<p>In a few days, I will be beginning my first year at Phillips Academy, Andover. To graduate(and be admitted to college), we must study 3 years of a modern or classical language. I originally signed up for Latin, and had plans to study three years of Greek, but I am questioning the usefulness of classical languages. Anyway, could you all help my chose a suitable language by listing the pros and cons of studying each? My choices are as follows: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Latin, and Greek.</p>
<p>If you signed up for Latin, do it. It helps with the SAT.</p>
<p>Everyone is going to come out screaming CHINESE! OH MY GOD NOTHING WILL HELP YOUR CAREER MORE! but if you don’t have the motivation to memorize 3,000 characters, tones, and grammar, then it’s not worth it because you’ll waste your time. The same goes for Japanese. And Arabic too.</p>
<p>Of the plain common languages Spanish is the only one worth mentioning. Do what you want because in high school you probably won’t learn that much anyway.</p>
<p>I study both Chinese and Spanish. Mandarin is not for the unmotivated; I have trouble motivating myself and I actually lived in China. But Spanish comes much easier to an English-speaker and is a rewarding and fun language. Plus Spanish is useful in the USA.</p>
<p>I will be giving different bits about each one plus a comparative rank from 1-10 in my (limited) experience and an explanation
Arabic: 7-New alphabet, confusing to read, read from right to left, but not as hard as it looks (then again, this from a Hebrew speaker), may end up good in future career
Chinese: 9-See above, may end up good in future career
Japanese: 9-See Chinese (correct me if I’m wrong, I’m under the impression the difficulties are similar
Spanish: 3/5-Depends on language abilities, Romance language and alphabet, easy to start from English, helpful in US
French: 4/5-Depends on language abilities, Romance language and alphabet, sounds cool :), useful in Canada
Russian: 7-New alphabet, somewhat complex, not incredibly useful from global perspective
German: 6-Similar alphabet, somewhat more complex than French and Spanish, not incredibly useful from global perspective
Latin: 4/5-Same alphabet, familiar from English (roots), good for vocab and SAT, limited usefulness except in classics or communicating with Pope or Caesar’s ghost
Greek: 6/7-New alphabet, familiar from English (roots), good for vocab and SAT, limited usefulness except in Greece to an extent or classics
Hope this helps- correct me if I’m wrong on anything.
If it helps, I am fluent in Hebrew (read, write, speak) and learning Spanish.</p>
<p>Chinese has more characters but Japanese makes up for it with difficult grammar.</p>
<p>The pros and cons of studying each language depend on your goals. Do you wish to visit a particular country, work in international trade, be a foreign diplomat, or do well on the SAT?</p>
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<p>This illustrates my point. Hannahbanana doesn’t see German as very useful to her from a global perspective but she is probably doesn’t work in international business, as Germany is the first, third or fifth largest exporter in the world depending on which figures you use.</p>
<p>Schokolade: You are 100% right, and that is why I emphasized that I’ve got limited experience with most of these languages. Different people in different industries with different interests will have different perceptions and different knowledge of what language is useful. Which, of course, is what 00isme will have to decide.
I was hesitant about including usefulness in my ranking, actually, because obviously that varies. Big blooper.
That’s very interesting, though. You learn something new every day, I guess.</p>
<p>I know both Chinese and Japanese, and I would argue that Japanese is harder. Not only do you have to learn *kanji<a href=“Chinese%20characters”>/i</a>, but you also need to learn two additional syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. Also, while a character in Chinese as at most two or three different readings, a Japanese kanji can have tons.
Example: the character 生 means birth, genuine or life.
In Japanese, it can be pronounced i, u, uma, o, ki, na, nama, ha, mu, shou, sei, asa, iki, iku, ike, ubu, umai, e, oi, gyuu, kurumi, gose, sa, jou, sugi, so, sou, chiru, naba, niu, nyuu, fu, me, mou, you, or ryuu, depending on context.
In Chinese, there is only one reading: shēng.
So if you want to challenge yourself, take Japanese. If you want a language that you actually have a chance of using in the real world, pick something else.</p>
<p>Hiragana and katakana take a week to learn, so the three syllabaries argument is weak, but I do agree with the rest. I can’t even count how many ways there are to modify a verb. Do you want to invite someone to eat? Force them to eat? Not eat? It’s crazy. Then multiply whatever form you want by 3 for being polite, plain, or so polite that the last form is only used when speaking to the Emperor… there’s a lot. lol.</p>
<p>The grammar’s actually not that hard compared to English. I do agree that the whole polite/formality thing is way too confusing and redundant. The “humble” verb itadaku means, depending on context: to receive; to get; to accept; to take; to buy; to eat; to drink; to be crowned with; to wear (on one’s head); to have (on top); to have (as one’s leader); to live under (a ruler); or to install (a president). How is anyone supposed to know what someone else means when they use such a vague verb?</p>
<p>But hey, I’m going into my fourth year of Japanese and it’s awesome. I actually dropped out of Journalism, where I was an editor in chief, to keep Japanese.</p>
<p>Arabic and chinese are pretty useful on the business side of things… But I personally enjoy French. French is spoken in many countries around the world (Africa, Europe, caribbean) . It’s a really fluid sort of language (similar to spanish , since both are romance languages or something? Not sure). Also, if you know French and English you’ll notice that Spanish comes easier (a lot of words have the same roots because they come from the same place) . </p>
<p>Here’s my choices from best to worst (well, no language is bad… Just my opinion)</p>
<p>French
Chinese
Arabic
German
…
(I’m doing this on my phone so I cant see your original post )
Spanish
Greek
Italian
Are all on the bottom of my list… Spanish is a dime a dozen (so many people learn Spanish an I wouldnt feel very different from the bunch if I learned it), and Greek and Italian have just never been an interest of mine sorry to say :</p>
<p>Bump. 2char</p>
<p>@00isme
Personally I say stay with Latin, and also because you shouldn’t choose a language based on what possible career path you could have in 10 years. Take what you will enjoy. If you decide you don’t like it by the end of the year you can take a different language next year and still fulfill the language requirement. Heck if you decide you don’t like it by the end of the first week you could probably change it. Just go with what feels right.</p>
<p>Haahahaha @andover2016 you couldve just sent me this on Facebook. I think that I’m just going to study French freshman year, and possibly take both Latin and French from lower year on.</p>
<p>I am in my fifth year of studying Latin, and I really like it. However, I do recognize it’s not everyone and is not too practical in the business/diplomatic world. If you learn Latin, though, other Romance languages (especially Italian) are not hard to learn. But, as other posters are saying, it really depends on what you want to do in your career. I have a relative who is very successful in the shipping industry who had to learn modern Greek.</p>
<p>Well I thought I would say that for everyone else to read too. I took French for three years of middle school, I really hated it by the end. Maybe this is just me, but I thought it was endlessly confusing especially in pronunciation and grammar. Or maybe I didn’t have a very good teacher, which is entirely possible. But I love Latin. Everything about it. It’s like math but with letters instead of numbers. Translating it is like putting together a puzzle, but instead of a beautiful picture you get beautiful words. But if French is what you want to do, go for it.</p>