<p>Would doing a double major (chinese and arabic) be a good idea at McGill, or would it be too much for one to handle? I'm a bit confused at what the distribution requirements are and how much I'm going to be able to take. What is a typical freshman courseload? What are language classes like? How much freedom do you have to choose classes or are there a lot of different requirements to fulfill? Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, pretty much if you are in arts you are required to either
double major
major and 2 minors
or
Honors (think of it as a super major on one subject involving a honors thesis)</p>
<p>and there is joint honors which is like a double major+ thesis.</p>
<p>I'm not a student, but ide say really a double major involving arabic and chinese is doable (although there is not chinese major, there is East Asian studies though...study east asia (you can have a largely china specialty though))</p>
<p>They are definitely some of the toughest languages for native english speakers to learn, but doable nonetheless. You will surely be putting in a bit more time though than people in romance language majors.</p>
<p>I personally will be doing either a major in east asian studies and linguistics, or east asian studies and philosophy, with an EAS specialization in Japanese.</p>
<p>However, i for sure plan on taking through upper advanced levels of italian and spanish too, and plan on taking lots of french and chinese as well. (and would even like to fit in some ancient greek, korean, and russian as well)</p>
<p>Here's some good info though if you dont know much about classes and their credits. The average person takes 15 credits per semester. 12-18 is full time, and i think if you show exceptional merit after your first year, you might be able to study 19+ credits per semester if your counselor believes you are up for it.</p>
<p>To graduate in 4 years you need to take 15 credits per semester for a total of 120 credits to graduate.</p>
<p>One major is almost always 36 credits ( at least in arts faculty), honors is sixty, and joint honors is sixty.</p>
<p>Nearly every language class I believe is 3 credits, except for 1st and second year Japanese,Chinese,Korean, and arabic are all 4.5 credits pre class (3rd year + in these are all 3 credits each).</p>
<p>Supposedly you cannot take more than 1 begginer level language your first year, however you could probably negotiate this with your course adviser.
If you did, you would have 9 language credits per semester (4.5 chinese, 4.5 arabic) so you would likely have a 4 class semester your first year (pretty much every other class is 3 credits, so in your case 4.5+4.5+3+3=15)</p>
<p>If you are interested in the languages and cultures, go ahead and do it. Better to do something you love then look back on your education regretting not having done something differently.</p>
<p>wow. have fun learning chinese. i'm chinese and even for me it's a pain in the ass :P</p>
<p>do you speak it at home?</p>
<p>What's the worst part? Writing?</p>
<p>ya i speak it at home, but writing (not typing) is so hard. I remember back in grade one when each time we read a story we had to copy down 10 words over and over again for 10 times. -.-" wow, good times. But I guess you guys don't really need to write. Just learn your pinyin (if you know what that is haha), as long as you can type chinese you're probably set.</p>
<p>Well. BIGTWIX. You took Japanese language courses before right? Most probably you have learned quite a lot of Chinese characters.</p>
<p>what? er... high school japanese is a joke, at least at my school. and they generally don't learn much kanji at all. even if they do, its like >1% of chinese characters.</p>
<p>Yeah, i know probably around 350.</p>
<p>As for Japanese at my school, it isnt really hard for me (but i got my start this summer at UChicago, which, for lack of better words is brainrape). I got an A in Japanese 3 both terms, and i have an A in Honors Japanese 4 now. But I guess for most people at my school it is really hard (harder than the spanish and french classes at least...i took through spanish 4 at school). Like i have 3-4 kids in my class all with like 4.3+ gpas who have only gotten Bs in Japanese.</p>
<p>We dont learn really that much kanji though. I mostly learn it on my own. My class was probably taught like 80 characters in japanese 3 last semester. But we have tons of essay writing and crap, and tons of presentations (every 2-3 days really).</p>
<p>I dont think it is that hard memorizing them, but memorizing words or anything that you write is generally really easy for me.</p>
<p>And yes, syzonin, i know what pinying is. My roomate in chicago this summer was in beginner chinese.</p>
<p>Ide say the worst part about Kanji is how the sound always changes when combined with other kanji (like in words that are a combination of 2-5 different ones), although you start to see some trends after a while. And once you learn stroke orders, it becomes easier to memorize them too.</p>
<p>And what is always nice is that alot of similarly looking kanji have similar, if not equal pronunciation when combined with other kanji.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ide say the worst part about Kanji is how the sound always changes when combined with other kanji (like in words that are a combination of 2-5 different ones)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I thought Japanese wasn't a tonal language? Or do you mean the sound changes completely? e.g. "su" turns to "zu" (Of course, that example probably never happens -- I don't study the language -- but I think I make sense?)</p>
<p>Or did you mean it changes in Chinese? If so, I think the use of "kanji" sort of threw me off XD The term for characters in Chinese is "hanzi"</p>
<p>hey i like you, skramata. you actually know the proper term to chinese characters. maybe there's hope for you afterall. :P
nah, i definitely think you can do it if you try hard enough. i'd suggest taking time to get to know some chinese students (plenty on campus) and try to converse with them to improve your oral skills. Or you can convince them to do your homework if you get really busy :D
i know nothing about arabic. out of curiosity, what career follows linguistics degrees?</p>
<p>Im talking about Japanese.</p>
<p>Correct, japanese is not tonal.</p>
<p>Here's an example of what i mean
oshieru= to teach, oshi is written with the kanji that means teaching. eru is written with alphabet letters (japanese ones though)</p>
<p>When combined with the kanji for room, *<strong><em>su, the word says
kyo</em></strong>*u= teaching room (classroom)
So the sound that the first kanji made changes when combined with another.</p>
<p>Generally there is usually going to be 1 common pronunciation in combination but it can change. </p>
<p>Such as time-toki and interval/space-aida (usually means during or between when used alone)</p>
<p>Together when combined it is pronounced Jikan, meaning a period of time (ichijikan, ichi=1, in this case it means 1 hr.)</p>
<p>However, the second kanji has other pronunciations. When combined with the kanji for the verb "to be", pronounced I (ee) in this case, the end result is pronounced
ima (instead of Ikan) and this means living room</p>
<p>Generally if you know what you are doing or know the word, you should be able to get the pronunciation even if you dont know what the actual word means. However, not even the japanese are always correct in pronunciation. </p>
<p>Just the other week i asked my teacher about a certain word and what it meant. She read it aloud, but it wasnt the book reading, so i told her that she read it wrong (kindly, i wasnt insulting), and i told her what the book said. She agreed with the book and she was wrong (although she got the meaning of the word right)</p>
<p>In chinese, one character always has the same pronunciation, correct me if im wrong.</p>
<p>oh and the letters that were censored were the sh word</p>
<p>And Skramata, im not sure exactly what it is called, but sometime words also change like you said (su-zu). There's some specific term for it. But basically it is the changing of more pallatial sounds to harder sounds.
t-d
h-p
h-p
s-z
shi-ji
k-g</p>
<p>"In chinese, one character always has the same pronunciation"
wrong, my first name actually has two pronouncations. but it doesn't happen too often. however there are many characters with the same pronouncation, so sometimes it's hard to know which one to use.</p>
<p>Thats great that McGill allows you to study so much of the things you want instead of cluttering yourself up with core.</p>
<p>thanks syzonin. But yeah, in Japanese every character usually has at least 3 pronunciations, and they can have many more.</p>
<p>And usually for writing names they have their own pronunciation that isnt used in any words ever.</p>
<p>O_O Dude, BIGTWIX, and I though that learning to speak Japanese was actually pretty simple (reading it, on the other hand, is ridiculous). I'VE BEEN LIED TO.</p>
<p>syzonin: Ah, my likability programming has proven fruitful.</p>
<p>So we have Japanese whose characters change sounds, and we have Chinese whose sounds belong to multiple characters. Oh, Asia <3</p>
<p>Also, tons of different kanji have similar pronunciations.</p>
<p>And reading is generally hard, as well as speaking. There are no tones which is always good though, but it's way harder than learning to speak spanish cause the grammar in japanese is probably the farthest away you could ever get from english grammar.</p>
<p>ya we can definitely make the conclusion that roman languages are easier than asian ones. english spelling is pretty messed up though.</p>
<p>So is English grammar. I always feel bad for non-native speakers who have to conjugate our verbs.</p>