Latin vs Greek

[SlowwHand]

Mandarin or Cantonese?

[OzzyKP]

I'd like to say Greek, cause of all the early Bible stuff and classical philosophers. Which would be great to read in their original language. But I haven't even fully read Aristotle, Plato and the New Testament in English, so I doubt I'd make the effort to read everything in Greek if I were able.

So I'll go with Latin in hopes I'd be better able to understand modern Romance languages that I'd have more practical daily use for.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Mandarin or Cantonese?

The former of course.

[SlowwHand]

I don't know why you say of course. It might be cool do speak a lesser language.

[Kuciwalker]

1) My girlfriend speaks Mandarin

2) More people speak Mandarin than any of the others, by an order of magnitude. If I wanted to speak something obscure I'd choose Catalan.

[Barnabas]

Catalan is not obscure, it is very easy for a spanish speaker, and also quite easy for italian, portuguese speakers etc..
Aymara or Basque are obscure

[Kuciwalker]

If I didn't already know a fair bit of Spanish I'd've picked that.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Catalan is not obscure, it is very easy for a spanish speaker, and also quite easy for italian, portuguese speakers etc..
Aymara or Basque are obscure

isn't it similar to french above all?
especially languedoc, provancal...?

[SlowwHand]

I'll teach you Texan for a nominal fee. We can begin now.
You say Ming. Ming in Texan is Bastard.

[bipolarbear]

While I prefer Greek to Roman culture and history Latin, though only used by the Pope, has far more applications for me. Once you start to actually get into it you can begin to decipher new words (seriously helped me out on the SAT), and in some cases craft them.

[Drake Tungsten]

Failing that, Japanese.

Dude, Japanese is so easy to learn.

[Kuciwalker]

I mean including all the funny characters

And I'm absolutely terrible at languages. I only learned what French and Spanish I know because it's similar enough to English.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm lying. It's a ****ing nightmare. Take Chinese...

[Kuciwalker]

I can't even tell the difference between many Chinese words. My girlfriend will say four different words in a row and I'll be unable to distinguish any of them.

[Drake Tungsten]

I think pronunciation is the only area where Japanese is easier than Chinese; discerning between different tones must be hard for native English speakers. The simpler grammar and rational and consistent use of the Chinese characters would seem to give Chinese the overall edge in ease of learning (although both languages are difficult). Learning to read Japanese is just a massive pain in the ass...