunch of languages. I'm afraid that few people, except the most enthusiastic students, would ever want to tread the path of learning a language with virtually no cognates.

How convenient it would be to learn a bunch of Romance languages in a decade, with a full-time job, using an awful lot of cognates - for simple words, and even idioms - and claim you know multiple languages with huge discounts. I wish I were such a native - then I wouldn't have to struggle all the time with English and German and French words, along with an awful lot of cultural notes I never understand. Such strength in words, I think, is far more important than knowing philosophy of your own culture/country/native language alone.