Thinking of learning a new language

[Kyriakos]

Which language would you suggest i try to learn? I dont want a poll since it could limit discussion.
Currently i am mostly thinking of french, since that way i might be able to travel to Paris (again) and this time be in a position to live there for a while without problems. I have formed somewhat of an idealisation of France due to its writers, painters and musicians. This might be simply a hyperbole, as i used to also have a similar idea about England, untill i actually lived there, and then i realised that that England only existed in my imagination.

Other probable options are spanish and italian, supported by the fact that these countries are somewhat similar to Greece, and also i had once tried to learn italian but gave up.

Also by learning french i could read my favourite writers from the original, not to mention that i havent been able to find some works of literature translated in either greek or english, such as Lokis by Prosper Merimee.

Currently i only speak greek and english.

 

[bhsup]

German or Russian. They're the most beautiful languages around.

 

[Kyriakos]

I gather you dont speak either

German is out of the question, i did study it for a year, in elementary school. It is ugly, sounds like a peasant language imo.

Edit: Besides, why learn german when i can learn french, the language of a more refined culture?

 

[bhsup]

I gather you dont speak either

Nope. I just find them very lovely to listen to. I suspect if I understood them, I wouldn't be able to gauge just how lovely they actually "sound" since it would be communication rather than just sounds. Like, I really don't know how to rate how lovely English sounds since when I hear it since it is my native tongue. Er...hope that makes sense.

 

[Bill3000]

How about Ancient Greek? Not just the grammar, of course, uncorrupted from the plague that is the Balkan linguistic union, (Dative constructions using the genitive? ) but also the phonology so you can actually pronounce Greek words the way they were meant to be said.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well they may sound good to you, i accept that, but russian also is not a language i would choose to learn. First of all i am too lazy to bother learning a new alphabet. Secondly i have no plans to move to Russia for any period of time..

 

[Lillefix]

French is a good jumping board to the other romance languages(but the hopeless spelling makes it very difficult to grasp at first), but still I think German is a very underrated language. Just because some people don't like the sound of it, doesn't make it bad. It's the biggest language in the EU, and they've had scores of interesting cultural personalities. Just look at you own signature.

edit: I wrote this before you said anything about German, by the way...

 

[warpus]

Learn the language of your enemies: Turkish or Macedonian.

it sounds like you already made up your mind though

 

[TheLastOne36]

French, Spanish, Italian or Russian.

I bolded Russian as I understand you like literature and Russia is rich of it.

 

[Kyriakos]

How about Ancient Greek? Not just the grammar, of course, uncorrupted from the plague that is the Balkan linguistic union, but also the phonology so you can actually pronounce Greek words the way they were meant to be said.

We did study ancient greek for two years in highschool. I have mixed views of it. The base ancient greek, the simplified koine dialect (ie the language of the bible) is readable by any modern greek speaker since all of its words and grammar exist in modern greek as well.
But the classical ancient greek is a different matter. It is more complicated than modern greek, and have an intricate sound system which used to exist in some form in modern greek too, but some decades ago was abandoned.

Moreover im not sure what good it would do me to learn ancient greek. Surely i could read the ancient texts from the original, but there simply exists no community in the world whose living language is ancient greek.
Now if the european union adopted it as its official language, i would be glad to learn it

 

[Kyriakos]

French is a good jumping board to the other romance languages(but the hopeless spelling makes it very difficult to grasp at first), but still I think German is a very underrated language. Just because some people don't like the sound of it, doesn't make it bad. It's the biggest language in the EU, and they've had scores of interesting cultural personalities. Just look at you own signature.

edit: I wrote this before you said anything about German, by the way...

Yeah they did have a lot of cultured people, but i tend to agree with the person in my sig about Germany: they are less refined than the analogous french class in my view.

Although it would have been interesting to read Kafka from the original.

 

[scherbchen]

German is out of the question, i did study it for a year, in elementary school. It is ugly, sounds like a peasant language imo.

Edit: Besides, why learn german when i can learn french, the language of a more refined culture?

you, sir, are dead to me! dead! tot!

j/k not a big fan of German myself. it is for people who like to solve unsolvable problems (like German grammar). French is for people who have a speaking or reading impediment, though but so is English.

I'd go for Spanish.

 

[warpus]

Yeah they did have a lot of cultured people, but i tend to agree with the person in my sig about Germany: they are less refined than the analogous french class in my view.

Although it would have been interesting to read Kafka from the original.

This "The French are cultured and refined" stuff is just a stereotype.

 

[Kyriakos]

As i stated a deciding paragon in my choice would be whether i can see myself actually spending some time in the country whose language i will be learning.
This rules out most languages, and i only plan to stay in Europe, all of my travels up to now were in Europe and i like to keep it like that, even for not so logical reasons perhaps, but mostly sentimental ones.

I couldnt see myself living in a hyperborean country, so Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway are out of the equation.
France has both colder and more mediterranean climate. I am really wondering how it actually feels to be living there though, since i am not at all familiar with modern french culture. So any french poster, or poster who lived/lives in France would be extremely helpfull

 

[fugazi]

Spanish, Dutch or German. Why Dutch? Why not.

 

[LightFang]

I think Scheme is a beautiful language.

 

[Ansar]

French all the way.

Spanish is a close second, though.

 

[Till]

I think Scheme is a beautiful language.

Haskell is younger, prettier, and smarter!

 

[Mirc]

(Dative constructions using the genitive? )

What do you mean by that, could you perhaps elaborate? Not contesting what you said in any way, but I believe I'm quite familiar with the characteristics of the Balkan Sprachbund, and it just didn't ring a bell.

j/k not a big fan of German myself. it is for people who like to solve unsolvable problems (like German grammar).

I know I've said it before, but I have to say it again - the grammar is not the difficult part!! It doesn't seem to be much harder than the grammar of any Indo-European language I'm familiar with. I've had no big problems adapting to German grammar (as you can see from the Deutsch 101 thread - you and other native speakers have always corrected my words and expressions, almost never my grammar or spelling!).

The terribly difficult part is the vocabulary - and I mostly mean the abundance of verbs. I've actually read a couple of comparisons gathered from different studies confirming that German has simply more verbs than most languages, and most of them tend to have a lot of completely unrelated meanings.

The very very similar prepositions and prefixes that completely change their meaning doesn't help either. Especially since it usually happens without any kind of a rule! Take the prefix "ver" for example - it can reverse the meaning of a verb (kaufen =/= verkaufen : to buy =/= to sell), it might just not affect the verb at all, simply rendering a synonymous verb (ändern = verändern : to change = to change), or it can turn it into something entirely different with no connection at all with the original word (zerren - verzerren : to pull - to distort)! It makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Bill3000]

What do you mean by that, could you perhaps elaborate? Not contesting what you said in any way, but I believe I'm quite familiar with the characteristics of the Balkan Sprachbund, and it just didn't ring a bell.

Greek (as well as other members of the balkan linguistic union) merged the dative case with the genitive case. Indirect objects in Greek are expressed partly through genitive forms of nouns or pronouns, and partly through a periphrasis consisting of the preposition σε ([se], 'to') and the accusative.