<p>for college, I’m planning on majoring in spanish for certain (I’ll have achieved, hopefully, practical fluency by then). I also would like to study another language. The language I want to learn is chinese, but I’m afraid it might be too difficult. Is it worth my time to learn it, especially since I want to adopt one day from China? Or should I choose another (I’m somewhat interested in German or Italian)?</p>
<p>Additionally, I wanted to possibly minor in international relations/studies. would doing so be overkill?</p>
<p>learn it. If you want to adopt a chinese orphan one day, then do it. I mean even if their first language becomes english (you adopt them as a baby), you should learn. I dont think you will have too much of a problem learning in it because you actually show an interest in learnign chinese that is a legitimately driving force in learning. And it’s super useful if you want to do business.</p>
<p>Since I’m definitely considering adopting a Chinese girl, I do not want to rob her of her language, so I want to pick up mandarin so she can be bilingual. Otherwise, she’s going to be bilingual in spanish and english. also, being able to teach chinese will surely be advantageous.</p>
<p>You have to be really excited about Chinese to learn it. This, of course, holds for every language, but especially so for Chinese. Assuming your native language is English, you could learn Spanish three or four times over (or, say, three or four of the easier romance languages) in the time that it takes you to reach an equivalent level in Chinese. Chinese is not a language you can take up on a whim, so make sure that you’re willing to put in several years of hard study here and several more in China, because that’s what it takes to reach real fluency.</p>
<p>Whether it’s worth your time depends upon what you intend to do. Since you mentioned an interest in international relations, yes, I believe it would be. There is a glut of native English speakers who can also speak Spanish, but there are very few who manage to learn Chinese. </p>
<p>Regardless of your interests, the intellectual adventure of learning such a bizarre language from a similarly bizarre culture (from the standpoint of someone from the West, of course) will alone make it worth it.</p>
<p>yeah, i will agree with trima on learning chinese. It is a very hard language to master, but it is also very rewarding in many ways. If you speak it and english, it can be very useful in both business, and in life. If yo u speak english and chinese, you can talk to about one third of all people in the world.</p>
<p>doubt it. I think most of your regional studies are usually geared towards China or Japan. I mean there are always classes on Korean studies and vietnam studies, but mostly likely less than Chinese and Japanese.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, most good EAS departments offer Chinese, Japanese, and korean…and sometimes vietnamese.</p>
<p>My best friend is learning chinese because she’s taking a gap year and going to taiwan for a year. Last year she became very proficient in the language of japanese when she went to japan for a 1 month volunteer trip. </p>
<p>She says chinese is a challenge, but with time you get great at it! But, it depends on if you have an ear for languages. She and I both picked up spanish like nothing at all. I always thought chinese would be hard, but it really isn’t nearly as bad as you think. The hardest part is tonality. One word (<em>take for example the word “ma”</em>), pronounced a few different ways, can mean 4 different words. You can say “ma ma ma ma” but with all the different tonesi n chinese, put together, it means something like “mom hit the dog.” It’s insane! But, with time you learn to distinguish words they use. No, it’s not easy like spanish but yes it is definitely feasible :P</p>
<p>Cantonese is much more difficult than Mandarin (cantonese is spoken in hong kong and very rural areas of china.) If you can master mandarin YOU ARE SET!</p>