What should I take in school? (11)

1 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-03-08 06:03 ID:31as5Gh/

I'm going off to college later this year, and my school of choice mandates 4 trimesters of language (5 for Asian languages.) I'll probably take more though unless my ease in learning Spanish doesn't translate to other languages.

Unfortunately, the school is pretty small, so it only offers Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese.

I don't really care about any of these, so which would you guys recommend taking? Spanish would probably be easiest since I'm already familiar with it, and I assume Chinese will be the most useful provided the CCP doesn't start Great Leap Forward 2.0, but I've also heard it's hard as fuck.

2 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-03-08 20:15 ID:3/5opv1m

There are a lot of cool people taking both Japanese and Chinese. At least, that's the case at my college.

Japanese is easier than Chinese but if you aren't a weeaboo you should make it evident by taking Chinese.

3 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-03-08 20:16 ID:3/5opv1m

Oh yeah, I forgot to add, Hong Kong culture is really the tops. If you take Chinese you can watch some sweet Hong Kong movies, not just kung fu but also very good, realistic romance.

4 Name: Kenji : 2007-03-14 09:53 ID:XT9Um0JG

Um...no. Don't ever base your courses on the students first, that's just a plus counted at the end. As for which course you should take, you've provided no information on what languages and/or courses you have taken in the past, so your question can't be answered. However, since you say you are most familiar with Spanish, then I guess you should think logically and take Spanish.

5 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-03-19 03:43 ID:L/tqRfCx

But I don't care about Spanish ;_; (I would take Portuguese.)

I'm a native English speaker and have taken three years of rather basic Spanish, but I don't care about learning it any more. I'm not really looking to learn based on ease (in which case I would most definitely take Spanish.) I want something fun and useful.

Maybe I can take Norwegian at a neighboring school.

6 Name: Kenji : 2007-03-20 23:04 ID:XT9Um0JG

>>5
Japanese is something you need to work at. Having been a TA for Japanese many times, I can tell you that there is nothing more annoying than the slackers or people who take it with no real reason to.

7 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-03-21 22:47 ID:26FYX4Rn

My vote for Chinese

8 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-04-05 21:26 ID:p9RtmOTw

>>3
spoiler: most schools teach mandarin since cantonese is slowly being phased out

9 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-05-17 18:04 ID:T3/dGGAs

Um. Yeah. These are mostly in Cantonese, which is rarely taught at universities with small language programs. It's commonly taught in big universities or in communities with large Chinese populations

Also, re: Cantonese being phased out, below: Total nonsense. Mandarin acquisition is officially encouraged by PRC gov't in HK and elsewhere, with some success, marked by increasing bi- or multilingualism in Cantonese speaking populations. But Cantonese speaking populations worldwide have actually increased pretty substantially in recent decades, and are up to 70+ million. Migration of non-Cantonese into HK SAR has actually promoted acquisition of Cantonese by Mandarin speakers, as well as increasing Canto loanwords into Han.

10 Name: Anonymous Linguist : 2007-05-17 18:06 ID:T3/dGGAs

Whoops, and I meant to say that Chinese is probably the most useful, second to Spanish, of the languages you list, assuming you're in the US.

11 Name: Ani : 2007-06-30 00:18 ID:Zs8t/h9+

Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese.?!!!
small school, oh cmon!
my school is pretty big and we still only have Spanish and French ...that sucks..
I'd say Japanese or Chinese..european languages will wait..

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