Python!
Oh…oh, I get it. Learn Latin.
this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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If we're talking programming I recommend Rust. Besides that, regex is the foundation of formal languages and really useful too.
The classics never die!
I would say that you already have enough on your plate and you should focus primarily on just one of your languages. But if you’re just looking to dabble, I think a South East Asian language like Mandarin would shake it up a bit.
Swede here, at school I learned both English and Spanish, I consider myself to be Swedish/English bilingual, but even after six years of proper in-school Spanish classes I have only a brief surface level knowledge of the language, it is about 20 years since I last took classes in Spanish, and I never used it outside of class.
My English however, I have used that daily for the last 20+ years, both at work and at home, over the years I have learned common expressions and slang, and have been told several times that I speak excellent English.
My point is that I would recommend prioritizing learning one or at most two languages outside of your native language, but learning them well, rather than trying to cram in as many languages as possible.
One thing that has served me well however, is understanding pronunciation of foreign names, pronouncing other people's names properly when other's wont bother to will grant you a lot of respect and help you work together.
Can’t agree with this enough! This is not exactly what you’re talking about, but similar: I (in US) work with people all over the world, and I’ve found that folks not from my home country are more likely to call me by an abbreviated version of my name instead of the name I introduced myself as. Like if I said, “Hi, my name is Michael.” They will almost always call me “Mike.” Annoys the crap out of me. Because of this, I try to make it a point to ask if I’m not sure how to properly pronounce a person’s name.
I've always thought that learning the native language of a developing country would be a huge asset. Very few people do so, and outsourcing has a huge cost differential, so it opens up unusual career moves to capture that growth.
Hilariously, 12 year old me suggested this on the "what 3rd language would you like to learn" form in high school and somehow got in trouble for it. I guess they thought I was joking. Perhaps the joke was on them though, I immigrated to Vietnam and own a (small) tech company now.
You should send the school a postcard
That would be funny, although I think it may have been closed down and converted to some other purpose. It was a vast concrete sarcophagus of a building. No windows or proper heating. Weird cardboard dividers for walls, so all classrooms could hear all nearby classrooms. Bizarre skywells on the upper floors with no cages or guard rails.
It was really a building suitable for any purpose except a school :D
That probably depends on your use case. But also what level are you on those other languages? How many do you think you can learn at the same time?
I’m open to any more ideas you people might have, not that I’ll learn them all at the same time.
As a general suggestion then, for something easy I'd go for a Scandinavian language (Danish, Norwegian or Swedish). You only need one of them to kinda understand the others. For something harder Finnish or Estonian is interesting because of the many noun cases but not very useful. I don't know anything about Asian languages but Korean and Japanese would be next on my list.
Swedish is also spoken in Finland as a national language, and a mandatory school subject. They are all fluent in English regardless, but it's nice to be able to communicate in one of the local languages. It's the official language in the Åland Islands archipelago, and a second language all along the southern coast plus the greater Espoo/Helsinki area.
I've got full working proficiency in Norwegian (B2/C1 I guess, never took the Bergenstest) and can talk perfectly fine with a Swede. We understand 80-90% and can guess the rest. Danish is though though, the written language is 99% identical with Norwegian, but they have a very guttural way of forming sounds that makes it hard to understand. The pronunciation is closer related to Dutch than to any other Scandinavian language.
I've been learning Norwegian on and off for some time now. What I always found interesting is how much I can understand from written Swedish and Danish (+ Nynorsk) while still having difficulty with even basic spoken Norwegian if it isn't the most common Oslo accent.
I think that's probably also due to the fact that the most dominant dialect in Norwegian media seems to be the one from Bergen, somehow half of the country's actors, comedians and other celebrities are from there, so there is a way above average online presence there. And Bergans is the hardest Norwegian accent to understand (the Ylvis brothers for example speak Bergans). It's closer related to Danish than any other Norwegian dialect.
On the other side, Norway has some 500 local dialects that differ slightly from one another, when I was living there people always tried to guess which region I was from, and nobody actually thought I'm not Norwegian at all, so that was fun.
If you want to practice your listening skills a bit, I'd really recommend watching Kongen Befaler (the Norwegian version of the Taskmaster comedy franchise). The Taskmaster subreddit has direct downloads in their wiki, also for the Swedish version (Bäst i Test) and Denmark (Stormester). Unfortunately there isn't a community on Lemmy and I'm lacking the time and commitment to start one myself.
That's some perfect timing as I came across Kongen Befaler like three days ago. It seems the reddit links also have subtitles which is really useful, thanks. And yeah I've also noticed a lot of actors and singers seem to have a more western accent. Duolingo definitely doesn't prepare you for that.
Gaelic likely wouldn't be terribly useful but you'd be helping keep it alive by learning it
I’d love to! Maybe Busuu should add it.
Japanese, get the most out of your anime and manga!
Learning Japanese since about a year now. This language is so beautiful. It's also a ton of work.
I can really recommend jpop to, I've been hearing jpop almost Mon stop since a while now.
That feeling when you understand the cryptic hieroglyphics that are kanji, and stumble upon native material which can actually be read. It's just something else.
For me, where as English is something written on a napkin, Japanese is a carefully drawn picture (kanji) on a fine letter.
It's also great if you like slapping words together to make new ones (I'm a German, so of course I like that)
One thing I noticed while watching anime is German loan words.
Watashi no vergangenheit
Yeah, for some reason, they like to steal our words. I think it's cut how they butcher German and English, but it can be hard to understand if you know those languages better than Japanese.
I am absolutely awful at Japanese but the feeling of your brain automatically reading kanji is really weird lol
Learn toki pona. Takes only a few days and pays off immensely.
Klingon!
You must be some kind of savant to learn 4 languages at once. I can barely wrap my head around English.
Learning a European language, especially from a country that had colonised other countries will be useful. French and English, for the most part. Learning a romance language will also help if you were to touch Latin someday
I'd learn Mandarin next since there's a lot of speakers and Asia is a fun place. Japanese after that if I have the time. That would be my personal journey if I ever learn any other languages, but we'll see
Hmm, Mandarin…maybe I could.
Killian: I’M THE MANDARIN!
I say French, it's a much more commonly spoken language than most people in the US realize, if you look at your food or chemical labels, you often see it's the second used language followed by spanish
The ones that interest you the most will be easiest to stick with. I find things just through my general interests and poking around.
Favorite music genre? Listen to bands from different countries and see how they sound. TV shows, movies, and documentaries from other countries are another big one. Listen to the original language, see if it sounds interesting, maybe read a little about it.
Or maybe you know someone who you'd like to be able to talk with in their language. It could be anything. Pick one or two things to try and you'll get a feel for what you like.
I studied Norwegian bokmål a time ago and I liked unfortunately I had to stop
Busuu should add Norwegian soon.
I found Esperanto to be pretty fun to learn. It only took me a couple months to get reasonably good with it so if you're looking for a language that's pretty easy and has a fun community then Esperanto is a good option.
I just watched this video on toki pona. Really interesting in how it's easy to learn but the difficulty comes from trying to communicate complex ideas.
s/difficulty/impossibly/g
Latin is very interesting, gives you the ability to read the original untranslated works of famous Roman historical figures and also helps you with nomenclature in science ( like for biology, medicine, etc)
Latin. I would have suggested it before you started learning two Romance languages.
Learn Arabic. I have started learning it too.
I've been learning Norwegian Bokmål and it's pretty interesting seeing all the words that it and English have in common (as well as their differences).
Also, Toki Pona as others have mentioned. Might seem like a joke language at first, but the community is really vibrant and kind. You can make some real, meaningful connections through it. Plus, it takes maybe a weekend to get good at Toki Pona.