<p>I'm a native Korean speaker and fluent in English (can speak both equally well fluently), took spanish for 4 years and pretty decent. I might be learning a fourth language in college.
Any suggestions? I'm thinking about Japanese Chinese or Russian</p>
<p>Japanese - I really like the culture and have many Japanese friends/those interested in Japan
Chinese: largest population, quickly growing econ (i might go into financial area)
Russian: Large population, many teachers/friends are russian...Basically English is germanic, Korean is Altaic (but small in population so another altaic language like japanese is fine), Spanish is Romantic. I'm missing a Slavic language here</p>
<p>I heard if you learn Russian you can learn Greek easily (or at least reading since I know a russian teacher who can read Greek but can't speak it)</p>
<p>not to be racist in anyway or something but i think since your korean you would find chinese and japanese easier but if you want to take the challenge, i say russian</p>
<p>Besides US, UK, Korea, and any spanish-speaking country what country is known for banking/financial institutions?</p>
<p>@thatscool thanks for ur response…it doesnt seem racist at all i think chinese/japanese might be easier than the others since I know some chinese characters from learning korean (around 65% of korean words are derived from some sort of chinese)</p>
<p>Completely wrong, Manhattan. Speaking Chinese is astronomically easier than learning to read or write it. Ask anyone who’s currently learning it or is a native speaker.</p>
<p>Tokyo is a major financial center and Bejing is definitely on the rise to the top. Moscow is also start to flex its muscle.</p>
<p>Argh! China, Japan, and Russia are all pretty important, this is a hard decision. China is probably the most important and has the brightest future though.</p>
<p>Good luck on arabic Manhattan, I’m a native and its still a bit challenging (more so than english) to master. I’ve lost most of my ability in the language though.</p>
<p>This site shows the leraning curve in japanese and chinese as far as grammar and pronunciation go. Is this data accurate with anyone’s personal experience? I have some chinese friends and pronunciation is pretty difficult. I often end up saying something totally different from what I expected LOL</p>
<p>I think Chinese is easier to learn since its alphabet is similar to English structure. Japanese is closer to German. Japanese is harder depending on the person. Learning the characters is tough since they three different alphabets that which one of them include the Chinese characters.</p>
<p>Chinese people are 1/6 of the world’s population. While you may not be able to learn all of the dialects, having Chinese at your disposal along with the other three languages you now wield would probably preclude you from unemployment. Whatever you decide though, you simply cannot lose.</p>
<p>haha no. Chinese has thousands and thousands of characters. There is no alphabet, only a romanization system and a syllabary for children that hardly anyone uses.</p>
<p>Chinese is more similar to English in that the grammar is less about declensions and conjugations and more about word order. What makes speaking it hard is learning the tones, but Mandarin has a much simpler tonal structure than Cantonese or, say Vietnamese. </p>
<p>Japanese is similar to Korean in that it has levels (formal/informal; polite/normal). It is like German in that words get endings added onto them. Otherwise, the grammar isn’t really the same at all.</p>
<p>Russian is derived from the Greek alphabet, but I don’t know that knowing Russian makes it any easier to read Greek since the alphabets aren’t really the same.</p>
<p>You should try to learn Mandarin Chinese because its the world’s most spoken language, and China has is growing to be a world financial powerhouse. Russian will be hard since it has a new form of writing Cyrillic, but if your up for the challenge take it. </p>
<p>Since you do speak English try German. There from the same Germanic family and many words are similar you might have a very easier time learning it than Russian. </p>
<p>but your set you speak English which is the “Global lingua franca” you have so many opportunities with English. You also speak a little Spanish which is another plus since Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages, and many Spanish speaking countries are getting up there. And last but not least you speak Korean, Korea is very important financial country, you have many opportunities there. So your all set with what you do know. You can use that fourth language to brag a little.</p>
<p>I found this on the internet about Russian</p>
<p>“According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers,requiring approximately 780 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. It is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a “hard target” language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy.”</p>
<p>I cast my vote for Japanese. I’m takeing it, and it is… hard… to say the least. But fun at the same time. Even better if you can get a good sensei to teach you :P</p>
<p>lol i started last fall I don’t know any other language (besides english :P). <em>shrugs</em> tho it would be fun to add in another asain one afterwards, but who knows?</p>
<p>I think Korean is only effective only in Korea/areas with considerable Krn population (LA) and it’s not like Korea has a huge population like China or even Japan</p>
<p>I personally prefer Japanese but I may go into Chinese just for utilitarian purposes</p>
<p>mmmm… why not do both? lol Japanese is easier from what i heard because it doesn’t have all the diffrences between pronouciation that chinese does. <em>shrug</em></p>
I don’t know any other language (besides english :P). <em>shrugs</em> tho it would be fun to add in another asain one afterwards, but who knows?</p>