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We hear so much about coding languages on the board. is anyone here taking up any foreign languages? Or better what do you think is the best language for a native english speaker to learn and why?

I speak English and French

The bestest language to learn is Arabic....
WHy you say...well so you can have a cool job at the CIA

Mandarin Chinese. Why? Because you got the two most-spoken languages in the world in your head.

AHA!!! aLPHa_LeaK is smart. But i don't like having to remember 1000's of characters ( i can barely remember the english alphabet sometimes (joking) )

I think Japanese would be a good language to learn. They borrowed alot of their words and symbols from the Chinese. Plus they have their own alphabets for spelling and junk(yeah, they got 2).

I also like Korean, I just think its cool. Plus the alphabet is extremely easy to learn. the hardest part about it is that some sounds in the korean alphabet aren't used in the english language, so most of us would get tongue twisted.

ambir wrote:I think Japanese would be a good language to learn. They borrowed alot of their words and symbols from the Chinese. Plus they have their own alphabets for spelling and junk(yeah, they got 2).

They have 3. Hiragana which is their basic character set most words can be made from a combination of these. Katakana which is used for foreign words which have come into use in their country or brands or whatever. And kanji which is a derivation from the chinese character set, many symbols being identical or close but with very different meanings.

The best language for a native english speaker to learn would be one that is still based on latin characters, this will make it much easier to pick up and comprehend. During the first 3 (maybe 4) years my highschool required students to pick up another language with the choices being french or japanese, as much as I did alot better in french during the year I took it (first year you had to take both so you could make a decision about which was better for you) I chose japanese which was a hell of a lot harder (however, less was expected of you ).

Lol, i never really thought of kanji to be an actual alphabet. i just saw it as an endless amount of wierd symbolds that confused me . Doesn't one symbol = an entire word?

Most schools here allow for spanish in HS. In my college, they allow you to do either French or Spanish. There are a few small places where (little hard to find supposed to be schools) you can go for classes to pick up foreign languages though.

The best second language? One that you will use.

It's no good learning indian if you're never going to have anything to do with it. Best is probably to learn the lingo of a neighbouring country as many people will travel to your country from over there, and another language that is useful like that will get you a job.

ambir wrote:I think Japanese would be a good language to learn. They borrowed alot of their words and symbols from the Chinese. Plus they have their own alphabets for spelling and junk(yeah, they got 2).

It's the other way around. Japan invaded China in the past and left some words and other stuff there..

I agree with aLPHa_LeaK. The language might be useful for the future.

Koreans, Chinese and Japanese share the same words in a alot of cases, learning one makes it easier to learn the other.

Definatly Chinese. They're growing at a crazy rate. You can get alot of money working at a highly placed job in a big company if you can translate chinese to english fluently.

Well, here in Denmark I naturally have Danish as my first language.

Besides that we learn English from an early age and then later on get German or in some cases have the choice of French.

In high school you primarily get to choose between German, French or Spanish. Other than that it's possible to get Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and maybe Italian I think, on some other high schools.

But for an English speaker I'd recommend French or Spanish...

ambir wrote:We hear so much about coding languages on the board. is anyone here taking up any foreign languages? Or better what do you think is the best language for a native english speaker to learn and why?

This really depends on your needs and your specific location.

Around here, Spanish is by far the most helpful second language to have. In the Health Clinic I used to work for, being bilingual with Spanish was a very important skill because a very large portion of our clients spoke Spanish and very little English.

If you're looking at international business or something, maybe Chinese is more useful. It all completely depends on your goals and what you want to accomplish.

I'm currently studying english and french at school. If I were to choose another kanguage, it would probably german because it's quite a popular and useful language. Also I would like to learn japaneese just because I see it as an interesnting language due to the different alphabet and origin.

Being a mathematician, I would recommend learning Hungarian. There have been many brilliant mathematicians from Hungary and they have an amazing program there. It is also one of the most difficult second languages to learn for an English speaker, but definately worth it!