Apart from Japanese, which language would you like to learn?

[kichigaijin]

Really focusing on Japanese and Okinawan (ウチナグチ)
Main language is English
Have taken classes in Latin and Chinese (Mandarin).
Picked up a good number of phrases in Cantonese, Spanish, & Korean.
After those, the 2 main languages I bought materials for and wanted to study were German and Italian.
Learned a scant few phrases in Thai, Vietnamese, Tagolog, Indonesian, and Russian.

Italian or German top my list as being main study pursuits after Japanese & Okinawan.
Mostly because I've never tried to seriously study another European language in any serious depth (aside from latin which is dead anyway).

Russian and Korean would be the next 2 I'd consider- I pretty much give up on learning anything Tonal (thai, viet, chinese).

[johanness]

My native language is swedish and I have always (since I was seven) studied english and German more or less.

I am intressted in spanish and I do not think I will have any big problem learning it if I move to a spanish speaking country for a a year or two. But what really intrest me is the complete diffrent languages that is found in east asia.

I whent to GuangZhou (Canton) in China last summer and I found out their language is very beautiful. Probably hard to learn because I have to learn Mandarin afirst but I think I will do it when I master Japanese well enough. The Chinese characters is so damn fascinating so I do not lack of motivation.

Then we have Korean. If I know japanese and Chinese, mustn't I learn Korean and complete the east asian language-triforce?

What do you say? Too much for me to learn during my short life in this world (only 80 more years)?

/南山ヨハネス

[kichigaijin]

I whent to GuangZhou (Canton) in China last summer and I found out their language is very beautiful. Probably hard to learn because I have to learn Mandarin afirst but I think I will do it when I master Japanese well enough. The Chinese characters is so damn fascinating so I do not lack of motivation.

Then we have Korean. If I know japanese and Chinese, mustn't I learn Korean and complete the east asian language-triforce?

What do you say? Too much for me to learn during my short life in this world (only 80 more years)?

I don't see why you would have to learn mandarin first before Cantonese?
Cantonese is a little harder and not as widely spoken, but it's not hard to find by any stretch of the imagination.
I would think learning both at the same time would be confusing because a lot of the words are similar enough to cause confusion as to which is which; plus they have different ways of saying the same idea that can be confusing. If you like Cantonese, go for it.

Korean is easier to read (phonetically), probably harder to speak (more sounds), and the grammar's very comparable to Japanese.

They say after your first 3 languages, the rest are easier to pick up. You seem to have made it to magical #3 already. I don't see why you couldn't pick up as many as you wanted to.

Personally, Japanese was always my specialty, so whatever time i spent on other languages they'd never compare to my Japanese, mostly because of formal classes. Also, knowing that my Japanese isn't where I'd like it, I'd rather focus my time to get that as good as I can before moving on to something else. Maybe I'm getting old but trying to keep all those languages straight in my head, learning them without any formal training, was starting to give me a headache. I'll probably keep studying Japanese intensively until 2kyuu or 1kyuu JLPT and then go for a European language.

[johanness]

Do you have any experience of learning cantonese yourself or du you know anyone who have? I have been trying to find out how to learn it but it does not seem very easy. All books about cantonese I have found is written in mandarin. My cantonese friends, some of them university students in GuangZhou, says it's not possible to study cantonese there. I couldn't understand why it's not but they told me they had never heard about anyone who studied cantonese. I do not know what to think but one thing is shure; Guangdong people do not learn cantonese in schools, only mandrin. Perhaps Hong Kong is the place for me when I decide to focus on cantonese. What do you think?

Pronunciation is in most cases not a problem for me. My mother tongue, swedish, is a great foundation to build on (e.g. 9 different vowels). I had some proplems with the chinese 4 tones but after 3 months there I am convinced that I can learn almost any pronunciation (I still don't master the 9 tones of cantonese though).

Glad to hear it gets easier after the first three languages. Thanks, that's encouraging.

What european language are you intrested in? A major or a minor one?

/南山ヨハネス

[kichigaijin]

I did kung fu for many years and learned a bit of cantonese there, but not formally- just phrases for the kung fu class room and for going out to eat.
I do have a few books and audio lessons, but nothing like an actual text book.
Hong Kong should be a safe bet in learning Cantonese.
It's a shame that Beijing seems to be stamping out southern Chinese culture.

That's awesome you don't have a hard time with the tones.
Tones give me a lot of trouble.
My japanese accent's not so bad, but for some reason i have a hard time pronouncing chinese (mandarin or cantonese).

European language wise, I'm thinking German, Italian, or Spanish. I could use Spanish here in Texas, I was born in Italy, and my last name is German. Swedish seems like it'd be fun. I just want to take a stab at a language that has more in common with English- kind of to see if Japanese is really that difficult or if I just have a hard time getting to an advanced level in a language.

[SeeingLifeAnew]

For me it'd have to be German.
I know some people don't like the sound of it because it seems harsh and abrupt, but I've always loved the way it sounds. Maybe if I ever get this Japanese thing down I'll move on to German.

What about you guys?

I want to learn Korean and Hebrew.

[taffeta1067]

I'd like to get my French back up to scratch, since it's fallen by the wayside in recent years.

Having studied Spanish and German...I would study Spanish again, but I wouldn't go near German. I had enough trouble with gender in French (shivers).

I'd like to learn Korean O.o. And maybe Chinese (Mandarin). I've a friend who's already trying to get me to learn that, but I don't want to confuse my kanji whilst I'm still learning Japanese.

I'm a languages geek though >.>

[avrichard4285]

I speak English (native), German (quasi native), French (fluent but not perfect), then conversational Spanish. I have studied Mandarin and Russian in the past but wouldn't say I'm a competent speaker yet...

Japanese is great fun!!

I also learnt a little Hungarian from a friend a long time ago. That was really interesting, very different.

I'd LOVE to learn Thai, or Cambodian, or both. I really enjoyed learning about those languages and trying to speak them when I was travelling in SE Asia. The Thais and Khmers seemed to love hearing foreigners talk their languages... in Cambodia they'd try and see how much I knew and try to teach me more things to say... Like "one more beer please"

I reckon a native American language would be interesting too... maybe Cherokee, it has a funky-looking unique syllabic script.

[Bissen]

I know Danish (I'm Danish) English (obviously) and German apart from Japanese.

I've wanted to know Chinese and Korean for a while, now.

[dinaga1828]

Besides speaking my native language and English, I also learned German in high school but never got to really use it, so it's pretty lousy. I don't want to forget it so I'll have to brush it up sooner or later.

Since I'm more interested in Japanese and don't want to learn two languages at once, it will have to wait a little while though. However, after learning Japanese I think it won't be a big problem to achieve discipline for any new Romance/Germanic language

[watertommyz9255]

I'm going to focus solely on Japanese until I can get it down to comfortable everyday use, but if I were to choose a third language to learn, then I'd defiantly go with Gaelic, which actually was going to be my other choice when deciding on an L2 since I have Irish ancestry. However, Japanese takes priority since most of the stuff I enjoy, and a lot of the influences in my life have all come from Japanese entertainment and culture.

I suppose just for fun, I'll make a list in the order I'd like to learn them; Japanese, Gaelic, Español, and finally Chinese Mandarin. If I ever got to that point, I think I'd be pretty satisfied, and probably wouldn't bother with more than that. Considering my poor study habits, I'd probably be ancient by that time and would be soon departing from this world anyway. I don't mean that in a morbid way or anything, it's just yeah, I'm sticking with Japanese!

All languages if I were an immortal.

[community.japanese]

kon'nichiwa, everyone!

Wow, many enthusiastic comments about learning languages!!

> watertommyz9255-san,
we're glad to know that you'll stick to Japanese!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[dannymoji4306]

For me i think Spanish would be interesting to learn, Mandarin yes thinking about it. Another that i am interested of learning is French. I like hearing their words bec it sounds classy and beautiful. Well about japanese language im still a beginner ,

Although this site might help people for a strart of hiragana and kana To learn japanese I had use pimsleur/rosetta and mobile apps and proceeded in this site for phrases and more words.

[community.japanese]

dannymoji4306-san,
French does sound very sophisticated

Have you tried our regular lessons (conversational)? Hope you can find those lessons also useful

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[tpgames3546]

If I could learn languages faster, I'd get as close to "fluent" as possible in:
Japanese, German, French, Irish, Icelandic, Hebrew (Biblical and Modern), Latin, Gaelic (Scottish), Welsh, Italian and Russian. And, I'd learn the Swiss dialect version of German and French. May I my brain and its slowness in learning languages?

Currently: I know some German, 4 words in Russian, a little Biblical Hebrew, and 4 Italian words, and am learning Japanese Kana.