I’ve been offered the opportunity to learn one of these languages through my workplace, free of charge. Very tempted to do so, although it will take some of my free time.
Which one would you choose? Any of you fluent in any of them that could offer some advice? It will be done through the OU, and the course runs for just short of a year I think.
French, German, Spanish or Mandarin?
posted on 20/6/22
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 20/6/22
comment by rooney_hernandez (U7012)
posted 7 hours, 13 minutes ago
Mandarin is a tonal language (that is, the meaning of the word completely changes based on the inflection with which it’s said), which I found did not translate well to us British, who tend to have a more relaxed, monotone manner of speaking.
As others have said, I think mandarin really requires a huge personal undertaking.
German I found to be the easiest, in that it seemed to be the most directly transferable with English in term of sentence structure, syntax, tense, etc.
French is probably the most mellifluous, but the effort required to actually pronounce some of the words without sounding like a donkey frustrated me a bit, as did the sentence structure. For example, instead of saying “the lord of the rings is my favourite book”, you would phrase it “the lord of the rings is the book, my most favourite”. I appreciate it’s not my language, but that just always really p*ssed me off.
My knowledge of Spanish is pretty much non-existent, but don’t they have a tense or conjugation that simply doesn’t exist in English? I imagine that would complicate things.
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German is a nice language. I am native speaker.
I learnt french and later spanish myself. Found spanish a lovely language.
Ich würde dir wirklich deutsch empfehlen. Ein grammatisch nicht einfache Sprache, aber deutsch ist immer auf den Punkt.
posted on 20/6/22
comment by Gunnerthru (U6675)
posted 8 seconds ago
comment by rooney_hernandez (U7012)
posted 7 hours, 13 minutes ago
Mandarin is a tonal language (that is, the meaning of the word completely changes based on the inflection with which it’s said), which I found did not translate well to us British, who tend to have a more relaxed, monotone manner of speaking.
As others have said, I think mandarin really requires a huge personal undertaking.
German I found to be the easiest, in that it seemed to be the most directly transferable with English in term of sentence structure, syntax, tense, etc.
French is probably the most mellifluous, but the effort required to actually pronounce some of the words without sounding like a donkey frustrated me a bit, as did the sentence structure. For example, instead of saying “the lord of the rings is my favourite book”, you would phrase it “the lord of the rings is the book, my most favourite”. I appreciate it’s not my language, but that just always really p*ssed me off.
My knowledge of Spanish is pretty much non-existent, but don’t they have a tense or conjugation that simply doesn’t exist in English? I imagine that would complicate things.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
German is a nice language. I am native speaker.
I learnt french and later spanish myself. Found spanish a lovely language.
Ich würde dir wirklich deutsch empfehlen. Ein grammatisch nicht einfache Sprache, aber deutsch ist immer auf den Punkt.
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Proud to have understood that (I think) though it’s 20 years since I studied German.
posted on 20/6/22
comment by Clockwork Red: Jadon and the Argonauts (U4892)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Gunnerthru (U6675)
posted 8 seconds ago
comment by rooney_hernandez (U7012)
posted 7 hours, 13 minutes ago
Mandarin is a tonal language (that is, the meaning of the word completely changes based on the inflection with which it’s said), which I found did not translate well to us British, who tend to have a more relaxed, monotone manner of speaking.
As others have said, I think mandarin really requires a huge personal undertaking.
German I found to be the easiest, in that it seemed to be the most directly transferable with English in term of sentence structure, syntax, tense, etc.
French is probably the most mellifluous, but the effort required to actually pronounce some of the words without sounding like a donkey frustrated me a bit, as did the sentence structure. For example, instead of saying “the lord of the rings is my favourite book”, you would phrase it “the lord of the rings is the book, my most favourite”. I appreciate it’s not my language, but that just always really p*ssed me off.
My knowledge of Spanish is pretty much non-existent, but don’t they have a tense or conjugation that simply doesn’t exist in English? I imagine that would complicate things.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
German is a nice language. I am native speaker.
I learnt french and later spanish myself. Found spanish a lovely language.
Ich würde dir wirklich deutsch empfehlen. Ein grammatisch nicht einfache Sprache, aber deutsch ist immer auf den Punkt.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proud to have understood that (I think) though it’s 20 years since I studied German.
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Dann würdest du meiner Empfehlung zustimmen?
posted on 20/6/22
And German has I think six different forms of the definite article which change based on gender and case.
We have exactly three: der, die, das. The "das" make german a bit weird. As it is the girl = das Mädchen. In our grammatic das has no "gender"
posted on 20/6/22
comment by Gunnerthru (U6675)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Clockwork Red: Jadon and the Argonauts (U4892)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Gunnerthru (U6675)
posted 8 seconds ago
comment by rooney_hernandez (U7012)
posted 7 hours, 13 minutes ago
Mandarin is a tonal language (that is, the meaning of the word completely changes based on the inflection with which it’s said), which I found did not translate well to us British, who tend to have a more relaxed, monotone manner of speaking.
As others have said, I think mandarin really requires a huge personal undertaking.
German I found to be the easiest, in that it seemed to be the most directly transferable with English in term of sentence structure, syntax, tense, etc.
French is probably the most mellifluous, but the effort required to actually pronounce some of the words without sounding like a donkey frustrated me a bit, as did the sentence structure. For example, instead of saying “the lord of the rings is my favourite book”, you would phrase it “the lord of the rings is the book, my most favourite”. I appreciate it’s not my language, but that just always really p*ssed me off.
My knowledge of Spanish is pretty much non-existent, but don’t they have a tense or conjugation that simply doesn’t exist in English? I imagine that would complicate things.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
German is a nice language. I am native speaker.
I learnt french and later spanish myself. Found spanish a lovely language.
Ich würde dir wirklich deutsch empfehlen. Ein grammatisch nicht einfache Sprache, aber deutsch ist immer auf den Punkt.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proud to have understood that (I think) though it’s 20 years since I studied German.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dann würdest du meiner Empfehlung zustimmen?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nein
I’m too busy (and old) for a foreign language, especially having failed with Portuguese when I lived there.
posted on 20/6/22
Schade
posted on 20/6/22
comment by The Mighty Tottenham Hotspur. (U7858)
posted 3 hours, 48 minutes ago
comment by N2 (U22280)
posted 26 minutes ago
comment by The Mighty Tottenham Hotspur. (U7858)
posted 1 hour, 33 minutes ago
Did Latin at my secondary school for 3 years.
Really enjoyed it, firm rules and structure and helped enormously with my career later in life
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You became a priest?
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No a vet, a lot of the anatomical names are (still) given from Latin
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I see.
I suppose Latin would come in use for that.
posted on 20/6/22
French is probably the most mellifluous, but the effort required to actually pronounce some of the words without sounding like a donkey frustrated me a bit, as did the sentence structure. For example, instead of saying “the lord of the rings is my favourite book”, you would phrase it “the lord of the rings is the book, my most favourite”. I appreciate it’s not my language, but that just always really p*ssed me off.
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"The Lord of the rings" est mon livre préféré.
It works both ways
posted on 20/6/22
Learn spanish u could visit south america