<p>Assuming I get into Harvard (or, well, wherever I go, as long as it offers a wide range of languages)...I'm lookin' for some advice here. After/while taking a course or two in perfecting my Spanish (or better yet, a semester in Madrid! <a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Eoip/approved_programs/astro.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~oip/approved_programs/astro.html</a> towards the bottom), and maybe working on my Hebrew on the side with the family, I'd like to learn a new language. I'm planning on starting some time this week and continuing in college. So it's down to Hindi and Arabic. I'll probably end up giving both a whirl but I am currently leaning towards Hindi. But, does anyone else have any other suggestions? Is this post completely pointless (and if so I apologize heartily :))?</p>
<p>Haha. Learn to speak the language of where you want to travel and of the people you want to talk to.</p>
<p>Either way, the CIA and the military will be all over you.</p>
<p>I wouldn't mind learning Farsi, but I doubt it'd serve you well.</p>
<p>Well I know I'll get some hardcore recruitment (maybe) if I learn Arabic, but with Hindi too?</p>
<p>Honestly, I love the cultures of both and can see myself travelling to regions that speak either (although given the current political climate, I'm not sure how much of the Middle East outside of Israel I'll be seeing any time soon :). But I'm really learning languages not so much for utility as I am because I love learning languages. I figure I can use just about any language in one situation or another, so I'll just learn the ones that seem interesting :p</p>
<p>i love hindi. after i got addicted to hindi films i started trying to learn the language. i don't know very much, but it's such a cool language. i'd like to learn arabic too, but i would definitely put hindi first.</p>
<p>Hindi strikes me as a CIA likin' language, what with Pakistan and India and everything. I vote for Hindi for no reason whatsoever.</p>
<p>I need to pick a good language to study in college, too.</p>
<p>Yeah, but, I figure I'll study more than one language in college, time-barring. Candidates include Hebrew (really needs refinement, is enough to get me around with the family in Israel but is a long way from fluency. Need formal schooling in grammar desperately!! lol), Spanish (nearly fluent, just need to go to a Spanish-speaking country and work on becoming a fluent conversationalist and filling in vocab holes), Hindi (really would like to learn, know nothing except a few words I know from Indian restaurants and the Mahabharata serial :p), Sanskrit (would be SO cool to learn a semester or so, haha), and Arabic (probably would be easier for me to pick up than for most because of its similarity to Hebrew).</p>
<p>wow, you really have all the same interests as me regarding languages. except for the fact that hindi is unquestionably at the top of my list.</p>
<p>Latin or Greek. I'm surprised scholars these days aren't required to learn them. For shame...</p>
<p>yeah, im indian (well im american all the way, born in Buffalo NY but parents are indian) I can understand Hindi very well. i can speak it a bit, but i cant write it at all. i want to get in touch with it, maybe during college.</p>
<p>Also, im in spanish 4 this year. im gonna take ap spanish next year. im thinking about taking french 1 next year. do most colleges provide good starts for languages? i mean id assume that people at harvard already have 4-5 years of a language so their level 2 classes would be wimpy. what do you think.</p>
<p>Wow i really want to learn like 10 languages, that would be so cool. maybe it would make up for the fact that i have no musical talent lol.</p>
<p>I loved Latin. </p>
<p>I can definitely see myself taking it up again. So many classes, so little time!</p>
<p>It'd be interesting if you spoke English, Hebrew, & Arabic. All languages are great, but the one disadvantage of learning Hindi is that most businesspeople/intellectuals in India already speak English, whereas English is much less common in the Middle East.</p>
<p>you learn arabic and you could be making as much as the president in the CIA</p>
<p>hahahha.</p>
<p>lol my grand plan in life is to become a lawer (yale, stanford, harvard preferably) and then become pres of the usa. i wonder what languages i should learn...</p>
<p>Seriously, i want to learn so many, but i need to prioritize. i mean there is no point in learning portuguesse (sorry portugals) because not very many countries speak it.</p>
<p>I want to learn:</p>
<p>spanish-its useful
french-its useful
italian-its cool (godfather anyone)
german-its cool
russian-its cool
hindi-its useful
japaneese-its extremely useful, but hard
chinese-ditto
latin-its cool, academic but on the whole useless
greek-ditto
sanskrit-ditto
korean would be cool too</p>
<p>well, four of those should be easy enough, they are all modern day romance languages. hindi wont be too much of a strech because im indian and because they are all called indo-european languages for a reason. japanese, chinese, russian, latin etc. might be really hard.</p>
<p>Woleerki--My list was not ordered. Right now, Hindi is my first priority. I know enough Spanish and my Hebrew is sort of on hold for the time being. The other languages, I'm just speculating on learning one day :)</p>
<p>learn urdu-- it's very similar to hindi and uses the arabic script with the exception of a few additional letters (it will be the perfect segue into arabic)</p>
<p>I won't tell you which to choose but what I can tell you is the Arabic dept here is strong and extremely well taught.</p>
<p>Guitar. I live in Jordan, and I've taken a course in Hebrew. It was kind of easy since some of the words are similar(some and not many). I would suggest Arabic since you might like to visit Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon during your visits to Israel/Palestine. Even not all palestanians know hebrew. So the road will be easy and fun!</p>
<p>and by the way: ani haba hashafa evreet!:D</p>
<p>Chinese is clearly superior in all ways - you should learn that instead.</p>