Amira Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/24/the-future-of-language/?tid=sm_fb I thought this article was interesting about which language you should choose to learn since it takes a lot of different factors into account (although I strongly disagree that Spanish beats French in the worldwide usefulness category- Spanish is a regional language). But in the end, you can't predict what will be useful in 10 or 20 or 30 years. I've probably told my story here about the people who minored in Arabic with me in college in the 90s. The students who went on with advanced degrees in Arabic were graduating around 2000 and 2001. Up till then, you couldn't get a job based on your Arabic knowledge (and the university I went to wouldn't offer it as a major because of that), but after 9/11, I had a lot of friends were offered jobs solely based on their ability to speak Arabic. They never could have predicted that- they just went with a language that they loved and had at least a little potential (and let's face it, Karakalpak really doesn't have much career potential for most people even though it's an awesome language). 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 Fun stuff! I used to study 10 or 12 languages before my kids came along. (The only one on those top lists that I didn't study was Persian.) I hoped to be able to at least read the languages spoken in most of the world. Now I don't know how much I will remember. My kids have studied Spanish and a little French so far. They don't seem interested in more. Maybe that will change. Lord knows I have plenty of books they can use. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpyTheFrog Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 I thought it was silly that the author grouped all Chinese dialects together as one language. It's my understanding that the spoken dialects are so different they might as well be different languages, even if they use the same writing. (Assuming I am correct about this. I may not be.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted September 24, 2015 Author Share Posted September 24, 2015 I thought it was silly that the author grouped all Chinese dialects together as one language. It's my understanding that the spoken dialects are so different they might as well be different languages, even if they use the same writing. (Assuming I am correct about this. I may not be.) Yes! The same thing happens with Arabic. Sure, there's a unified literary language, but the Arabic that your everyday person is speaking at home, on the street, and at work isn't mutually intelligible throughout the Arab world. And then you get other languages that are firmly divided even though they're more closely related that Moroccan and Iraqi Arabic are, for example. If their political history had been different, you could have a Turkic language with Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uyghur, etc, dialects and there's a good argument that Dari, Farsi, and Tajik are still basically the same language. Or Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted September 24, 2015 Author Share Posted September 24, 2015 I think that the advent of Google Translate makes learning a language a waste of valuable time. Instead, just open your app and communicate with anyone in any language, instantly! (Just kidding... sorta...) I always like to chat with real people with the help of a screen and oddly-constructed sentences. ;) 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 Thanks for the posting the link, Amira. That was an interesting article. Regards, Kareni 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 I think that the advent of Google Translate makes learning a language a waste of valuable time. Instead, just open your app and communicate with anyone in any language, instantly! (Just kidding... sorta...) I did actually ask that question on here before...if it was a waste of effort to learn a foreign language because of translating capabilities. The concensus was that it is not a waste, because translation aps cannot think through the nuances of language and syntax. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathleen. Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 HoppytheToad is correct. The "dialects" of Chinese are actually different languages. Not different like Spanish and Italian, but like Russian and Pig Latin :) All the languages of Chinese use the same characters to make reading and writing universal for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted September 26, 2015 Share Posted September 26, 2015 All the languages of Chinese use the same characters to make reading and writing universal for them. Universal, but not exactly easy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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