I was awful at that one, but I picked up Geometrese without much problem.

I took the trouble to learn a bit of French when I visited France on holiday for the first time, and found the French
people remarkably helpful once you start by speaking French (and pronouncing it correctly, not with an obvious English/American accent), even if you then run into difficulties and switch to English. But if you approach a Frenchman (or woman) and ask in English, 'Excuse me, can you speak English?', you'll be given short shrift, whether or not they speak English......

Incidentally, Quebec is also proudly French.

If I was going to learn a new language, it would be Esperanto, because it's the only truly international language, and nobody in any country understands it......

Of course...there is the most rapidly growing ,rather new "language" here in the US (not sure about the rest of the world):

TEXT




UGH.

lolol yeah 4 realz

Sorry to disagree, but Japanese has no conjugation? In fact it has the most ridiculously complicated conjugation of any language I know, probably outstripping German. You can construct nearly an entire sentence with compound verb conjugations. And, to make matters worse, the basic verb is written with Chinese ideogram characters (Kanji) and the conjugation is written with Japanese phonetic characters (Hiragana).

Chinese has has no conjugation, but you have to deal with the Chinese characters and the pitch system. Take your pick.

Since you started this thread on Chinese New Year then you should learn Chinese.

Algebrese is fascinating! Just look at the happy face of someone who has studied it here.

What japanese conjugation do you know?
There are no different forms for singular/plural and different persons, only one for present and past tense, and formal/informal versions.
let's take "do" (infinitive shiru):
shimasu = i,you,he/she/it,we,you,they do
shiru(?) same, informal
shimashita same, past tense
informal, not sure

no future, no different past forms, no conjunctive. anything else? It's about the same for Korean. German is the language with the most ridiculously complex conjugation i know, more exceptions than rules, Umlauts, more individual person forms, extreme variety in conjunctive and simple past word stems, etc.

OSK, did you pick any languages?

And Tararex, I would like to affirm that I've recently met many people who both learned Madarin and Korean as a native english speaker. They've all stated that Korean is impossible for various reasons while Chinese is actually rather easy in comparison. I've also asked some of my polygot friends, and many state that Korean is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn. Writing is much easier in Korean, but everything else seems to be harder. Japanese is very different in this respect. Many have stated it's not nearly as difficult as Korean either.

Orange Soda King:

I've always thought that one of the greatest reasons for studying another language is because people who speak other languages actually think in different ways and have words and expressions in their language that simply can't be translated into English. Somehow after studying their language for awhile, through a process of osmosis almost, you really begin to intuit the meanings of these words and expressions and learn to think the way they do. In a way, I think an exposure to different styles of thinking only serves to broaden and expand our own thought processes.

In the past, I've studied German, Russian, and Mandarin. Of those, I'd rank Russian the most difficult as it has, I think, six cases and gazillions of different endings to learn, and I think something like 75% of its verbs are irregular. I always felt like you had to be born into it to learn it.

Chinese grammar is fairly simple, but learning to read and write it is more daunting, although once you learn some of the common elements that make up many characters, it becomes easier. I took two years of Chinese in college and I think by the end of the first year, we were expected to know about 2,000 characters which is probably about what the average five-year-old in China knows (sigh). As others have mentioned, Mandarin is a tonal language, and it's interesting that in my Chinese class of about fifteen students, there were three folks who were music majors, taking it just for fun. Since you've got some musical background that would probably make it easier for you to learn spoken Chinese. You'll always have plenty of folks to talk to in Chinese, including probably half of the foreign piano students in the U.S.

Good luck in whatever you wind up choosing.

Regards,

John

I read French and German quite well. Speaking and hearing another speak and understanding what is said are more difficult for me. I am not a fluent speaker in either language. The advice, stated above, of having access to people who speak the language you choose is very helpful (especially if they are friends who will allow you to struggle and still maintain a conversation in that language). Living in the US, this is a difficulty I have encountered. Almost everyone I encounter in the US who speaks French or German also speaks English and, since they speak English better than I speak either French or German, the default language becomes English. Since Québec is on the same continent and Canada has a favorable currency exchange rate to the US, I have begun concentrating on French more than German. Therefore, since you live in the US, Spanish (first choice) or French (second choice) would be my inclination. Spanish would be much more practical and easily accessible. Musically speaking, IMHO, German or Italian would be the best choices with French following.

My late wife was Chinese. Unfortunately, her linguistic development was formed by coming to the US when she was 8, being thrust into the English speaking world with no preparation, then returning to Taiwan at age 12 and being thrust back into Chinese, which failed, and she ended up going to Taipei American School. The result was that her "mother" tongue was Mandarin Chinese, but she was more fluent in English. I tried twice, on my own, to learn Mandarin, and failed. One of the reasons I failed is what has been stated above: the characters and, consequently, looking up words in either language. I have been able to reinforce French and German through reading. I could not do that in Chinese. Additionally, my wife could not explain any grammar to me because of her limitations and her vocabulary was also limited. Lastly, I learn better visually than just aurally. Ultimately, I learned to speak some Mandarin. I agree that, for an English speaker, pronunciation is easier because the sounds are similar. However, the four "tones" that are used present another difficulty. Chinese is a practical choice for the future, but, for a person who is accustomed to an alphabetically and phonetically based language, will be more challenging to learn.

What ever language you choose, plan on devoting a good deal of time to it. The returns are well worth the time and effort. Good luck and have fun with it.

apart from Dutch, French, English, German, Italian, I hope to have room in my head to store Russian grammar/vocabulary (horror) and maybe Swahili for the mere fun of it, alas, all that music occupies so much space...

Gotta love those Neerlanders !

Sorry for reviving this thread, but I just finished reading a very inspiring book called How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber. I am learning German right now and Farber's method is extremely helpful.

How is your language study going, by the way?

Why do you want to learn many languages? Isn't it better to spend one's time to learn other things. I think that being able to speak two languages is good enough. To me what we say is more important than our ability to say it in different languages.

^ ^ Because he can. He's done well so far.

I still haven't gotten off the ground with a language yet... It's still the middle of the semester. I'm not sure when I can fit time in to study one, because my schedule gets SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO packed so easily...

Because every language has their own flavour and way of thinking. You could also ask: why would you learn or listen to multiple instruments when one instrument (the piano) can say it all? Also, it's fun and interesting, and you also learn other things beside the language.

I've just started Korean which is very fun so far, the alphabet for example looks like a tough nut, but is actually easy!

You raised a good question why we learn or listen to multiple instruments. As a matter of fact, I don't. I do not like to listen to any other instruments or even listen to music. I listen to music just for the purpose of learning how to play it. I listen to get ideas. I think this is totally my personality, with anything. I usually only want one thing. For example watch, I only like one brand, and satisfied with it. I think there is a good and bad side. The good side is that I won't spend my money on many unnecessary things, and the bad thing is that I am missing something. But what will I miss, if I do not even know what I miss.