# Which language should I learn? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 2, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328 "2004-06-02T21:11:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Shirt\_Ninja\_13](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@Shirt\_Ninja\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirt_Ninja_13)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/21 "2004-06-03T15:10:29Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > Wow, I think I must be the only person who looked at this thread title and thought immediately of programming languages and had ‘Perl’ in my head. or, if you want to go for dead languages, you could always try COBOL. _bamf_ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bo_Peep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/22 "2004-06-03T15:11:34Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > Wow, I think I must be the only person who looked at this thread title and thought immediately of programming languages and had ‘Perl’ in my head. In university they made us take C++ as part of my engineering degree and through divine intervention I got an A. To this day this remains an unsolved mystery. But, depite my brief success as a programmer, I would rather clean toilets than go through learning programming languages again! No offence to anyone… I just do not have any talent in that sort of stuff. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/23 "2004-06-03T15:27:27Z")
> [@](#): > > **Shirt Ninja 13** said: > or, if you want to go for dead languages, you could always try COBOL. Mmmmmmm… Fortran. > [@](#): > > **Little Bo Peep** said: > But, depite my brief success as a programmer, I would rather clean toilets than go through learning programming languages again! I felt that way after Java, so I can totally understand where you’re coming from. Then I met Perl, and I felt better. Then I wrote 1,144 lines of Perl in 3 days, and now I’m leaning more toward the ‘clean toilets’ also. And I still think it’d be cool to learn Russian. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bo_Peep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/24 "2004-06-03T16:18:58Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > And I still think it’d be cool to learn Russian. 🙂 It would be cool and plus, I could become on hot commodity should there be another Cold War too! Don’t think there’s ever been a spy called Little Bo Peep before. ---
**Author:** ![jeevwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@jeevwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jeevwoman)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/25 "2004-06-03T16:40:52Z")
Just be warned, Russian is certainly not one of the ‘easier’ langauges to learn. There are lots of grammar cases–genitive, locative, dative ( **Eva Luna** , help me out with the rest) and words need to be conjugated as such. You’ve clearly got a talent for the stuff, but it’s a lot more involved grammatically than, say, Italian. (Yes, I have studied both, albeit briefly.) Not sure if it ranks up there with Finnish, but I just wanted to warn you. Good luck! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TwistofFate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@TwistofFate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwistofFate)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/26 "2004-06-03T16:52:25Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#): > > Notice the scorn with which the Gael writes that? 😉 > > **ruadh** is correct. Welsh is a Brythonic Celtic language, as are Breton and Cornish. The other modern branch of the Celtic family is the Goidelic, which is comprised of Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Manx and Shelta (a little spoken language of Ireland). You forgot Ulster-Scots! :D:D:D ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/27 "2004-06-03T19:19:08Z")
> [@jeevwoman](#): > > Just be warned, Russian is certainly not one of the ‘easier’ langauges to learn. There are lots of grammar cases–genitive, locative, dative ( **Eva Luna** , help me out with the rest) and words need to be conjugated as such. You’ve clearly got a talent for the stuff, but it’s a lot more involved grammatically than, say, Italian. (Yes, I have studied both, albeit briefly.) At the same time, there’s no reason to fear grammatic cases, genders, or whatever. They’re not rocket science; they just need a bit of memorization. It’s no worse than remembering hundreds or thousands of vocabulary words. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/28 "2004-06-03T19:39:56Z")
Well, if you want to know what it **really** says in the Old Testament, you should learn Hebrew! Although I suppose that runs afoul of you “not too different an Alphabet” requirement (BTW - Alphabet = Aleph, Beth - the first two letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. Greek stole the “Alpha, Beta” mumbo-jumbo from us :)) On the plus side, if you decide to learn Hebrew you can just holler if you ever run into problems - I promise I’ll help! Dani ---
**Author:** ![jeevwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@jeevwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jeevwoman)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/29 "2004-06-03T20:04:01Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > At the same time, there’s no reason to fear grammatic cases, genders, or whatever. They’re not rocket science; they just need a bit of memorization. It’s no worse than remembering hundreds or thousands of vocabulary words. Absolutely. But with the OP’s background in Romance langauges, it will be a very different experience than what she is used to. ( **Peep** , you are a girl, no? Or just a guy with a thing for sheep?) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ea5d25/32.png) [@Little\_Bo\_Peep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bo_Peep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/30 "2004-06-03T21:14:12Z")
> [@jeevwoman](#): > > Absolutely. But with the OP’s background in Romance langauges, it will be a very different experience than what she is used to. ( **Peep** , you are a girl, no? Or just a guy with a thing for sheep?) Yes I am a girl. Full blooded woman. I just really like sheep. I think they’re cute and pretty darn useful to society. Don’t eat them though. Anyway, I digress… It’s true that being used to romance languages, it’s harder to learn a language that has a totally different frame of reference. Finnish is hard because not only is it not related to anything I already know, it’s also not even an indo-european language (although some would argue that the languages we know and love today are all somewhat related, but again, I digress…). It’s got 15 cases, gentive _this_, and elative _that_… It gets confusing for me poor brain. Even if I have a certain gift for gab (or at least, learning new ways to gab), it still gets hard. Hence my reluctance to learn something like Mandarin or Arabic. It isn’t always about memorizing hundreds or thousands of vocabulary words. I find trying to learn a language that I have no frame of reference for, like Finnish or like what learning Russian would be like getting thrown in the ocean and being told that I’d better start learning how to breathe underwater. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but it’s a nice simile I guess. This is fun. Think once my stint as a “guest” is over I will get a paid subscription. OK, now back to work! ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/31 "2004-06-03T21:18:45Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > You forgot Ulster-Scots! :D:D:D Well, I was _trying_ to… ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/32 "2004-06-03T22:08:14Z")
I studied Latin for a few years, and am now learning Russian. Having prior knowledge of Latin is a _huge_ help, because the way the grammar works is almost identical; all you have to do is learn the new case and verb endings, how aspects work, and the function of the two cases that aren’t found in Latin. From there, it’s just a matter of learning vocabulary and the various other quirks found in the language. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_griffin-kentzel/32/14787_2.png) [@Larry\_Griffin-Kentzel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Griffin-Kentzel)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/33 "2004-06-03T22:30:12Z")
This thread is better suited for [**In My Humble Opinion**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=12). I’ll move it for you. **Cajun Man** for the SDMB ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/34 "2004-06-04T01:54:44Z")
> [@Spectre of Pithecanthropus](#): > > At the same time, there’s no reason to fear grammatic cases, genders, or whatever. They’re not rocket science; they just need a bit of memorization. It’s no worse than remembering hundreds or thousands of vocabulary words. Well, I suppose if you look at it that way, any language is memorization; the only difference is how much. Having learned Russian, Spanish, and some French the hard way. I’ll say this about Russian: It’s harder than learning Spanish for a native English speaker, but not generally considered as difficult as Arabic or Chinese. The alphabet won’t take you more than a few weeks to get down. There are only 30-some letters (depending on whether you count some that were eliminated after the Russian Revolution), and some are just as in English, or close to the Greek letters you see in math classes. Trust me, the alphabet is the least of your problems. Cases and such can be memorized, but it takes a lot of practice, and I’ve never known anyone who really got them down without a period of in-country immersion. Even native speakers make mistakes and avoid certain situations where they might have to use a case ending they aren’t sure of (quantities of 4+ sometimes take rather awkward or irregular versions of the genitive case, so even native speakers avoid them like the plague). To me, the hardest part of learning Russian was getting the hang of verbs of motion. There are about half a billion ways to translate the verb “to go,” depending on whether it’s one-way or round-trip, your mode of transportation, whether you are alone or taking someone somewhere, whether it’s a one-time trip or one you take habitually…the list goes on. I think Finnish has more cases: Russian has 3 genders and (by most counts) six cases. But it sounds like it would be very handy for you professionally. If you really want a challenge, try learning my ex’s native language, Tabasaran, which is spoken by about 100,000 people in the North Caucasus (Dagestan specifically). He said it had 36 cases. 36? I was astounded. Did he really know all that grammar? “Hell no,” he said, "I just speak it! ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/35 "2004-06-04T01:59:33Z")
Esperanto! The learning curve is very fast- you could be having conversations and reading novels by this time next year. Plus, the satisfaction that comes from obscure knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![aenea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@aenea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aenea)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/36 "2004-06-04T02:49:22Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#): > > Just for the record, Japanese is nothing like Mandarin, or any other Chinese language. Kanji is based on Chinese characters (from a few thousand years ago), but the spoken language is much easier (IMO). Watshi wa nihogo o benkyo desu. Well, I did for a while anyways and am always in need of a bit of practise. There are others on this board that are very very good, maybe we can start a little practise thing going on for Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/37 "2004-06-04T03:35:37Z")
> [@Cerowyn](#): > > Just for the record, Japanese is nothing like Mandarin, or any other Chinese language. Kanji is based on Chinese characters (from a few thousand years ago), but the spoken language is much easier (IMO). Right and wrong. Japanese and Chinese are not related languages, but Japanese did adopt the Chinese writing system and now contains a mammoth amount of straight Chinese vocabulary. Japanese kanji are not “based” on Chinese characters; they _are_ Chinese characters. That said, there are a handful of kanji that were invented in Japan (hataraku/dou 働 being one used on a daily basis), and the two languages have simplified their character sets much differently (Japanese much, much less). You will need to learn 3,500+ to be really competent in the written language. The spoken language is not easy, either. Nouns are not declined and verbs are rather simple, but there is still a heck of a lot memorization to learn. There are basically no cognate words, so you have to learn everything from scratch. The pronunciation system is deceptively simple to learn but rather hard to master. If I had to do it again, I would choose a few Euro languages and skip Japanese. Spanish is a great language. I don’t know why people consider it to be easy, though. I never found it to be so. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/38 "2004-06-04T04:13:47Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > Russia’s alphabet isn’t too dissimilar from the Roman script you use, and with some practice you could learn it easily enough. Cyrillic isn’t only somewhat similar to the Latin script, it’s actually related to the Greek script, IIRC. It certainly uses some of the same general symbols to represent many of the same sounds. In learning Russian, I’d make it a point to get the declensions right before worrying about the language, myself. Cyrillic isn’t that complex. > [@catsix](#): > > Wow, I think I must be the only person who looked at this thread title and thought immediately of programming languages and had ‘Perl’ in my head. Wrong, my nerdy little friend. 😉 I was thinking Scheme, but only because my Guile interpreter is cranking as we speak. BTW, I think Python would be a better language to learn for rank beginners, but someone who already knows a variable from a loop should be introduced to Perl as a second language. Learning C is easy, learning it well is somewhat hard (thanks to the mountains of crappy books), and using it correctly can be a chore, but I think it’s really worthwhile. And teaching Cobol to maturing minds should be a crime punishable by torture. (Now, we should let the language geeks carry on. ;)) ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/39 "2004-06-04T06:18:35Z")
> [@TwistofFate](#): > > You forgot Ulster-Scots! :D:D:D That’s Germanic, **Twisty**. On the subject of the Cyrillic alphabet, I’m studying Serbian at the moment. I’ve found it quite easy to learn the Cyrillic characters _except_ for those ones which represent letters that aren’t really letters in English (like Š and Ð). ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328/40 "2004-06-04T14:38:45Z")
Ahh, lose the fear. Learn Mandarin. Beautiful, beautiful language, the grammar’s pretty simple (well, fairly simple. But it’s different enough from English that it still took some effort for me.) But the characters - they’re gorgeous. And what makes you look smarter than being able to read and write them? Besides, they’re mostly based on a couple hundred component parts, so it’s not as though you have to learn each of the several thousand required for literacy from scratch. I’m making it sound scarier than it is. It takes some work, but it’s not impossible, or even all that hard, really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-language-should-i-learn/248328.md?page=3)