<p>Hello all, sorry if I've posted this in the wrong section. Its my first post.</p>
<p>Anyway, I am hoping to major in anthropology and a double minor in journalism and a foreign language. The problem is, I don't know which one! I'm very passionate about language and culture and I'd take many if I had the brain capacity and the time to do it. But the reality is is that I don't. I've been flopping between french, german, japanese or maybe an eastern european language like czech or hungarian. But for now lets just say french, german, and japanese. I'm taking french in hs and I love it, but I'm also in love with the ruggedness of german, but enchanted by the challenge and beauty of japanese kanji and culture. I plan on studying abroad too, which kills since I'd love to visit all of them, but I'd like to master them at the same time.</p>
<p>What do you guys think? Anybody who takes these languages or studied in their respective countries that could help me along?</p>
<p>OK, so I am Hungarian and I’m going to say DO NOT take Hungarian. Don’t even think about it. It’s ridiculously difficult and it won’t get you anywhere. It isn’t particularly a beautiful language either. (BTW, Hungary is in Central Europe, not Eastern )
I don’t speak Czech but I know many people who do, I’d say it’s somewhat easier but again, not many people speak it.
I speak both French and German and I prefer French by far. It’s fairly easy to learn if you speak English, and I simply love the sound of it. If you’re already taking it, that’s a plus!
German again is quite complicated. It’s got three genders for starters, and declension is a not easy to learn. Old English and German are closely related so you might find some similarities there too, but definitely not as many as with French.
I don’t know much about Japanese, sorry.
I found that French was my favorite language to learn (along with Russian), so I’d say go with that, but then again everyone has different preferences. Japanese seems fascinating, too.
Hope this helps.</p>
<p>I’m self-teaching German now, and I had short one-day stints with French and Japanese as well Japanese I found to be much too hard - you have to learn their weird alphabet along with Chinese characters… Too much memorisation for me (no offence meant to the Japanese language - it’s FASCINATING, just way too complex for me). If you’re interested in East Asian languages/if your college offers it, you can try Korean - I did a couple weeks of it. They have a standard alphabet rather than characters, and someone determined that their writing system is the most logical of any system in the world. </p>
<p>I had a difficult time choosing between French and German. German just seemed to come a lot more naturally to me - French, mainly the pronunciation, just does not click with me whatsoever. I think that, contrary to popular belief, German is a beautiful language (in my opinion, more beautiful than French). What was the tipping point for me was just studying the history of the English language… English is not a romantic language like French, but rather a Germanic language which has been influenced over time by French (that’s why Old English and German are more closely related than modern English and German - Old English is modern English minus the French influence, essentially…). For me, it was knowing that learning German brought me back to the roots of our own language, and the whole history of the German language interested me more than the French. </p>
<p>Whew. In short, choose whichever culture/history fascinates you most… But this is my take :)</p>
<p>Personally, I’m taking French now and I LOVE IT and I was considering doubling majoring or minoring in French myself, but I haven’t taken any other languages (I would like to learn Italian and Chinese), so I may not be able to help THAT much. But like I said, personally, French is just wonderful. You can always double major ;).</p>
<p>Given your interest in anthropology, you might want to consider a language that aligns with your anthropological interests. For example, if you might want to study tribal cultures in Brazil, learning Portuguese would be a great asset. If you’re interested in shamanic practices in Siberia, Russian.</p>
<p>If you have no idea where you’re interested in yet, then I’d go for Spanish. Given the sheer number of countries and large population of speakers, it’s a good chance you’ll eventually be interested in one or more of them from an anthro perspective. Plus, once you know Spanish it’s not too hard to pick up Portuguese.</p>
<p>Overall, since you’re already learning French, stick with it and keep going to the highest level you can. If you’re interested in Africa, French would make sense.
Starting a foreign language in college is very intense, but can be worth it - you could try and take two semesters of a language useful to your anthropology specialty area when you’re you’re a junior or a senior and know more about that specialty, and in the meanwhile stick to French?</p>
<p>I would say German would be the easiest to learn since it’s extremely similar to English, but French is close as well… With your background in French it may be best. Russian would be difficult, especially because of the Cyrillic alphabet.</p>
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