Ive been very itnerested in foreign languages in recent years, more than anything i feel that it would be cool just to be fluent in another language, part of me resents that the american public school system is so different from the european and asian school systems, anyway! ive been taking french for a long time, but now despite investing time ( and making some progress ), im thinking its not gonna be the most useful language, i am curious to know which language, if you had to choose one would be the most valuable to learn and the most high in demand, im very interested in learning a language such as japanese madarin or cantonese where the alphabet is compltely different, a non phonetic, tonal language, it provides a challenge but it would also be great to be proficient in a lanuage like that, suggestions comments anything?

I suppose that depends on what your definition of useful is, where you're located and what you plan on using the language for. French is pretty useful in a lot of places, as is Spanish. I don't know a lot of places outside of Asian communities where the Chinese or Japanese languages will come in handy, but again, it depends on your purpose for wanting to learn the language.

I'm in a similar boat with an extra motive.

The idea of learning a foreign language has always seemed significant to me.

I'm studying Esperanto now. For three reasons, 1. It's a different Language, 2. It's much easier than any natinal language and will take less time to learn. 3. I've read that studies have indicated that other languages can be learned more effectively and quicker after studying esperanto first.

My additional motive, apart from the direct objects of learning another language listed above, is to put all of these 'learning techniques to the test'.

I'm using the free download program "kuruso de esperanto"

If anyone would like to correspond about this language, especially in term of accelerated learning techniques please contact me.

http://www.cursodeesperanto.com.br/en/index.html

Rob Reynolds
drinkblot@yahoo.com

Hi tk421,

Mandrain is a useful language if you intend to do business in China and some parts of Asia.I do not know about the potential of Japanese language but most people now learn it for fun or knowledge.
By the way,Cantonese is not a language in itself,it is a dialect.A lot of the Asian chinese speak this dialect,whether in Australia,New Zealand ,or Asia or even in America.

It's not easy to choose the language to learn,but it all depends on where you would want to work in the future.

Mage

PS:I have known that a lot of big US companies like HP,Motorola,GM...(I think Dell too) have moved into China to set up plants and operations there.

well now i am thinking arabic or chinese, chinese has a big global market and for arabic there is a great need for arabic speakers for obvious reasons, but im leaning more towards chinese, but now mandarin would seem the obvious dialect to learn as it is the most commonly used , but if i were to learn cantonese two good friends of mine are originally from cantonese one says she is more than willing and excitied to teach and help me learn, so using a pimsleur ( or pimselur- like) course a good dicitonary and some practice i could probably make some good progress but thend id only be able to speak to other cantonese speaks, found mostly in honk kong canton and a few other regions, so whats the better option............also can anyone think of any other language(s) that you think would be an advantage to learn in the next 20+ years, ive been tkaing french for many years and am close to mastering it, need the essential immersion time though, but im very interested in taking a different language

Hi tk421,

If you are interested to learn Chinese,it is better to start with Mandrain first,rather than Cantonese.This is to get a strong foundation for yourself.If you learn cantonese first,then learn mandrain,its gets much more difficult as you would get confuse about the pronunciation of chinese language.
What is likely to happen is that when they learn cantonese before mandrain,the way they speaks would sound funny.

To give you an idea,I personally have an uncle from grew up in Hong Kong.He understands mandrain,but he really could not speak well probably due to heavy usage of cantonese from young.If he tried to speak mandrain,we would find it difficult to understand what he said.(he could speak English though).

Mandrain is the commonly accepted language among the chinese(still it is not a dialect),and if you speak to an asian or someone with knowledge of chinese,its 90% the person would understand.

thanks for clearing that up, so mandarin it is, now i just gotta find a native speaker to practice with

hey drinkblot, im really glad you mentioned esperanto, i always used to just have the laymen's knowledge of esperanto, its a made up language, and pointless to learn, but ur post got me curious and i did a search and i think im gonna teach myself esperanto and then move on to other languages, because liek you said its not only a language when u learn it ur sort of learning how language works in a way anyway

Spanish seems to be the language that makes the most sense to learn because: 1)It is relatively easy to learn, 2) More people in America speak spanish than any other foreign language, 3)The majority of people in the Western Hemisphere speak spanish (beautiful vacation spots in Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America, etc), 4) It's easy to practice by going to Mexican restaurants, watching Spanish films and television, 5)multiply your chances of meeting and having a relationship with someone else who is Spanish speaking only, 6)Looks great on a resume and increases your marketability, and 7) LSC offers a pretty good and relatively low cost Easy Learn Foreign Language program in spanish.

I used the program and found it pretty helpful with the basics, enough to function in most situations.. I've been so busy with other projects lately, however, that I haven't really kept it up. I'm thinking about going back through the program again.. becoming fluent in spanish.. then moving on to French, Italian and maybe German. Afterwards, I would love to learn Mandarin, seeing as it probably represents the largest population in the world.

Este es mis dos centavos.

Su amigo,

Robert

There are a few reasons esperanto makes sense.

1. It's easy to learn.
2. The hypotetical: If you were a prisoner of war at a POW camp and you had to learn a language quickly so everyone could plan an escape or communicate in a way that the guards would have more difficulty understanding...esperanto makes sense.
3. English is difficult to learn. Non-English speakers the world over could more easily learn esperanto as a 'bridge' to english.
4. I will have to do some international travelling in the next few years and I have a better chance at finding people who speak Esperanto than I do at learning all the languages that I will encounter.
5. (probably the profound one but also the gamble) With the advent of the internet, people from many different cultures could use a 'made up language' (psst, they are all made up)to communicate...especially when there are a number of good FREE programs available to learn it.
6. Time: I've only been studying EO for a few weeks and I can interpret written EO very well and can understand at least the 'gist' of what is going on in the EO chat rooms.
7. Something in common: It's a cool way to meet interesting people, kinda like an IQ society but based on something more tangible...and useful (no offense to the HIQ deals).

I'm sure there are more and many drawbacks but the is my Humble Opinion.

Roberto Reynolds

sorry to take this whole thread into another direction but anyone used the rosetta stone programs, ive heard really great things about pimsleur ( yes i know it is way over priced is all audio and doesnt teach you reading and writing), but that is where school systems fail they teach you grammar rules reading and writing yet most peoples pronounciation sucks and they cant form complex sentences let alone understand a native speaker of another language........anyway has any used either of these programs, also has anyone successfully taught themself a foreign language and are a t anear fluent level, if so how

I purchased the learning strategies course for Spanish but I didn't finish it. I needed something to use in my car and the LSC course is designed to be listened to in a relaxed state. I did pick up the vocabulary very quickly on the tapes I did use.

I also Photoread a spanish dictionary and a beginning spanish text book. I'm new to Photoreading so I'm not sure what I got out of it.

I recently purchased the Pimsleur Spanish One. I think it's great. I've listened to each lesson twice a day, once on my way to work and again 6-8 hours later on my way home. I haven't had to repeat any lesson more than these two times and I feel that I am learning very rapidly. I just finished lesson 9 yesterday so I'm about 1/3 through the program.

I highly reccomend the pimsleur method. Although I don't have much experience with any other courses.

I wrote a post a while ago about some products on a site called www.worldlanguagelearning.com which I found to be amazing. I recommend Ultra Learn and The Immersion Protocol for things I found really useful, even as a language teacher and avid language learner.

As well as studying languages and education at university, I have learned several languages by myself, and done very well at them, even though I say so myself. There are several techniques and additional exrcises (Photoreading etc) that can really help you in learning a language. One thing I will say, though, is that you do need to learn the grammar in order to be a good speaker of the language. Avoid the temptation to ignore grammar just because it it difficult or boring. A lot of courses nowadays ignore grammar and stress "communication". Of course, communication is vital, but you do not have to speak a language well in order to communicate. I suggest getting a good, functional course, such as those in French, Spanish, Italian and German produced by the BBC. Look for the type of course that teaches you language you can use but that also does not skip the grammar and structure of the lanuage. An inexpensive range of just such good basic courses is "Teach yourself". Make sure you get tapes with any course you buy. You simply cannot do without tapes. Linguaphone are also good (although pricey!) as are Pimsleur (even more pricey!), but there are a lot of gimmicks out there too, so watch out what you buy! I have never tried Rosetta Stone, although I have read a few rewiews on the net by language teachers that were non too favorable. I am not willing to spend all that money to find out for myself, although I have been tempted to go for the internet free trial. The only trouble is, you have to enter your credit card info BEFORE the demo, which I can't help feeling is suspect. Still, that might just be me!

Found one of the reviews, if you want to check it out:

http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/chorus/call/reviews/rosetta_russian/index.html

In general, what I will say from experience is that if the course or method you choose looks like it is promising you an easy ride to learn the language (Pimsleur excepted), then it will probably not be adequate to teach you the language properly and give you the skills that you want or need. People don't usually like to hear me say that because they think (as a lot of courses like to adverise) that they can "learn the language the way they did as a child", but this is my opinion based on my own extensive learning and teaching and what I have seen of that of other people. Please feel free to take it or leave it, but if you want to be good at a foreign language, you are going to have to work at it.

Hope this helps.