<p>Georgetown is famous for its international spin... I think it would be a fun time waster to discuss the languages we know...</p>
<p>I must confess, I <3 languages, but have not had ample learning opportunity.</p>
<p>In addition to English (DUH)</p>
<p>French
Haitian Creole (M ap Aprann maintenou).</p>
<p>english (hah)</p>
<p>french
vietnamese (more like a working knowledge)
would like to learn turkish too, among others</p>
<p>I love languages too. haha but ya havent had much of an opportunity to study multiple at my school also.
English! of coursehaha
and living in southern california spanish is very helpful, so i am basically fluent.
wish i could learn more.. im thinking portuguese, italian, french..
haha i have high hopes</p>
<p>As usual, I got stuck taking Spanish in our high school, but I started taking courses with profs from local colleges independently and have become proficient in Mandarin Chinese and Arabic as well. Anyone fearful of Arabic should know that I found that language easier than Spanish. I also found that the Spanish I learned in school was hardly useful, (book v. real life, slang) compared with the Arabic that I was able to use right away at the local Islamic center.</p>
<p>yea the whole spanish thing depends on were you live. i have found it very useful but thats mainly because i live in san diego and in my spanish classes at school there are always some native speakers and that is very helpful considering they know the vocab that people actually use. but i guess the usefulness is based on where you live.
spanish is very helpful in learning some of the other romance languages because many of the languages have the same latin roots.</p>
<p>I'm current student, not an applicant but here goes:</p>
<p>English
German
Spanish (some knowledge, more reading than speaking)
learning Korean right now.</p>
<p>For all of you Chinese-lovers out there (i.e., people who are like OMG IM GONNA TAKE CHINESE AT GEORGETOWN YESSSS!!!), be warned: people almost kill themselves daily over intro Chinese. Quite frankly it sucks.</p>
<p>I am in a 6-credit Korean class right now, and it's awesome. Korean has an alphabet just like Latin letters, Cyrillic, etc. so there is none of this memorizing characters like in Chinese. The weirdest part of Korean is that to conjugate a verb does not depend on the subject, it depends on which formality level you're talking to. There are 4 formality levels: formal polite, informal polite, plain, and intimate. We learn informal polite, where, for instance, every verb is conjugated exactly the same no matter who is doing the action. Pretty weird.</p>
<p>With Korean, you get connection to an Asian country that is important economically, it's a critical language according to the State Department, and it's a lot less of a headache. Consider it!</p>
<p>I love Korean because the pronunciation is straightforward. Whatever the letters show, is the way you pronounce it. </p>
<p>None of these tricky English words like "facade."</p>
<p>That's how creole is...</p>
<p>within my 1st two weeks, i learned 4 tenses</p>
<p>English, Danish, Mandarin Chinese, Working knowledge of Spanish, Studied Latin for 4 years (pretty useless, unless reading Italian/French subtitles for movies..). </p>
<p>I need to add another language, hoping to do so at G-town. Maybe some Arabic? Not sure though, cause Dad speaks fluent Arabic, so not sure I want to be like pops.....</p>
<p>Think again about the Arabic. If you are a female, there is such a need in the market for Arabic speaking females. I am a member of the Women's Foreign Policy Group in DC and they really encouraged me to pursue that and any other Middle Eastern dialects. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>from Cali , parents originally from afghanistan I speak farsi is that unique?</p>
<p>I'm from america, but speak french, and read, write & generally understand Farsi but cant speak at all! And of course farsi is unique, one of the most beautiful languages =)</p>
<p>English
Spanish - Working knowledge... I can read and write very well, but I'm still fumbling a bit at times with speaking. Living in Texas though, there are plenty of opportunities for me to speak :)</p>
<p>I've already decided that I'm going to continue Spanish at Georgetown, I want to become completely fluent! I would also LOVE to learn French, so we'll see if it's possible to take French :) I think Latin would also be a fun language to learn, but definitely not the most useful.</p>
<p>Wow. there are a lot of multilinguals. That list is pretty impressiive.
Other than english, I speak spanish, hindi, and gujarati... I want to learn either arabic or mandarin...</p>
<p>English, Romanian, French, Mandarin (third year in high school taking it)
I also hope to learn German and Arabic and maybe Italian (it would be easy since its so close to Romanian we can understand some Italian dialects perfectly!)
Spanish would be useful and again, easy but meh...i'll go for the hard ones (ugh).</p>
<p>A quick warning about Mandarin. You have to take it from someone good (I think this was stated earlier). Pronunciation is very hard for most westerners. I myself am from Oregon, but have an ear for linguistics and can speak fairly well (my friends have no problem understanding me). However, my vocab in Mandarin is not good. Another note: on average it takes about 7 years to become close to fluency, and is considered by most who know their languages the hardest to learn :) Good luck my friends!</p>
<p>As for myself, I speak English (duh), Spanish, and some basic German. I am only a freshman, and by the time I get out of high school I expect to be fluent in Russian, Mandarin (hopefully), German, and Arabic. Not to mention a good understanding of Latin, Ancient Greek, and most likely some ancient egyptian (I would like to take Chicago's course this summer).</p>
<p>Congrats everyone on your language success! Keep at it, fluency is a wonderful thing :D</p>
<p>yeah i love languages too... i applied to the ffl program. (for gtowners, is ffl considered a separate school? i know it's within the college, but do they separate it in terms of admissions?) </p>
<p>i speak english, spanish and am taking chinese and german. i'm hoping to double major in chinese and international relations and minor in german.</p>
<p>bandofhorses, how are you going to major in IR if you applied to the FLL? You cannot double major in Chinese and IR at Georgetown; that is across schools, College and SFS.</p>
<p>To whomever stated that Mandarin was difficult for Westerners, I strongly disagree. </p>
<p>The Pronunciation is extremely easy - however the tones can be a bit of a stumbling point at the beginning of the learning process. But DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED, because after a few months of speaking, the rhythm of the language will become more familiar to you and it will become natural. </p>
<p>I believe that the hardest part of learning Mandarin is the characters. They only come to one through sheer memorization, although after about 2 years, you begin to pick up patterns and can decipher meanings contextually (that was a fantastic day). </p>
<p>In Sum, I would encourage anyone who is interested in learning Mandarin, or any other language, to pursue it wholeheartedly.</p>
<p>I speak English, French and German. Did 3 years of Latin.
I plan on learning Spanish and Korean/Arabic/Mandarin (maybe all, maybe one!).</p>