What language ?

[tswiczko]

I hope I have done this correctly.

Some if you have read my posts and responses and Know I'm returning to school after several years (26 to be exact) and have been advised to take German.

Of the Educators in our group, and anyone else who would like to reply

What do you think the best of the three choices do you think might be the best for some-one of limited grasp of our, (the english language) would be?

 

[veritas honus]

Re: What language ?

Have I missed something??? What are the three choices?

 

[veritas honus]

Re: What language ?

OK... Just voted for Spanish... The poll did not load until after I posted my response.

It's my understanding that Spanish is the least difficult language to learn.

 

[jigngrub]

Re: What language ?

1. Spanish

2. French

3. German

I can speak a little Spanish, and have been places where French would've been handy... but I've never been anywhere or around anyone that speaks German.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: What language ?

I learned German and lived in Germany 5 years while in the military. Pretty much useless now and only a novelty to know.

Spanish would be my first choice if I had to do it over.

 

[dingbat]

Re: What language ?

This reminds me of an old joke my Europeans friends like to tell.

What do you call some who speaks three languages ? trilingual
What do you call some who speaks two languages ? bilingual
What do you call some who speaks only one language ? An American :redface:


I work for a large International Corporation with offices in over 35 countries around the world. English has become the language of commerce worldwide. All contracts and agreements, etc. are written in English so their is no commerical value in learning the "old world" languages.

If I had to learn a second language it would be Mandarin. An American who works in a technical field and speaks fluent Mandarin is worth their weight in gold and their salaries reflect this need.

 

[lakelover]

Re: What language ?

It depends on where you live and what you want to do with it. Spanish seems to be the most common non-English language now. If you live or travel near French Canada, I might say French, but the French taught in schools is only partly helpful for that. My son is finishing up a degree in German, currently taking his last semester in Germany. I'm not sure what he will be able to do with it in a practical way. He has thought about translating, and teaching English as a second language, possibly in Canada. The second shoice would require a lot of additional education.

 

[JB]

Re: What language ?

My former wife, the LOML, was German. In 30 years of marriage I learned a few dozen German words and phrases that I still use with her and our middle aged children. I have never had any other use for it.

I live in Texas, where some percent. . .I guess about 10%. . .of rural people speak only Spanish. There is a great need for bilingual skills here, though the "Spanish" spoken here is about as close to Spain Spanish as what we use is to English English.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: What language ?

Spanish for me although I would agree with JB in that the language spoken from Mexico is not true spanish but learning the base language would be a big help.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: What language ?

I'm with Dingbat. The company I work for (and many others) deals with Chinese vendors a lot. We have an office in Hong Kong that helps with communications/translations but even THEY are difficult to work with. Most of the "factories" that build our products are nothing more that some old guy in a small garage making one tiny part of the whole that will be combined with ten other guy's parts and assembled and packaged in a small building by young women... none of whom speak english nor do they care to learn. The only way these products come in correct is through constant supervision and communication. This goes a lot smoother when your company rep speaks their language and most places will pay handsomely to have such an employee at their disposal.

That being said I have heard that it is a very difficult language to learn.

 

[drrpm]

Re: What language ?

It really depends on why you want to learn it. Spanish would be the most useful for general purposes. German or French would be good if you need to deal with those countries. Skill with Mandarin and Arabic are currently highly prized. I learned German (my mother is German) and used it while I was stationed there from 91-94, but really haven't used it since.

 

[tswiczko]

Re: What language ?

This reminds me of an old joke my Europeans friends like to tell.

What do you call some who speaks three languages ? trilingual
What do you call some who speaks two languages ? bilingual
What do you call some who speaks only one language ? An American :redface:


I work for a large International Corporation with offices in over 35 countries around the world. English has become the language of commerce worldwide. All contracts and agreements, etc. are written in English so their is no commerical value in learning the "old world" languages.

If I had to learn a second language it would be Mandarin. An American who works in a technical field and speaks fluent Mandarin is worth their weight in gold and their salaries reflect this need.

Hey, I resemble that remark:facepalm:

I would prefer to learn Russian, But that isn't offered here. Neither is mandarin which would have been my second choice.

Lakelover: My majors are geology, and physical geography (double major no minor).

I will be graduating fall of 12 so I am looking for grad schools so I can get my masters in hydrology, and will start applying in January to see where I will get accepted. So where I will wind up is still in the air.

 

[emilsr]

Re: What language ?

Almost a third of the world's population speaks Spanish or something similar. That'd be my first choice. Mandarin would be second, Russian third....and my boat has a Russian name.

Why are you being advised to take German? Like a previous poster I learned some while living there in the early 90's and rarely use it these days....more of a novelty.

 

[geeco1]

Re: What language ?

I speak 5 languages, and use them all everyday. They are....

American
British
Canadian (not french)
Austrailian
South African


Seriously though, I think that your choice will depend on what you plan on doing with the language. If it is to just learn a new language, then Spanish is the way to go.

 

[tswiczko]

Re: What language ?

A few students had taken Spanish and failed,then switched to German and have done well, so my current advisor thinks it is either a curriculum problem or bad professor and is leaning toward the latter. As to which professor the other students had I do not know.

I would much rather learn more about my own language than try to learn another but four semesters of a (and all four must be in the same) language in order to get my degree.

By the way this advisor is my second, my last advisor had me taking classes that would not fill my requirements and told me that the classes I wanted to enroll in would not fill the requirements. The reality was that they were dead wrong and had it backwards.

I thought it was just a mistake on their part and gave them the benefit of a doubt and returned to see them the next semester and they enrolled me in a class that had 3 pre-requisites and I had only 1 pre req. filled. When the class started there were 7 other people in the class that didn't have any of the 3 pre-requisites filled. After that I switched advisors and found out If I had my languages done (like I wanted to last summer) I would have been able to graduate this December and now I will have to wait till next fall to graduate.

The only other thing I have to say about that advisor is that they are notorious for putting people in the wrong classes. Too bad I found out too late.

 

[dlindeblad]

Re: What language ?

The suggestion to learn German by the Advisor is probably due to the fact that German and Enlish have a lot of similar words and language structure.

Spanish makes the most sense to learn as it is more applicable in the US. (yes Mexican Spanish is wayyyyyyy different than what is spoken in Spain) Besides, once you learn Spanish you can always think about tackling French or even Italian, as these three Latin languages are very similar in words and sentence structure.

I live in Italy and speak fluent Italian and often travel to Africa, where my French is passable. When I do travel to Spain I can understand 50% of the time because the other two languages help for Spanish.

Spanish should be easier to learn than French initially because it is hard to get Americans use to forming their mouths to pronounce words without the "Man's" man feeling a bit girly. Hope this helps.

 

[emoney]

Re: What language ?

I would've voted for "Sign Language" but it wasn't an option, ftr. (It's about to move up the ladder pretty quickly). However, since that's the case, I chose Spanish because of living in Florida. I learned a little French in college and have used it ONCE. Oddly enough, that was in a Wal Mart where a French Canadian asked me where the toillet paper isle was. Spanish? I could use that every day almost.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: What language ?

I speak and write three languages, American English, German and Japanese, currently German has no usage in my daily life and I divorced the person that I learned Japanese for, if I had to do it over again, I would learn Spanish and Chinese...

 

[Cadwelder]

Re: What language ?

Would have to go with Spanish too. I'm not crazy about the amount of Spanish spoken in the US, but I guess it's changing times.

 

[rbh]

Re: What language ?

Is profanity a language all onto itself?????

But really take a look into the field of work you are going into and try and see into the future who your customers are going to be mainly..

Hydrology/geology = hydro electric generation +-????? (dam building)