<p>all right! i'm stuck in deciding which language to learn:</p>
<p>ancient greek, arabic, latin, spanish (resume after two years of rest), italian</p>
<p>i'm leaning toward the first two, but ancient greek and arabic is like ten thousand times ten thousand more difficult than the other three.</p>
<p>i just realized that arabic is WAY MORE difficult than chinese. this is without question!!!!!! ohhhhh!!!! woe to me!! arabic has cases!!!!!! genitive, accusative, jussive, etc. the torture... </p>
<p>ancient greek, i already knew, has cases. most indo-european languages are inflective.</p>
<p>^yeah... that's why I suggested italian. even a slight bit of spanish knowledge should make the italian easier. and that way you're not just going back to something you already did a couple years ago.</p>
<p>Italian is one of those languages you pick up after you have learned more important languages and you're just looking to pick something up. Spanish, French, and Portuguese are all more economical and practical languages to be fluent in first before taking up Italian.</p>
<p>Agreed with SilverClover...Spanish all the way. You already have a head start and it is so useful...not to mention an absolutely beautiful language.</p>
<p>Learn a language you can see yourself using. Im going to start taking Japanese classes because I want to watch anime without subtitles. Lame? Probably. However I studied like 4 years of Spanish and never got really far since the only times where I used it was in class.</p>
<p>How do you just "realize" that arabic is way harder than chinese? Since when was that a true statement? You cant just realize that it is harder, you have to take both and see which one is for yourself. There is one thing i can tell you is that alot of people would debate till their grave against your statement about arabic being harder than chinese.</p>
<p>also, what is your first second language? considering you are asking to take a second foreign language.</p>
<p>Yeah lixuelai! Compared to students of Spanish, we Japanese students are language-devoted fanatics! Btw lixuelai, have you also studied Chinese? I'm not deep into it and I'm trying to figure out your username without characters or pinyin.</p>
<p>And yeah, Chinese is cool. I might get back to it. But it takes forever to learn anything in that language. I learn vocabulary much faster and retain it longer in Japanese.</p>
<p>wow...italian. the thing is, italian is so freakin easy (especialy after learning french) that i don't see getting respect from people for knowing a romance language. usually when a person learns a romance alnguage he/she usually knows quite a few : italian, spanish, french. it's so typical.</p>
<p>yes, italian is most beautifully spoken language, and it's artistic with all the influence in vocal music, found in a sheet music...but italian will be my last choice if i learn that ancient greek or arabic is impossible languages...</p>
<p>okay, i over-reacted. arabic isn't the most difficult language in the world. but i panicked when i saw "cases", "nominative", "genitive", "jussive", "accusative", etc. </p>
<p>as for spanish. i gave up on it because it was so incredibly boring. but now, it actually sounds pretty cool and i figure that it will amke me a masculine macho.</p>
<p>Your rekindling interest in Spanish is ephermal I guarentee you'll remember why you hated it when you start taking it again. I did when I visited Mexico,...it was kinda cool but listening to the Spanish class on the boat bored me all over again.</p>
<p>Yeah, I no longer am impressed when people say "I KNOW 4 ROMANCE LANGUAGES! W00T!" Cheaters...It only impresses me when they say..."I know, French, Japanese or Chinese, Vietmanize, Arabic, Finnish, German, Ancient Mayan, and a few other languages from different famillies.</p>
<p>yes, i am COMPLETELY un-impressed when people say "I know french, italian, spanish and portuguese." also unimpressed when people say "i know german, latin, etc."</p>
<p>but i am impressed with a person who says "i read in ancient greek" or "i read and speak arabic", chinese, zulu, mongolian, turkish...</p>
<p>You know how I chose my second language? First, it couldn't be offered too early in the morning. Then, that having nixed my first choice, I went with the thing that I thought would flatter my advisor. This is a ridiculous way to choose a language, but since it was all the same to me it made as much sense as anything. It worked out just fine (I ended up in German).</p>
<p>I guess my point is, if you really can't decide, why not avoid getting all worked up about it now and instead wait and see what susses out best given your schedule.</p>
<p>i wouldnt say spanish is useless. I have taken it for 4 years (im in Highschool right now) and realized what a waste it was. I dont think it is a waste because it sucks, but i think it is a waste because i do not ever plan on living or doing business in latin america or spain. I want to work for the government in international politics, and if i had to chose places to do specific work, i would choose england, japan, and china/chinese speaking countries. So I do plan on taking japanese in college (which i am also taking now) as well as Chinese, and maybe even french since i would like to go to McGill University. Maybe i wont take french though.</p>