Hi guys! I'm planning to take up a foreign language subject next sem, but I just don't know what it would be.. What do you think can be the most useful, French, German, Spanish, Nihongo, or Mandarin? Those are my only options.. :( And what are your comments about these languages, are they easy to learn? I'll really appreciate your help! ^_^

The only one of those I've had much of an experience with was French (although, I'm toying with the idea of learning German), and I wasn't very good at that; but I think the way they teach it over here is in part to blame. But those languages listed would be good to learn, as they're spoken by a lot of people. Especially Spanish and Mandarin.

I'm worried with the pronunciations.. :-/ How do words in French sound like? Does it differ much from English?

Okay, wait. I try to edit something and it makes a new post? What.

I don't know too much about it but there are some words that are pretty similar. The alphabet is pronounced differently from English to French, so I think that's probably the main difference. However, I learned Quebec French, which is apparently quite different from France French.

I thought you're telling me that I missed something from what you said. :D
Haha. Okay. :D

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So no tongue-twisting accent required? :D Maybe I'll try French. :) I heard learning German's a little tough, because of the accent..

In terms of population, Spanish and Mandarin are the best. I imagine Mandarin is quite hard to write..but there is the simplified writing version, not sure what they'd teach you.

Gladstone wrote:In terms of population, Spanish and Mandarin are the best. I imagine Mandarin is quite hard to write..but there is the simplified writing version, not sure what they'd teach you.

Uh...while the difference between traditional and simplified is huge, I don't think you can call simplified Mandarin simple...

As well, yes Quebec French is very different from France French. The biggest difference you will notice is they will use the f word in every sentence. I don't mean the f word in French, I mean the English way of saying f*** in a French sentence.

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Word for Mandarin in Mandarin Chiense: Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話)

Dunno if you can see that. But to most foreigners there isn't too many differences.

I would suggest French. I just gave my French term end exam today and it was awesome! :D

On a more serious note, French is very easy to learn. Once you get the hang of some basics, it is simple sailing thereafter. However, the pronunciation is very difficult (in my opinion). That is because the spelling of the word and the way it is pronounced differ widely and it tends to confuse you. Also, different teachers pronounce the words in different ways (this is seen when one is learning from a non-French faculty). And, for me, French always seemed somewhat more well-known to the world in general than any other language (barring English).
I have friends who do German and they say it is easy too. You have to make more use of the throat, I think. The theory part is simple. Some say French is easier and others say German. If you are planning on taking science, I think German would be a good option. Because many research papers are written in that language and German universities are more famed for science than French.
Spanish grammar, my friend tells me, is quite similar to French. Once you know one language, the other is simple. So I don't think there would be all that much difference between the two.
I have read reports saying more and more people are taking Mandarin because of China's growing influence in the world and some say it may become the language of the future (I doubt it though). Like Pete says, the traditional script is difficult.
I know nothing else. :P

Nero wrote:

Gladstone wrote:In terms of population, Spanish and Mandarin are the best. I imagine Mandarin is quite hard to write..but there is the simplified writing version, not sure what they'd teach you.

Uh...while the difference between traditional and simplified is huge, I don't think you can call simplified Mandarin simple...

Word for Mandarin in Mandarin Chiense: Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話)

Dunno if you can see that. But to most foreigners there isn't too many differences.

...I didn't. I said there was a simplified writing version, not that its generally simple. Also, for that one word there isn't much difference but...

"The government of the PRC (as well as some other governments and institutions) has promulgated a set of simplified forms. Under this system, the forms of the words zhèlǐ ("here") and nàlǐ ("there") changed from 這裏/這裡 and 那裏/那裡 to 这里 and 那里."

N&b wrote:And, for me, French always seemed somewhat more well-known to the world in general than any other language (barring English).

How so? Spanish and Mandarin are spoken by far more people. But it also would depend on what languages are spoken more in the area that Cal lives in.

The most useful is definitely going to be Mandarin, but the writing (like Japanese) is very difficult to learn. (I did a bit of Japanese, and Japanese writing, at least the simple system (hiragana) we learnt, is a lot easier to learn than Chinese.) Pronunciation is also very important in spoken Chinese, as there are different tones which can completely change the meaning of words.

From the European languages, I've only done French and German, but I found German *much* easier to learn. It's a lot more logical and consistent than French, and you pronounce all the letters in the words (whereas French arbitrarily misses off the last letter or so of each word, for example).

FuzzyLobster wrote:

N&b wrote:And, for me, French always seemed somewhat more well-known to the world in general than any other language (barring English).

How so? Spanish and Mandarin are spoken by far more people. But it also would depend on what languages are spoken more in the area that Cal lives in.

Aside from the local dialects, English is the only popular language in here.. So i think it would not make any difference when it comes to popularity..


I think it would be easy for me to take Spanish.. Filipino language borrows many words from Spanish, so I guess it wouldn't be that difficult for me, and I heard the pronunciations are not that tricky.. Although I really want to take Japanese or Mandarin, just to learn a new system of writing.. ^o)

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Sentynel wrote:The most useful is definitely going to be Mandarin, but the writing (like Japanese) is very difficult to learn. (I did a bit of Japanese, and Japanese writing, at least the simple system (hiragana) we learnt, is a lot easier to learn than Chinese.) Pronunciation is also very important in spoken Chinese, as there are different tones which can completely change the meaning of words.

I learned that the Japanese people borrowed some characters from the Chinese writing.. If I take Chinese now and Japanese later, will it be much easier for me? To write in Japanese, I mean. Are they basically the same? I looked over some of the writings and they pretty much look the same to my untrained eyes..

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Gladstone wrote: "The government of the PRC (as well as some other governments and institutions) has promulgated a set of simplified forms. Under this system, the forms of the words zhèlǐ ("here") and nàlǐ ("there") changed from 這裏/這裡 and 那裏/那裡 to 这里 and 那里."

Seems like a very huge difference to me.. :blink:

calliope05 wrote:I learned that the Japanese people borrowed some characters from the Chinese writing.. If I take Chinese now and Japanese later, will it be much easier for me? To write in Japanese, I mean. Are they basically the same? I looked over some of the writings and they pretty much look the same to my untrained eyes..

There are three systems of writing in Japanese - hiragana and katakana, used for native and foreign words respectively, which are one character for one syllable (pretty much), and kanji, which is borrowed from Chinese and is one character per word or concept (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea).
However, kanji is not the same as Chinese writing - according to a friend who did quite advanced Japanese and used to ask a Chinese friend for help with characters he didn't recognise, only about half the time were they the same.

FuzzyLobster wrote:

N&b wrote:And, for me, French always seemed somewhat more well-known to the world in general than any other language (barring English).

How so? Spanish and Mandarin are spoken by far more people.

Yeah, but it is more localized than French. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world, after English.

Sentynel wrote:There are three systems of writing in Japanese - hiragana and katakana, used for native and foreign words respectively, which are one character for one syllable (pretty much), and kanji, which is borrowed from Chinese and is one character per word or concept (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the general idea).
However, kanji is not the same as Chinese writing - according to a friend who did quite advanced Japanese and used to ask a Chinese friend for help with characters he didn't recognise, only about half the time were they the same.

Seems like hiragana ang katakana are pretty tedious to learn.. Kanji seems more easier to learn then.. BTW, how do you compose Japanese or Chinese sentences? Do you think of them in english and just translate it afterwards? Or do they use a different sentence construction? i.e. the verb comes first before the noun, no conjunctions, etc.?

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nathanielandbartimaeus wrote:

FuzzyLobster wrote:

N&b wrote:And, for me, French always seemed somewhat more well-known to the world in general than any other language (barring English).

How so? Spanish and Mandarin are spoken by far more people.

Yeah, but it is more localized than French. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world, after English.

So I've heard.. :ermm:

calliope05 wrote:Seems like hiragana ang katakana are pretty tedious to learn.. Kanji seems more easier to learn then.. BTW, how do you compose Japanese or Chinese sentences? Do you think of them in english and just translate it afterwards? Or do they use a different sentence construction? i.e. the verb comes first before the noun, no conjunctions, etc.?

There's only about fifty characters each for hiragana and katakana; it's pretty much like learning a new alphabet.
On the other hand, there are thousands of kanji in common use, and tens of thousands in total. Take a guess which one's more tedious to learn...

Sentence structure is very different from English.

Well...which language do you find yourself more likely to use? Which one is the most useful, given your background, country that you live in, etc.. Just to narrow down the options at least.

Just randomly jumping in here. So I'm Chinese, and learning Japanese. Actually, students were encouraged to know at least a bit of Chinese back during registration for classes, because kanji is mostly based off traditional Chinese characters. It turned out to be quite helpful in intermediate Japanese because you can derive the meaning of most kanji if you know its counterpart in Chinese, with some hilarious exceptions of course. HOWEVER, you can get confused sometimes and mix them up, so I don't really recommend learning both at the same time.

Totally had to do with growing up with Mandarin, but Japanese seems to have a lot more sentence structures and word forms than Chinese does D: