For my linguistics program I need to learn a non-Germanic, non-Romance language and it's recommended I start as soon as possible.
My two ideas right now are Arabic and Russian, as they're in high demand within government and being a linguist, a government job seems natural.
Which do you guys recommend and why? Is there another language I should be considering? I looked into Mandarin but it doesn't seem as cool.
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
youtube.com
twitter.com
Russian would be very cool. Arabic would be useful too considering the Arab and Western worlds are growing increasingly connected.
Mandarin is way fucking cooler than those two other languages, and China is rich and diverse in culture and history. I suggest you take out $2000 dollars and go on a trip to China and fall in love with the place. The people, food, traditions, markets, memorials, nature, everything is so incredible and vast.
Just learn Japanese. Their economy is the same as the British and French combined, they can be reliably traded with, while their English is still atrocious.
Trying to deal with Russians business-wise is hell on earth.
Doesnt Arabic have like 50 dialects and is bitch to learn in general?
Btw Russian is useless and ugly as fuck, learn Estonian, 1 0000000 ruskis are coming to your country in next 10 years anyways
youtube.com
Serbian, obviously.
excellent choices, Arabic and Russian are what i'd like to learn as well.
start with Russian. Probably easier to learn once you get over the new alphabet and once you get started you can enter a whole new world of dank russian memes
Bulgarian
Indo european language, no cases, one of the low key easiest languages for native english speakers to learn and historically important with its historical connection to old church slavonic
what media are you most likely to consume
go with that
it's a long run
Cymraeg
That was my thought process.
I don't doubt all of that. Mandarin is #3 on my considerations right now. It's less to do with the culture and people, and more-so to do with our government involvement with them.
Coming from a military perspective, I'm looking more into potential conflicts with Russian and Arabic speaking nations.
Business-wise you very well may be right. I'm not very interested in that aspect as a career path though.
Yes. I think schools are teaching Modern Standard Arabic, which is mostly only popular among the educated and elite Arabic-speaking, and Classical Arabic (lots of variations) between areas.
Love Serbia, but I feel I'd regret choosing them.
Even combining every Serbo-Croat speaker on earth, other Slavic languages like Russian, Polish and Ukrainian still have more speakers.
Russian is really great because it's not fragmented into a lot of dialects like Arabic, so a person from Moscow, Vladivostok and Astana can understand each other without a problem.
Cyrillic is really similar to the Latin script, but needs some getting used to.
Cases would be your biggest nightmare since English doesn't even have any (assuming you're an Anglophone). It's more difficult than just memorising a table
Anyways, does your uni expect you to learn it all by yourself? What's the point of the course than, anyway?
Thank you for the advice.
No, they don't expect me to learn it all by myself. It's a linguistics specialization and they offer language courses as well beginning in first year. I completed two years already, but took two years to do other things. I'm returning now and have some spare time to get a running start on this.
Basically I need to pick one either by April 6th (summer course enrolment begins), or by September when the fall semester begins, so I can take the courses for that language.
Welsh unironically sounds surprisingly nice
>Love Serbia, but I feel I'd regret choosing them.
B-but then you'd get to sing the Remove Kebab song
...
Don't learn Mandarin.
bump.
Do you have a proper idea on how to learn the languages once they're chosen?
russian and arabic are both difficult. try persian.
> Coming from a military perspective, I'm looking more into potential conflicts with Russian and Arabic speaking nations.
retarded autist
that being said, I would go with Russian or Mandarin.
I already speak english and russian so mandarin would be a natural choice for me. seein how you're canadian, maybe mandarin really is better for you.
t. abc
>Arabic
Arabic is very fractured unfortunately.
I'm taking Japanese in my university's linguistic program. Figured it's a safe bet since they're a large, developed economy with stable diplomatic and trade relations with my country. If I decide to go into business it will open up new options.
Russian would be the most interesting imo. To me it seems the more exciting an arabic country is the more linguistically different their dialect is, I'm pretty sure magherbi arabic is unintelligible to the official dialect (and the middle class in those countries are all educated in french anyway) while the heartland of the official dialect might be the gulf states and saudi arabia, which are conservative hellholes with nothing to do but stare at the sand. any time you spend travelling or living there would be stuck with bin bag women and tea towel men
Russia is actually a very interesting country, Moscow is a very enjoyable city and they have a massive incredible landscape, learning Russian would help you explore the backroads of the country. The people and culture are much more diverse as well, I'd much rather live amongst them then the heartland muzzies who'll never accept you as equals
Historical Russian literature would be more enjoyable as well, there's a lot of classics that were only written in the last couple hundred years whereas everything worthwhile in Arabic would have been written in their golden age would would be almost 1000 years ago and maybe not intelligible to the modern language
Hello, bitch. Why not be a MAN and learn the hardest language in Europe? Learn Finnish -you'll never use it like a native. Even after 20 years we'd find something wrong with you pronounciation and secretly classify you as inferior and sad. Can't say tekemättömyydellänsäkään? Can't pronounce kk and ä? Fuck you, don't be a bitch. How many leafs know Mandarin? Millions. How many leafs know Finnish? Hundreds. Think about it.
learn hungarian you töpörödött törpördög
Coming from a military perspective you will encounter Russian speaking military personnel and tech documentation either way, so unless you want to focus solely on Iran and learn... Farsi, right? I'd recommend you to start learning Russian.
Of course Polish is also an option to consider. It's in a way even more demanding than Finnish, but as soon as you break the cypher and get fluent, you'll be able to swear like no other being on this planet. Also no Cyrillic would be required.
>the Arab and Western worlds are growing increasingly connected.
yeah, by direct flights
Really, huora? You think you know how to swear? Your kurwa is cute and all but all Poles are effeminate bitches so your words lack the weight needed for the swear to sound threatening. I bet leafs have plenty of plumbers and bums from Poorland, so there is no merit in learning the language of the pipes.
Don't be an idiot. Serbian is a much older and more difficult and much more GLORIOUS language.
youtube.com
Wisdom of Falcon.
We can swear in quite a Finnish way. For example I could say to someone "ty wykurwiście okurwiała podkurwino skurwiałego kurwlandzkiego kurwiszcza" and he would understand as much of that as you do.
>finland population 5 180 000
>less than in big city
>learn finnish
by pilgrimages too, haha
Serbian is only good if you plan to be a spy, since Belgrade is spy capital No.1. now, after you learned serbian, russian will be easier to pick up.
Russian is a fundamentally-different language from english if you compare english similarities to other germanic languages or french.
That being said, you've got to really want to learn Russian, if you enter learning it half-assed, you won't get much out of it.
prepare to learn +69 conjugations for one single word
Btw Russian is useless and ugly as fuck, learn Estonian,
The dialect thing with arabic is overstated. It's a bit like going to Australia or scotland, it's more about letting your ear adjust then anything else. There are a couple of exceptions though.
Also why not Persian? IE language, rich literary history, Iranians are cool as fuck, interesting history and current events, geopolitically active, less common in Government circles than Russian and Arabic
bump
>non-Germanic, non-Romance language
try english :^^)
why are u all so fucking russophobic, balkanlar