<p>I will be starting college in the fall and am trying to decide between three languages: Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. Here is the breakdown:</p>
<p>Spanish:
I took it through all of high school and speak it moderately well. I am completely bored with it though and had trouble motivating myself in it the past few years. Because of this, I would like to switch to one of the other two.</p>
<p>Chinese:<br>
It's different, and going to be very useful in the world. It is also difficult! I am interested in it for these reasons though, and think I would really enjoy studying it.</p>
<p>Italian:
I have a huge personal interest in this language, not to mention the culture. I lived in Rome for part of my life (elementary school) and was very good at the language, but sadly because I have been taking spanish since I got back I do not remember much. I think it would come back to me though? Anyway, while this would be my first choice, it is not terribly useful. I would probably study abroad there then, but past that I am not sure what use it would be in life.</p>
<p>Soooo... what do you recommend? Stick with spanish? Switch to one of the other two? </p>
<p>Thank you!!!</p>
<p>Well, if you want lots of future interactions with business, I'd go with Chinese, or Spanish if you want to deal with some South American drug lords.</p>
<p>I'd say either go Italian or Chinese since you're bored with Spanish.</p>
<p>I know people who have been going to Chinese school every Sunday for 10 years and still aren't fluent. Just something to think about.</p>
<p>If you were in Italy for a bit of your life, you'll probably pick it up again if you just go there (or study it). You could always take a different language and study abroad in Italy. :)</p>
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I know people who have been going to Chinese school every Sunday for 10 years and still aren't fluent. Just something to think about.
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<p>You're not going to learn a language, particularly one as complex as Chinese, by once-a-week sessions. </p>
<p>I'd go with Chinese because it's the language that's hardest to learn on your own.</p>
<p>Don't start climbing the Chinese mountain unless a) you are extremely good at languages or b) you are so interested that you'll spend some time in country polishing up what you have learned or most preferably c) both.</p>
<p>You could learn 4 romance languages in the time it would take to learn Chinese. Having the language under your belt can be a nice-to-have for some jobs, but if you are really up for a job where you'll have to be really functional in Chinese, chances are really great they'll hire a Chinese American unless you have learned it exceptionally well. I have friends that have lived there for years and only one was really, really good.</p>
<p>Ignore everything I've said if you decide you're just really interested and don't really care about practicality.</p>
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Don't start climbing the Chinese mountain unless a) you are extremely good at languages or b) you are so interested that you'll spend some time in country polishing up what you have learned or most preferably c) both.</p>
<p>You could learn 4 romance languages in the time it would take to learn Chinese. Having the language under your belt can be a nice-to-have for some jobs, but if you are really up for a job where you'll have to be really functional in Chinese, chances are really great they'll hire a Chinese American unless you have learned it exceptionally well. I have friends that have lived there for years and only one was really, really good.
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</p>
<p>That's true, but the whole "everyone speaks English anyway" mentality is not a good one. If that's the case, why learn any other language at all?</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>But the point wasn't to not learn another language, just not to learn Chinese.</p>
<p>Sign me, Speaker (at home) of Portuguese and English, and someone who knows Chinese, French, German, and a bit of Spanish. I am certainly not advocating speaking only English. The fact is that if one learns enough of a language, it gets to the point where that language is always readily retrievable. It is much harder to get to that point with Chinese. So all the time spent picking some of it up goes to waste. My advice: cut your losses, unless you can make sure they're going to be a gain.</p>
<p>My D is in a similar quandary. She studied French throughout HS, placed out of having to take a foreign language at college, but has decided to continue with languages becuse she loves them. She will be statring spanish in the fall, and plans to take Chinese next summer at the local U. This way, if she feels motivated to continue, she can pick it up in the fall, and if it is too daunting, she can go back to French and Spanish.</p>
<p>take italian.
if someday you feel like you really need spanish you can always go back to it (and you'll pick it up pretty quickly with italian), but for now go with your interests.
don't pick something just because you think it might be useful, because you likely won't enjoy it and it probably won't be all that useful after all.</p>
<p>I took Chinese school for 12 years, once a week for 2 hours. I learned absolutely nothing. The only reason I actually learned the language was because when I was little I visited my aunt in Taiwan for extended periods of time. Chinese is a language that is very difficult to get into just as a class and not as an actual language immersion. It sounds that Italian would be the best option for you. If you ever become interested in Spanish again, you can always self-study it.</p>
<p>I'm fluent in Mandarin and know some Cantonese.</p>
<p>For the most part, I taught myself (though living in Beijing for a semester and then in Shanghai for another obviously helps... a lot)</p>
<p>But before I went, I was between intermediate and advanced in the language - which I learned on my own - though it took around 4-5 years to get to that point.
Like some people have said already, if you choose Chinese, you need to study every single day.</p>
<p>There are great online resources.
I used:
Pimsleur's Mandarin levels 1-3 (available on Amazon or you can download it free from a torrent)
Chinsesepod.com
And I have three Chinese penpals (there are hoards willing to do language exchanges on expat forums)
who I speak with on Skype regularly and they help me fill in the gaps with learning grammar and cultural segments.</p>
<p>The hardest part of Mandarin (in my opinion) is not the characters but the tonal sounds in which a word needs to be said at a certain pitch or it means something entirely different.
For that reason, you do need to be with a teacher or somebody who's well -learned in Chinese.</p>
<p>I don't know if your college offers it, but should also consider studying Arabic. It's a lot easier than learning Mandarin and I really enjoyed learning it.
Good luck in your decision.</p>
<p>catalan! not that many schools offer it...</p>
<p>Ets intel·ligent, mon amic.</p>
<p>compare with spanish:
Eres inteligente, mi amigo.</p>
<p>and french:
Tu es intelligents, mon ami.</p>
<p>There's a saying that three of the most difficult languages in the world are Arabic, Chinese and Russian. If so, learning the most difficult language sounds great and special.
Chinese is my mother tongue, but it even seems weird to me sometimes. Though learning it may be hard and will take a lot of time, it seems worth. I want to learn Russian or Arabic some day because I really admire Russian tour guides who speaks Chinese fluently and my French teacher who can speak Arabic, Chinese and a little Russian as well.</p>
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There's a saying that three of the most difficult languages in the world are Arabic, Chinese and Russian
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<p>I think those are the most difficult major languages. I think languages like Hungarian, Finnish, and Thai are even more difficult.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>Japanese should be up there too. Arabic, Russian, Thai, Hungarian, Finnish have alphabets (phonic systems) and perhaps should not be included in the same level of difficult as Chinese, IMO. Japanese has more than one alphabet and a really complex grammar.</p>
<p>Anyway, there is website that rates the difficulty levels of languages. I am too lazy to find it but google gets you there in about 30 seconds.</p>
<p>I actually think Arabic was pretty easy to learn. The only difficult aspect (for me) is that there is no verb "to be".</p>
<p>Learn chinese
Chinese has no grammar at all.</p>