I’m about to be a junior in college. I took French all through high school and my freshman and sophomore years of college… I would’ve taken it this coming term but my school doesn’t have any 4th year options for non-majors - there’s a translating class, and a couple about literature which require certain 300 level classes probably about related topics. I really just want to perfect my speaking.
So I’m gonna take a different language. I LOVE languages. I would be a linguistics major if I didn’t have a passion for the environment. I really want to move to Europe and work there (so if a certain language could help this, that’s a plus). I’m going to try to keep up my French though. (I have a friend who’s French-American, may try to find a penpal online, and I think there’s a language group at my school).
I’m currently registered for accelerated Spanish because a spot opened up and all the other classes, including the regular 101s were full. My parents think I should take Chinese… All I can say about that is that it would be “cool” to know the language, but I don’t have much desire to live or spend a lot of time in China. Of the east Asian countries I’d much rather learn Japanese.
There are a lot of languages I’m interested in learning: Arabic, Russian, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish.
I like Spanish because it’s spoken all over the US and in South America where I know there are big time environmental issues. Also I figure I could pick it up fairly easily with my French background. But I wonder if it’s a language I could learn with some smart immersion - living or working in Spain, maybe even just with language learning tools or a conversation group.
I like Italian and German because I have ancestors from both these places. As a very typical Euro-mutt American I’ve always longed to connect with a culture (I’m 7 different ethnicities) and I think German is very cool language and their culture is intriguing, and I know we have some relatives in Italy (though my mom lost touch with them).
I like Portuguese because I know it’s spoken in areas with environmental issues, but also I am Portuguese.
Russian because I knew some kids growing up who were Russian. And it’s such a massive, mysterious country…
Arabic because there are lots of Arabic students at my school and I worked in a daycare with Arabic-speaking children. I’m fascinated by the cultures that speak it and it’s such a pretty language. Not sure about the practicality though because I’ve heard even native speakers can’t understand the different dialects.
http://www.crosswalk.com/family/homeschool/a-guide-to-choosing-the-right-foreign-language-for-you.html this website suggests German for science. That’s just one opinion though.
How should I go about choosing? I know it should be about what interests me most but my parents (at least my dad, he chewed me out for commenting how it would be “cool” to speak Chinese - “it should be about what’s best for your career, blah blah blah1”) think it should be the best for my career. I do agree with them though, hopefully between the languages I’m interested in one of them would be best for my field. What do you think?
Sorry this is so long…