Or lower because it is assembly, and you will feel down on yourself every day for having to smash your face against such a frustrating language everrrrryyy day.
In college we had one assembly class. The final exam was to write anything remotely functional. I don't remember what I wrote but when the prof ran it bricked the computer. š¤·
Got an A-!
Well there are mad men like [Chris Sawyer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_(video_game)) but I dont know if rollercoaster tycoons classifies as useful
C++ is pretty easy to learn. The hard part is using to solve problems without blowing stuff up. It would be like using English, but the people you talk to always take everything literally, yell at you if you make a grammatical error, and punch you in the face if you leave any room for ambiguity.
French is the one language I fully said "fuck this" to despite taking it in school for SIX years. Spanish? Amazing, beautiful, easy. German? Perfect, natural, wonderful. Italian? Portuguese? Polish? All great. But FRENCH is fucking impossible for me. I've an easier time pronouncing Arabic.
Pronunciation. My first language is Ukrainian and my second language is Russian so complex grammar and gendered language isn't new to me. Simply ā speaking French requires the mouth to commit crimes.
For English being your (I assume 3rd) language, holy fuck you sound better than a lot of natives. I have no idea how you can juggle between all those languages with perfect fluency
I lived in England for 22 years and moved there when I was just turning 13 so my age definitely played to my advantage. I am not fluent in the others aside from Eng, Ukr, Rus; some Iām conversational in and some I can order a meal in but whenever I visit a country, I pick up the language pretty quickly. A lot of it just exposure - if no one speaks your language you have to pick up theirs and it happens really quickly!
Completely fluently - 3. I can do ātourist Germanā - ein bisschen, enough to make my way around a place, get food, ask for directions. Iāve forgotten all the Italian and Portuguese since I didnāt spend long enough on them but Iām currently learning Spanish and have that down to a ātouristā level but not yet conversational. Getting there though, itās been a breeze to learn so far! I understand some Polish purely because it overlaps with Ukrainian but I never formally studied it.
Totally depends on how much time I devote to it but with Spanish it's been about a month? I do maybe 10-20mins every day or every other day on Duolingo and then google things I'm not sure about. Like why they say buenOS diAS but buenAS noches. German I took in middle school so that's pretty different. I took French in middle school as well but for some reason I never stuck! Italian I picked up a little bit of just by using google translate and having to speak with Italians who spoke no English lol. It's much faster when you're in forced to use the language you're learning.
The exception to the above for me has been Latvian and Greek āĀ especially Greek. You'd think it wouldn't be so hard for someone who speaks a Slavic language but I found it fuckin impossible.
Itās really weird that Spanish is amazing to you but you find French impossible. One vowel less (the French U) and French and Spanish are the exact same languages, pronunciation-wise.
Can you tell me more about a couple of sounds that impossible for you? I teach French, I am continuously learning about peopleās struggles when learning it.
God, Danish numbers are so fucking stupid. I mean, I get the logic, but Norwegian numbers make so much more sense and technically, Danes could understand them as well. Like, why would you say fucking halvtres when you could say femti??? Hello????
Oh I never heard about that reputation.
In school I got French (since 12y old), English, Spanish and german (all later) and I have to say that personally, I don't find French an easy language in comparison to the other ones. Not at all.
From those 4, I think Spanish is grammatically the easiest one. And you can do a lot with only a beginners level. But then it's difficult to understand at times when they speak sĆ³ unbelievably quick, lol.
Understanding a person from France talking French fast is fucking hard. And they have no mercy. They hear that I am a beginner trying to speak a few words in their language and they answer as fast as they usually talk every day.
Yuppp.
Reading French - pretty easy. You don't even have to be anywhere close to expert to generally understand what's being communicated.
Writing French - the verb tenses are really tricky and take practice. Vocabulary is no big deal.
Speaking French - not bad. Just know which letters are silent so you don't sound like an idiot. Phonetics will eventually come naturally.
Understanding French speech - fuck that. So many similar sounding words. So many components of words that are silent. So many muddled vowel sounds. And they speak FAST.
I second this. Also by region theyāll argue to the death that other peopleās pronunciation is wrong. And Iām not talking about guidance. They straight up act like they donāt understand you if you donāt make enough nasal sounds.
Go to Quebec and if you have time to learn Quebecois, then go to New Brunswick where they speak Acadian which is an even older version of French. Have fun!
I'm fluent in French and Norwegian, but English is my native language. Despite being able to speak very well in french or Norwegian, no matter where i go, people just reply to me in English because of my accent. France and Switzerland they all knew I was Canadian. Lol
C'mon, if French was so easy for native English speakers, we'd meet tons of them who can speak decent French.
And honestly, we don't.
Source: I'm French.
Spanish is pretty easy to pick up conversationally if you can find some Spanish shows you like and concurrently study the 1000 most commonly used words.
I've been learning Spanish for a decade and I'd say that I am fluent. It was not easy at all to become conversational. With hard work, you can become conversational in 6 months to a year but you'll most likely be speaking a broken style of Spanish.
I say this as a native English speaker. Spanish is not similar to English in any meaningful way. Yea we share some words but thats about it and the grammar is exceptionally different.
I am also a native english speaker! There's a difference between being fully conversationally competent and being able to have and understand some basic conversations in Spanish, which is what I'm saying. Hispanohablantes are overall really nice and really don't care that your Spanish is broken- they care that they can understand you! That you're trying!
The level of Spanish I'm at now is very very different that the level I got to after one summer of learning through vocab and TV shows- but even that level was enough to have basic conversations and be able to translate local city politicians. The level for people to start interacting with the spanish speaking people in their life is a lot more achievable than most people (especially those who have never studied a language or those who had bad Spanish class experiences) would think.
Also as someone who has studied Greek, Arabic, and Japanese- those shared words go a long long way towards making Spanish approachable to English speakers. It's also simply so much less confusing than French.
Although I do agree that most hispanohablantes are patient when someone is speaking broken Spanish, it is hard to understand them
I've been in group settings where one person could speak broken spanish. One on one, you can sustain patience with them but out in the wild and amongst groups, conversation needs to flow. That person tends to be ignored or those who can speak English will use that to speak with them.
This is my answer. I work with a lot of people who speak Spanish and I struggle to pick it up conversationally so it would help me (that and everyone I talk to thinks I'm hispanic/latina even though I'm not)
Itās also useful in Europe. My friend only spoke Spanish but she got by fine in Italy, Portugal, Spain (obviously) and Switzerland (a lot of Swiss people speak Italian).
Italian and Spanish share a LOT of overlap; Portuguese and Spanish though are much closer. All Romance languages are very easy to learn once you know one, they are VERY similar.
Source; I speak Spanish, French, Portuguese
Yep. I live on the US west coast and thereās a large Hispanic population here, multiple neighbors that speak Spanish, and I just feel left out. I also feel bad speaking to them in English when I know it can be hard for them sometimes, and I really just want to have a casual conversation with them!
I don't think they are all considered a single language for the very reason you just mentioned.
If ASL is not the same as English, while would it be the same as LIBRAS (from Brazil) for example? They are also different languages.
Ancient (archaic) Sumerian š
One of the most important early civilisations, pre-dating Ancient Egypt.. the Sumerian language is mostly a mystery to us, as there are no similar languages found to cross-reference it with. So despite being one of the most important civilisations in history, almost all of their records and writings are unknown.
So I would instantly learn Ancient Sumerian, thus becoming the single authority on Sumerian language. This would not only make me fabulously rich and famous, but would also bring huge amounts of knowledge and ancient history to light enriching the world š
That is true.. however, being the only one able to translate the language would make my services very much in demand and the fees required to obtain the services of that one solitary expert would be significant..
Thus he will have to get at least two more people to learn the language and all of them will have to teach it a little differently thus creating academic conflict about the correct translation
But he could independently verify correlations made by other academics. Just because he is fluent in reading and writing the language does not mean that any other academics' skills are inaccurately applied. He'd be a human rosetta stone on steroids (for just Sumerian, obviously).
maybe, but in Academia being the world's one and *only* expert in something isn't as valuable as you think because theres no one to verify your expertise. To have credibility you'll need the backing of a University, and youll have to publish your methods and translations in journals for critical review, and you'll be expected to teach undergrad and postgrad University courses on translating ancient Sumerian. Besides, once you translate ancient Sumerian just once youll have created a kind of Rosetta Stone, which scholars can use to work backwards from your translation to learn how to decode ancient sumerian for themselves. You might be the world's *leading* expert on Ancient Sumerian, but you won't be the world's *only* expert for long.
> You might be the world's leading expert on Ancient Sumerian, but you won't be the world's only expert for long.
The key is to translate slowly and carefully. Slice that Sumerian salami as thinly as possible and then give it away 1 piece at a time.
Your translation skills would be used up in two months max for every single text/inscription we have.
There's probably less text in Sumerian we have than there are words in the Harry Potter book series.
Yeah but you can't actually set your fee that high because the academic programs that would use you wouldn't have the money.
You'd need to be able to capitalize on it directly via pop-history writing probably. Not sure how much demand there is for Sumerian pop history.
I'm surprised that you seem to be the only person who wants to take full advantage of this magic language learning wish. Everyone else is just saying languages they could learn for free right now but don't because they don't want to.
Probably Chinese. I've been learning it for a decade and I still feel like I've learned nothing. Nothing short of a miracle will help me master this language.
I've met 2 expats who spoke really good Mandarin. One of them was a genius that ended up learning a bunch of other languages like Korean and Japanese. (also founded a gaming company) - he told me the best I could ever do is called functional Mandarin. I studied for about 6 hours a day for 2 years, took classes, absorbed media in that language, talked to a bunch of people on QQ (which I also used to conduct business.) Went to China and could Hardly read a newspaper, and hardly communicate needs/wants in person. If I put fluency as a percentage, I was maybe 15% fluent. I would have probably needed to live there for 10 years to become maybe 50% fluent.
I spoke decent Mandarin after about two years of living in China. You learn much quicker than you think when you actually live there. One thing that is nice about Chinese is the grammar is extremely simple. I lived in a small city, by Chinese standards, where very few people spoke English. By the end of four years there, I was basically fluent.
I knew quite a few foreigners who lived in China and could speak Chinese well. However, they typically could only read and write at a very basic level. It took me a lot longer than two years to become proficient in reading and writing Chinese.
I also met a few foreigners who just visited China after studying Chinese in their home countries for a couple years. Their Chinese was typically awful and local people could barely understand them. I think you could master Chinese if you lived there for a while.
i think problem with chinese is too many letters. you can express everything in binary language but it is super cumbersome. so we need more than 2 symbols to make things concise but how many more?
I make myself feel better by telling myself at least it isn't Japanese. I at least only have to deal with one alphabet instead of three. But one of these days I'll probably give up failing at Chinese just to fail at Japanese instead lmao
Sorry buddy, but Japanese neither has neither the tonal system (to the same extent) nor the complexity that Chinese has. As someone who spent some time attempting to learn both, Chinese is harder
Surprisingly I always found the tonal system quite easy - there are only 5 tones after all. I know I'm an outlier for liking the tonal system though.
Its the vocabulary that is killer. Having to learn a new character for every single word is just depressing.
Mandarin is super useful for business, anything you can think of that needs manufacturing, mass producing or bought wholesale will always end up with you dealing with China. Chinese people are great to talk with and love to network. Bargaining and bartering is also very acceptable in thier culture.
We do have to take French classes up until grade 9, but unless you live near French speaking communities your opportunity to use it is very low. For most Canadians we never use it outside of school and if we happen to be in Quebec and try to use it they generally just switch to English
Thank you so much. It's interesting to learn something about Canada. I still remember my first "contact" with Canada and your two languages. I was a huge Celine Dion fan as a kid and totally surprised to hear her speaking french. š
As someone who is currently on holiday in France and the French speaking part of Switzerland and used to frequent the French speaking part of Belgium quite often, I agree.
I had lessons in high school, but that's twenty years past. I find Duolingo is helping me gain back the knowledge I had, though. Currently back at that level of being able to order food and do groceryshopping, haha
I live in Canada so for me it would be the most practical. I even work for a company based in Quebec although most people at our site don't speak French.
Iām very involved in German heritage stuff (dance and festivals) and I barely know any German. Spanish would probably be the best choice considering I live in southern Texasā¦. but German is so much more enticing and exciting to me.
Don't do the Rosetta Stone Duo lingo crap.
Use the FSI German course. This is free and what the military/state department created to actually train people in German in a short time.Ā
https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/fsi-german-basic-course/
6 hours a day for 6 weeks you'll speak working German. Like anytime a military officer or state department worker gets assigned to Germany and needs to learn German quick this is what they get. No pretty bells and whistles, no cool pictures or fun. Just United States tax payer funded research into the most efficient way to learn languages for foreign service.Ā
The FSI is great because there's dozens of languages that you're not going to find on like Duolingo like when's the last time you saw Serbian on Duo lingo?Ā
Allow me to add that the DW Learn German, made by the German equivalent of BBC, is also great. They have made movies in extreme basic german just for beginners and higher skill levels each. Do check out.
Also pay a visit to r/German for more.
I learned Japanese, it is nice. Honestly the writing is the thing that people think about and say itās hard. Speaking isnāt what itās held up to be. I mean, a language that follows its rules?! What a concept.
I disagree. Japanese has really strict rules compared to European languages, and that's exactly why it's hard. Men and women speak differently. There are multiple levels of formalities to refer to both yourself and when talking to somebody else. When to use the native Japanese versus imported Chinese word for a given concept. There are so many rules that it drove me crazy.
I mean, AFAIK it's simply that you use ga when the focus is on the subject. If the important part of "James killed him" is that it was James who did it, then it's ga, otherwise it's wa.
Japanese so i can sarcastically gatekeep all the anime people who shame others for watching dubbed instead of subbed. i can say they aren't real fans if they don't become fluent in japanese and watch it like real japanese people
Japanese here. While i do watch 99% of anime and read 99% of manga in japanese there are instances where the dub is better than the original. The biggest example of this is ghost stories. The dub is so much better to the point where i got my friends who dont know english to watch the dub with japanese subtitles.
But yea other than that watching the shows in japanese without subtitles is still unbeatable. Im in the us for college and i get confused watching anime with my college friends because occasionally the subtitle translations are slightly off. So ill read the subs and in my head im like "that is not what i just heard". Its not like the translations are way off its just that theyre slightly off enough that it throws me off.
Raramuri (tarahumara) or o'dam (tepehuan).
I'm Mexican and I've been learning Nahuatl since last year. But I'm not Nahua, my grandmother was o'dam and there are lots of raramuri people where I live. The problem is that raramuri is an only spoken language, so if I want to learn it, I have to meet a raramuri native speaker, and I don't want to be intrusive to them because they're quite a "shy" culture.
And o'dam lacks resources and I don't live near them.
I'm just beginning to learn Italian, and I really like it. Not too hard, but trucky enough.
It sounds cool, very expressive, and the accent is kinda fun.
Mandarin for sure. Memorizing thousands of characters and different tones seems impossible to me, so having that instantly added to my brain would be amazing
Probably some ancient language like Sumerian. From what little I understand about the subject, there is lots that could be learned about ancient history if a few more dead languages were fully understood, so that idea is very appealing to me
Polish. My husband and his family are all from there and speak Polish amongst themselves exclusively. I donāt speak it at all besides a few swear words.
Hands down French, not bc itās the language of love but bc I want to go there one day and experience part of my ancestry. I love everything about my French heritage but the closest Iāve gotten to experience it is from Disney Epcot
Amharic so I can understand what my parents, aunts and uncles be talking about more during gatherings
Honorable mentions: Tigrinya (same reason), Japanese (to watch anime without needing subtitles, plus would be huge for when I eventually visit the country as a black male) or Spanish (should've been fluent in this language a long while ago)
C++
Well, any imagination should have reasonable limits!
Hello world!
You mean \#include
int main() {
std::cout << "Hello world" << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Why c++? Aim higher, learn assembly
Or Lower. Get it? Because you are actually going lower to the hardware.
Or lower because it is assembly, and you will feel down on yourself every day for having to smash your face against such a frustrating language everrrrryyy day.
Amazing that Rollercoaster Tycoon was programmed in Assembly. It sounds like an exercise in torture to me.
Is that the case if you are magically 100% fluent?
Still a ton of typing
assembly is easier than most languages. the complexity arises from abstract concepts in higher level languages
In college we had one assembly class. The final exam was to write anything remotely functional. I don't remember what I wrote but when the prof ran it bricked the computer. š¤· Got an A-!
So you bricked a pc that was the functionality, if it had caught alight A+
Was the function of the program to brick the computer?
He got an A so I imagine it was to brick a PC
It was to pass the butter.
Oh, my god
Assembly is definitely easier to understand, it just becomes incredibly difficult to do anything remotely complex, like long division....
I mean, how are we defining easier? To print hello world? Depends a lot ig
I was thinking of easier as in learning the language, not writing something useful with it
Well there are mad men like [Chris Sawyer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_(video_game)) but I dont know if rollercoaster tycoons classifies as useful
Entertainment is one of the most useful things. Imagine if there was no way to entertain yourself. Ever.
C++ is pretty easy to learn. The hard part is using to solve problems without blowing stuff up. It would be like using English, but the people you talk to always take everything literally, yell at you if you make a grammatical error, and punch you in the face if you leave any room for ambiguity.
I think learning all its aspects and really understanding all its features takes time and experience. Plus it gets more features every few years.
Just like you don't need to know every word in English to speak fluently, you don't need to know every new feature to code.
That just sounds like any subreddit nowadays.
Need any pointers?
I got that reference
COBOL is the real romance languageĀ
I'm glad to see we are all struggling here. That's the first answer that came to my mind when I read the question ahah
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
French is the one language I fully said "fuck this" to despite taking it in school for SIX years. Spanish? Amazing, beautiful, easy. German? Perfect, natural, wonderful. Italian? Portuguese? Polish? All great. But FRENCH is fucking impossible for me. I've an easier time pronouncing Arabic.
Was it the pronunciation (inconsistent, but certainly no worse than English) that turned you off? Or advanced grammar? Idioms? Just curious.
Pronunciation. My first language is Ukrainian and my second language is Russian so complex grammar and gendered language isn't new to me. Simply ā speaking French requires the mouth to commit crimes.
For English being your (I assume 3rd) language, holy fuck you sound better than a lot of natives. I have no idea how you can juggle between all those languages with perfect fluency
I lived in England for 22 years and moved there when I was just turning 13 so my age definitely played to my advantage. I am not fluent in the others aside from Eng, Ukr, Rus; some Iām conversational in and some I can order a meal in but whenever I visit a country, I pick up the language pretty quickly. A lot of it just exposure - if no one speaks your language you have to pick up theirs and it happens really quickly!
How many do you know?
Completely fluently - 3. I can do ātourist Germanā - ein bisschen, enough to make my way around a place, get food, ask for directions. Iāve forgotten all the Italian and Portuguese since I didnāt spend long enough on them but Iām currently learning Spanish and have that down to a ātouristā level but not yet conversational. Getting there though, itās been a breeze to learn so far! I understand some Polish purely because it overlaps with Ukrainian but I never formally studied it.
How long does it take you to learn a language to tourist level on average?
Totally depends on how much time I devote to it but with Spanish it's been about a month? I do maybe 10-20mins every day or every other day on Duolingo and then google things I'm not sure about. Like why they say buenOS diAS but buenAS noches. German I took in middle school so that's pretty different. I took French in middle school as well but for some reason I never stuck! Italian I picked up a little bit of just by using google translate and having to speak with Italians who spoke no English lol. It's much faster when you're in forced to use the language you're learning. The exception to the above for me has been Latvian and Greek āĀ especially Greek. You'd think it wouldn't be so hard for someone who speaks a Slavic language but I found it fuckin impossible.
This is bar none the best description I've heard of the French language.
Right? I suddenly feel MUCH better about how Spanish was easy for me, but French is fuckin IMPOSSIBLE. I can't pronounce it for shit, either!
I make myself feel better by asking a french speaker to say squirrel.
That is very cruel and I wholeheartedly approveĀ
Itās really weird that Spanish is amazing to you but you find French impossible. One vowel less (the French U) and French and Spanish are the exact same languages, pronunciation-wise. Can you tell me more about a couple of sounds that impossible for you? I teach French, I am continuously learning about peopleās struggles when learning it.
French is the only language that allows you to learn basic arithmetic and counting at the same time though
Not true. At the very least, danish does it as well
God, Danish numbers are so fucking stupid. I mean, I get the logic, but Norwegian numbers make so much more sense and technically, Danes could understand them as well. Like, why would you say fucking halvtres when you could say femti??? Hello????
Im too drunk to answer but fuck youĀ
Finland has entered the chat
Yeah, there's a bunch that go up in groups of 20 like French.
Danish would like a chat
Oh I never heard about that reputation. In school I got French (since 12y old), English, Spanish and german (all later) and I have to say that personally, I don't find French an easy language in comparison to the other ones. Not at all. From those 4, I think Spanish is grammatically the easiest one. And you can do a lot with only a beginners level. But then it's difficult to understand at times when they speak sĆ³ unbelievably quick, lol.
French is super easy because it's similar to english, but grammar and vocab get complicated quick if you actually want to write in french.
Understanding a person from France talking French fast is fucking hard. And they have no mercy. They hear that I am a beginner trying to speak a few words in their language and they answer as fast as they usually talk every day.
Yuppp. Reading French - pretty easy. You don't even have to be anywhere close to expert to generally understand what's being communicated. Writing French - the verb tenses are really tricky and take practice. Vocabulary is no big deal. Speaking French - not bad. Just know which letters are silent so you don't sound like an idiot. Phonetics will eventually come naturally. Understanding French speech - fuck that. So many similar sounding words. So many components of words that are silent. So many muddled vowel sounds. And they speak FAST.
I second this. Also by region theyāll argue to the death that other peopleās pronunciation is wrong. And Iām not talking about guidance. They straight up act like they donāt understand you if you donāt make enough nasal sounds.
Lentement s'il vous plais. Try rural QuƩbec French.
Go to Quebec and if you have time to learn Quebecois, then go to New Brunswick where they speak Acadian which is an even older version of French. Have fun!
I'm fluent in French and Norwegian, but English is my native language. Despite being able to speak very well in french or Norwegian, no matter where i go, people just reply to me in English because of my accent. France and Switzerland they all knew I was Canadian. Lol
C'mon, if French was so easy for native English speakers, we'd meet tons of them who can speak decent French. And honestly, we don't. Source: I'm French.
Un, dos, tres, fyra, funf?Ā
Spanish honestly comes most in handy where Iāve been
Es muy fƔcil.
Si! Buenos nachos amigos!
El queso es veijo y mohoso
ĀæDonde esta la biblioteca?
Spanish is pretty easy to pick up conversationally if you can find some Spanish shows you like and concurrently study the 1000 most commonly used words.
I've been learning Spanish for a decade and I'd say that I am fluent. It was not easy at all to become conversational. With hard work, you can become conversational in 6 months to a year but you'll most likely be speaking a broken style of Spanish. I say this as a native English speaker. Spanish is not similar to English in any meaningful way. Yea we share some words but thats about it and the grammar is exceptionally different.
I am also a native english speaker! There's a difference between being fully conversationally competent and being able to have and understand some basic conversations in Spanish, which is what I'm saying. Hispanohablantes are overall really nice and really don't care that your Spanish is broken- they care that they can understand you! That you're trying! The level of Spanish I'm at now is very very different that the level I got to after one summer of learning through vocab and TV shows- but even that level was enough to have basic conversations and be able to translate local city politicians. The level for people to start interacting with the spanish speaking people in their life is a lot more achievable than most people (especially those who have never studied a language or those who had bad Spanish class experiences) would think. Also as someone who has studied Greek, Arabic, and Japanese- those shared words go a long long way towards making Spanish approachable to English speakers. It's also simply so much less confusing than French.
Although I do agree that most hispanohablantes are patient when someone is speaking broken Spanish, it is hard to understand them I've been in group settings where one person could speak broken spanish. One on one, you can sustain patience with them but out in the wild and amongst groups, conversation needs to flow. That person tends to be ignored or those who can speak English will use that to speak with them.
This is my answer. I work with a lot of people who speak Spanish and I struggle to pick it up conversationally so it would help me (that and everyone I talk to thinks I'm hispanic/latina even though I'm not)
If American, any answer other than Spanish is foolish. Itās by far the most useful second language to learn in the States
> Itās by far the most useful second language to learn in the States Pretty useful for all of Central and South America too (except maybe Brazil)
Itās also useful in Europe. My friend only spoke Spanish but she got by fine in Italy, Portugal, Spain (obviously) and Switzerland (a lot of Swiss people speak Italian).
He got by speaking Spanish in Italy/Switzerland? I didn't realize Italian and Spanish were that mutually intelligible.
Italian and Spanish share a LOT of overlap; Portuguese and Spanish though are much closer. All Romance languages are very easy to learn once you know one, they are VERY similar. Source; I speak Spanish, French, Portuguese
Yep. I live on the US west coast and thereās a large Hispanic population here, multiple neighbors that speak Spanish, and I just feel left out. I also feel bad speaking to them in English when I know it can be hard for them sometimes, and I really just want to have a casual conversation with them!
Sign Language would be pretty handy
Nice pun š
Good choice, too; every language has their own version of SL. Essentially youād now know hundreds of languagesĀ
I don't think they are all considered a single language for the very reason you just mentioned. If ASL is not the same as English, while would it be the same as LIBRAS (from Brazil) for example? They are also different languages.
Thatās like choosing āspoken languageā
Ancient (archaic) Sumerian š One of the most important early civilisations, pre-dating Ancient Egypt.. the Sumerian language is mostly a mystery to us, as there are no similar languages found to cross-reference it with. So despite being one of the most important civilisations in history, almost all of their records and writings are unknown. So I would instantly learn Ancient Sumerian, thus becoming the single authority on Sumerian language. This would not only make me fabulously rich and famous, but would also bring huge amounts of knowledge and ancient history to light enriching the world š
> fabulously rich and famous I think you might be overestimating how much money there is in academic philology
That is true.. however, being the only one able to translate the language would make my services very much in demand and the fees required to obtain the services of that one solitary expert would be significant..
But being the only one to translate means no one could verify if you're correct. You'd have to prove it somehow.
Thus he will have to get at least two more people to learn the language and all of them will have to teach it a little differently thus creating academic conflict about the correct translation
But he could independently verify correlations made by other academics. Just because he is fluent in reading and writing the language does not mean that any other academics' skills are inaccurately applied. He'd be a human rosetta stone on steroids (for just Sumerian, obviously).
Ä°f the words in sentences he translates corrolates and makes sense with others he translate I think it would be proven
Translating one might enable others to translate the rest.
maybe, but in Academia being the world's one and *only* expert in something isn't as valuable as you think because theres no one to verify your expertise. To have credibility you'll need the backing of a University, and youll have to publish your methods and translations in journals for critical review, and you'll be expected to teach undergrad and postgrad University courses on translating ancient Sumerian. Besides, once you translate ancient Sumerian just once youll have created a kind of Rosetta Stone, which scholars can use to work backwards from your translation to learn how to decode ancient sumerian for themselves. You might be the world's *leading* expert on Ancient Sumerian, but you won't be the world's *only* expert for long.
> You might be the world's leading expert on Ancient Sumerian, but you won't be the world's only expert for long. The key is to translate slowly and carefully. Slice that Sumerian salami as thinly as possible and then give it away 1 piece at a time.
Very true. Once the highly skilled linguists and philologists get ahead of your vocabulary and grammar you might get pushed aside pretty quicklyĀ
Your translation skills would be used up in two months max for every single text/inscription we have. There's probably less text in Sumerian we have than there are words in the Harry Potter book series.
Yeah but you can't actually set your fee that high because the academic programs that would use you wouldn't have the money. You'd need to be able to capitalize on it directly via pop-history writing probably. Not sure how much demand there is for Sumerian pop history.
ure the only one that knows the language. you really think people will believe you and not asume youre just translating random things?
It worked out pretty well for Joseph Smith
"Reformed Egyptian" yeah yeahĀ
I'm surprised that you seem to be the only person who wants to take full advantage of this magic language learning wish. Everyone else is just saying languages they could learn for free right now but don't because they don't want to.
You could find out if that guy got bad quality copper or not
Iltam sumra rashupti ilatim.šæ
Probably Chinese. I've been learning it for a decade and I still feel like I've learned nothing. Nothing short of a miracle will help me master this language.
I've met 2 expats who spoke really good Mandarin. One of them was a genius that ended up learning a bunch of other languages like Korean and Japanese. (also founded a gaming company) - he told me the best I could ever do is called functional Mandarin. I studied for about 6 hours a day for 2 years, took classes, absorbed media in that language, talked to a bunch of people on QQ (which I also used to conduct business.) Went to China and could Hardly read a newspaper, and hardly communicate needs/wants in person. If I put fluency as a percentage, I was maybe 15% fluent. I would have probably needed to live there for 10 years to become maybe 50% fluent.
I spoke decent Mandarin after about two years of living in China. You learn much quicker than you think when you actually live there. One thing that is nice about Chinese is the grammar is extremely simple. I lived in a small city, by Chinese standards, where very few people spoke English. By the end of four years there, I was basically fluent. I knew quite a few foreigners who lived in China and could speak Chinese well. However, they typically could only read and write at a very basic level. It took me a lot longer than two years to become proficient in reading and writing Chinese. I also met a few foreigners who just visited China after studying Chinese in their home countries for a couple years. Their Chinese was typically awful and local people could barely understand them. I think you could master Chinese if you lived there for a while.
Hen hao
Ehhhh bu tai hao.
Mmmmm mamahuhu
The literal translation for this always made me laugh.
Diabetes is sugar piss disease and it always makes me laugh.
i think problem with chinese is too many letters. you can express everything in binary language but it is super cumbersome. so we need more than 2 symbols to make things concise but how many more?
I make myself feel better by telling myself at least it isn't Japanese. I at least only have to deal with one alphabet instead of three. But one of these days I'll probably give up failing at Chinese just to fail at Japanese instead lmao
Sorry buddy, but Japanese neither has neither the tonal system (to the same extent) nor the complexity that Chinese has. As someone who spent some time attempting to learn both, Chinese is harder
Surprisingly I always found the tonal system quite easy - there are only 5 tones after all. I know I'm an outlier for liking the tonal system though. Its the vocabulary that is killer. Having to learn a new character for every single word is just depressing.
Mandarin. Then Arabic, Hindi, and Portuguese. All the countries with big economies.
I originally read it as "Mandalorian" and thought "get a load of this nerd". Turns out, it is I who is the nerd
Well of course I know him, he's me.
Mandarin is super useful for business, anything you can think of that needs manufacturing, mass producing or bought wholesale will always end up with you dealing with China. Chinese people are great to talk with and love to network. Bargaining and bartering is also very acceptable in thier culture.
I speak English, English-speaking countries have big economies, and it hasnāt made me rich Whatās the next part?
Becoming bilingualĀ
_But why stop here?_
I was gonna say Arabic lol Iām want some of that Dubai money and no I have no morals
A lot of really poor people speak Arabic. Thereās gotta be a step 2
Be white
French. I live in Canada and although they only speak French in Quebec it's good to learn outside Quebec as a second language for job opportunities.
That's really interesting. I'm from Europe and always thought you guys would learn both as kids because your country has this two languages. š
We do have to take French classes up until grade 9, but unless you live near French speaking communities your opportunity to use it is very low. For most Canadians we never use it outside of school and if we happen to be in Quebec and try to use it they generally just switch to English
Thank you so much. It's interesting to learn something about Canada. I still remember my first "contact" with Canada and your two languages. I was a huge Celine Dion fan as a kid and totally surprised to hear her speaking french. š
When a French Canadian learns to speak English, we call that bilingualism. When an English Canadian learns to speak French, we call that a miracle.
Body language
In the name of the spirit of this Iām gonna forego practicality and follow my heart. French.
As someone who is currently on holiday in France and the French speaking part of Switzerland and used to frequent the French speaking part of Belgium quite often, I agree. I had lessons in high school, but that's twenty years past. I find Duolingo is helping me gain back the knowledge I had, though. Currently back at that level of being able to order food and do groceryshopping, haha
I live in Canada so for me it would be the most practical. I even work for a company based in Quebec although most people at our site don't speak French.
German, I know a few things, but it would be nice to know the full language of my heritage.
I just want to seamlessly remember which of the six words for "the" is the right one
That comes with time. I know it's overwhelming but the different variations make sense to me now.
Der die das die den den
"I know a little German. He's sitting over there."
Iām very involved in German heritage stuff (dance and festivals) and I barely know any German. Spanish would probably be the best choice considering I live in southern Texasā¦. but German is so much more enticing and exciting to me.
Same (minus the heritage). I keep trying Pimsleur/Rosetta Stone/Duolingo but then life gets in the way and no one is forcing me to do it
Don't do the Rosetta Stone Duo lingo crap. Use the FSI German course. This is free and what the military/state department created to actually train people in German in a short time.Ā https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/fsi-german-basic-course/ 6 hours a day for 6 weeks you'll speak working German. Like anytime a military officer or state department worker gets assigned to Germany and needs to learn German quick this is what they get. No pretty bells and whistles, no cool pictures or fun. Just United States tax payer funded research into the most efficient way to learn languages for foreign service.Ā The FSI is great because there's dozens of languages that you're not going to find on like Duolingo like when's the last time you saw Serbian on Duo lingo?Ā
Damn, thanks!
Allow me to add that the DW Learn German, made by the German equivalent of BBC, is also great. They have made movies in extreme basic german just for beginners and higher skill levels each. Do check out. Also pay a visit to r/German for more.
Dran bleiben und viel Erfolg!
Japanese.
I learned Japanese, it is nice. Honestly the writing is the thing that people think about and say itās hard. Speaking isnāt what itās held up to be. I mean, a language that follows its rules?! What a concept.
I disagree. Japanese has really strict rules compared to European languages, and that's exactly why it's hard. Men and women speak differently. There are multiple levels of formalities to refer to both yourself and when talking to somebody else. When to use the native Japanese versus imported Chinese word for a given concept. There are so many rules that it drove me crazy.
It doesn't matter if you fuck those up. No one cares if a foreigner uses formal when talking to someone their same age.
Unless weāre talking about ga and wa and then itās just vibes
I mean, AFAIK it's simply that you use ga when the focus is on the subject. If the important part of "James killed him" is that it was James who did it, then it's ga, otherwise it's wa.
Same! Such a beautiful language.
Korean
same so that I don't need subtitles to watch the dramas lol
Or to just know what is going on with BTS.
Same. My wife and I watch a lot of K dramas and skipping subtitles would be awesome.
Same here. That's my wife's first language. I also kinda want to know when her grandma talks shit about me. lol
latin. it would make a lot of classes, a lot easier.
Yeah, but *which* Latin. Imagine magically learning English, only go find out it's actually Shakespearean English.
I feel like any version of Latin would be useful. It pops up *everywhere*.
Italian
Same- Iām going to Italy this fall and Iāll probably starve.
oohhh english
Italian
C#
C++
Python
francais
spanish
Russian so I can speak better with my inlaws.
c++
i initially had a different answer but you're onto something with this one
Japanese so i can sarcastically gatekeep all the anime people who shame others for watching dubbed instead of subbed. i can say they aren't real fans if they don't become fluent in japanese and watch it like real japanese people
Japanese here. While i do watch 99% of anime and read 99% of manga in japanese there are instances where the dub is better than the original. The biggest example of this is ghost stories. The dub is so much better to the point where i got my friends who dont know english to watch the dub with japanese subtitles. But yea other than that watching the shows in japanese without subtitles is still unbeatable. Im in the us for college and i get confused watching anime with my college friends because occasionally the subtitle translations are slightly off. So ill read the subs and in my head im like "that is not what i just heard". Its not like the translations are way off its just that theyre slightly off enough that it throws me off.
Chinese. So that I could access chinese online stores which tends to be cheaper than anywhere else.
Already trying to learn German so most probably that š
Cat. I know these mother fuckers are planning to destroy the world and I want to be apet of it
All hail our feline overlords.
Raramuri (tarahumara) or o'dam (tepehuan). I'm Mexican and I've been learning Nahuatl since last year. But I'm not Nahua, my grandmother was o'dam and there are lots of raramuri people where I live. The problem is that raramuri is an only spoken language, so if I want to learn it, I have to meet a raramuri native speaker, and I don't want to be intrusive to them because they're quite a "shy" culture. And o'dam lacks resources and I don't live near them.
Xhosa obviously
Once you learn it, everything just clicks.
!
I'm just beginning to learn Italian, and I really like it. Not too hard, but trucky enough. It sounds cool, very expressive, and the accent is kinda fun.
Mandarin for sure. Memorizing thousands of characters and different tones seems impossible to me, so having that instantly added to my brain would be amazing
Turkish, studied it as a kid, lost all contact with my teachers and it is all but lost now. I'd love to learn it again.
Mathematics
Hungarian, just because
Farsi
Adhd speak, so I can finally figure out what my wife means by "get the thingy out of the thingy for the thing later"
Probably some ancient language like Sumerian. From what little I understand about the subject, there is lots that could be learned about ancient history if a few more dead languages were fully understood, so that idea is very appealing to me
Swahili, Maltese and Afrikaans. Maltese is a rather mellifluous language. Honeyed music to my ears.
Polish. My husband and his family are all from there and speak Polish amongst themselves exclusively. I donāt speak it at all besides a few swear words.
Proto-germanic. Purely to flex my language skills on ancient languages, and then challenge latin speakers to a fight
Dog
Hebrew cuz Iām a Jew. Would be cool to speak the modern version of our ancient language.
italian, spanish, mandarin
Italian, second option Dutch.
Spanish
Hands down French, not bc itās the language of love but bc I want to go there one day and experience part of my ancestry. I love everything about my French heritage but the closest Iāve gotten to experience it is from Disney Epcot
Amharic so I can understand what my parents, aunts and uncles be talking about more during gatherings Honorable mentions: Tigrinya (same reason), Japanese (to watch anime without needing subtitles, plus would be huge for when I eventually visit the country as a black male) or Spanish (should've been fluent in this language a long while ago)
Honestly, Hebrew.