你好! 여보세요! olá! مرحبا

[wisteria_]

Last day of school! And I need to start planning my summer. Each year, my district offers tons of staff development classes, most of which are unappetizing. But this time I'm very intrigued by four introductory foreign-language courses. They're scheduled for Monday-Thursday of the first two weeks in June, from 9am-2pm daily. I'd earn five PDUs, and

Comments

[flaming_muse]

I say if you're going to go to the effort of learning a new language you should absolutely take one that you're passionate about. It's only two weeks of driving time and gas. Take what you like!

[makd]

ITA.

Arabic has SOME Spanish cognates, hence some English cognates. Japanese/Chinese/Korean? No English cognates, hence very difficult for Western language speakers. (I studied Japanese for 2 semesters and it was harder than giving birth. In contrast, Spanish and French were relatively easy for me, since I'd studied Latin as a child and there are beaucoup de cognates!)

Portuguese will be relatively easy if you've studied French or Spanish, though it does seem as though every verb is irregular. :-)

[flaming_muse]

Actually, Korean does have some English cognates! But that's mostly noun/verb stuff to do with modern things (like, say, the words for coffee and sweater, to name two off of the top of my head).

Which is mostly to say that you're right, but hard doesn't mean bad and every once in a while you get a free easy word! :D

[wisteria_]

Very true! I'm just taking the classes for fun, so I might as well choose one I enjoy. :)

[txvoodoo]

If you think you WILL do the extra hour and stuff, and really wanna do arabic, do it. But if you've had romance languages before, Portuguese will be easier to pick up.

[wisteria_]

I actually took intro French in college during the same semester I took Spanish III, and it was nearly my undoing. I kept mixing up the two languages in my head, such as starting a sentence in French and accidentally mixing in some Spanish. ;) But the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese could benefit me now.

[elzed]

I would say -go with the language you really want to learn; also Chinese or Arabic are likely more useful in the long term. Having said that, if it is for the pleasure of learning a foreign language, you're likely to find Portuguese much easier and progress much faster!

[wisteria_]

That's a good way to put it. To be honest, I just want to take a class for the FUN of it -- I doubt I'd learn anything truly worthwhile, especially in a short timeframe. I'm drawn to Arabic mainly so that when I see or hear it, I'd have a vague idea of what's going on, even if I don't understand most of the words themselves. But yeah, practicality should be a factor in the decision!

[abrakadabrah]

Chinese and Arabic are both known as among the hardest languages to learn because of long histories and lots of dialectical variations and massive vocabularies.

How good are you at picking up languages? Because you won't learn much in two weeks that you'll retain.

[wisteria_]

Oh, yeah. I don't even know if I'm good at languages, as I haven't taken any classes in (yikes) nearly twenty years. This summer would really just be for fun, so I might as well choose one that I find interesting.

[stephanierb]

Chinese! I'm studying it and I love it! That said, it's definitely a use it or lose it language, so if you don't think you're going to have an opportunity to use it, it might be worth it to go with something like Portuguese.

[wisteria_]

Good point. I think the district is offering the classes because some parts of the county have communities of Brazilian and Korean immigrants, though I don't think they'd be at the school I'm transferring to. I doubt I'd even use any of the language I choose for this summer -- I just thought it might be fun. :)