Which Language Should I Learn?

[Eli]

Originally posted by Az

And? That's not a big attraction. Besides, I already know that I'll be doing engineering stuff in the IDF. They paid for my degree and I cant back out now.

you know that?!

Let's keep it simple for our ignorant foreigner friends. Unfortunately I know the situation.

Btw, I've read your complaints at פורום עתודה. I guess I'll be writing the same in a year.

[Az]

OMG STALKER

[Geronimo]

Has anybody here managed to learn a second language well without having learned any foreign language at all until they were a teenager?

I wonder if my lack of any prior foreign language instruction seriously cripples my ability to acquire such skills now as an adult.

[Meticulous Man]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_language_acquisition

It is commonly believed that children are better suited to learn a second language than are adults. However, in general second language research has failed to support the Critical Period Hypothesis in its strong form, which argues that full language acquisition is impossible beyond a certain age.

[Ecthy]

Hi!

I speak both Spanish and French

Later on I'll probably refresh and expand my Chinese and get started with Farsi.

Bye!

[Solver]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Has anybody here managed to learn a second language well without having learned any foreign language at all until they were a teenager?

I wonder if my lack of any prior foreign language instruction seriously cripples my ability to acquire such skills now as an adult.

Nah, adults are still able to learn languages fairly well. Of course, people have a different level of natural language-learning talent, and being bilingual from birth really helps, but every regular adult is fully capable of learning a language .

[Eli]

Except that it's much, much harder for them.

Echty: Which one of the two would you recommend?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Has anybody here managed to learn a second language well without having learned any foreign language at all until they were a teenager?

I wonder if my lack of any prior foreign language instruction seriously cripples my ability to acquire such skills now as an adult.

You'll be able to learn it but you will have an accent. Young children can learn any language without an accent and they tend to have an easier time remembering all of the grammar.

[Eli]

It's not exactly remembering the grammar, it's more like sub-consciously internalizing the rules. I don't remember grammar rules at all, but I still somehow know them.

[Harovan]

Polish is Russian with half of the vowels stolen.

Learn Arabic. I would, if I were you.

[senowen]

Try learning spoken Mandarin. It's the next language of business (probably of everything else as well). The grammer is very easy (no conjugation of verbs, no gendered nouns). The pronunciation is a bit of a pain (lots of words that sound almost exactly the same except for the tone), but because so many people in China already butcher the language (i.e. Cantonese, Fujianese, many ethnic Koreans), many native Mandarin speakers already can pick up broken pronunciation fairly well. Trying to learn the written characters is a completely different story, but not necessary for getting around China or dealing with Chinese people.

P.S. - Hot Chinese girls love "round eyes" i.e. western looking people, esp. when you can say "Ni hen piaoliang"

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Solver
Learn German

QFT

[Az]

Btw, learning languages is important.

I have a goal to learn Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.

[Barnabas]

The problem with german is remembering the gender of things, in spanish you know the gender depending on the letter the word end in.

In german if you learn a new word, you have to memorize if it is die der or das

[Eli]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov


QFT

Why?