Easiest/Hardest Languages at Cornell?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>yeah, i know it's subjective. languages that i'm specifically thinking about are chinese and hebrew.</p>

<p>i've been looking through the course booklet at different languages offered. when i say hard, i mean both in terms of actual difficulty of the language and the difficulty of the class. for example, chinese is generally considered harder than spanish, but for all i know, spanish is harder than chinese at cornell because of difficult teachers, etc.</p>

<p>i'm pretty good at memorizing though i'm not sure about memorizing something i've never encountered before, namely working with different alphabets, and - especially for chinese - different tones. since i took latin, i've never had to be good with oral proficiency before either, so how hard is it, especially with hebrew and chinese? any recommendations for other languages.</p>

<p>personally, i honestly just want a fun and easy language to take.</p>

<p>i'm just looking for opinions on this for help - and no, i'm not a grade gruber who just wants to boost a gpa, but let's face it - if i do a difficult physics major, i'm probably not gonna want to be spending even more time with a difficult language - i just want something fun and leisurely, and maybe unique (side note - i took a year of spanish before latin and didn't really like it, though i thought it was easy)</p>

<p>i took 3 years of latin, but didn't take a 4th in senior year because my school doesn't offer it (they kind of duped me - they were originally gonna begin offering a 4th year but now they don't). would it be bad to continue latin after a year hiatus?</p>

<p>so i guess fun, leisurely, and unique are the operative words in languages that i may want to take - not hard, time consuming, and stressful - that's what physics is for :)</p>

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<p>Do u want to study abroad anywhere?</p>

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<p>While we're on the subject, I'm trying to major in classics- does anyone know how difficult the classes are in this area at Cornell?</p>

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<p>if you want to start studying a new language at cornell (not test out of whatever language you took in high school), how long will it take for you to satisfy the language requirement? thanks.</p>

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<p>Figgy: i have no idea if i want to study abroad anywhere</p>

<p>biggyboy: i know that you need either 11 credits or 1 course at the 200 level - so 2 to 3 semesters</p>

<p>but yeah, if someone could help me out that'd be great, and i'm sure a lot of other ppl are curious too</p>

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<p>Yeah, I'm also curious about this---I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, but it just so happens that all my teachers at school are semi-incompetent, so I really didn't learn much....</p>

<p>My mom can speak German, so I was thinking about that so I could practice with her...Is it hard for a beginner at Cornell? </p>

<p>I also thought about Japanese...anyone know about that?</p>

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<p>I haven't specifically taken Japanese at Cornell, but I know a few Cornell grads who did.</p>

<p>The difficulty level is definitely pretty high. Now, whether this is an issue of innate difficulty with Japanese itself, or if Cornell's department is just hard on their students, it's hard to say.</p>

<p>Japanese is hard pretty much everywhere.</p>

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<p>If you don't mind memorizing a couple hundred words and writing a couple of essays a week, then chinese isn't bad.</p>

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<p>I remember hearing on the tour that the Asian Languages department is really really good...</p>

<p>Asian languages definitely seem hard tho. Otherwise I would think about learning one. Writing out the characters themselves is an artform that needs to be practiced time and time again...cool but hard lol</p>

<p>Learning Chinese would Definitely give u a leg up in the business world</p>

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<p>can anyone comment on either russian or hebrew? those are the two i'm interested in. thanks.</p>

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<p>No matter what, I think languages at Cornell are harder than they are in high school. Language was one of the easier classes in high school, but here they are on par with science lab courses. Some languages, by virtue of the language we are starting from, English, require more labor than others. So chinese would take about 3 times as much time as, let's say, German.</p>