fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2442 ]

[ SECRET POST #2442 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2442 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm starting university soon, doing a langauge degree where i get to study 2 languages, one of which is Spanish. The problem is choosing the other one because I don't know whether to go for Mandarin Chinese, which I'd love to study but would probably be insanely hard or do something like Portuguese, which is a)similar to Spanish and b) offered in an accelerated course so I can become reasonably fluent by the time I finish uni, which isn't a guarantee with the Chinese. Urg, help me F!S, you're my only hope :(

Mandarin is useful, but extremely hard. I had to stop after second year because I couldn't keep up. Portuguese is similar to Spanish, like you said, so that will help a lot.

Go with Portuguese, IMO. Doing a degree and juggling two languages will be tough as it is, and having similar languages will probably be more useful as learning one will help with the other. You can always take an extra class post-uni if you were serious about learning Mandarin too.

Go with Mandarin. In 20 years everyone will have to start learning it anyway.

Do you think you could handle learning Mandarin in addition to your cutrrent workload? I think that's the question you need to ask.

Speaking as someone who has studied two languages at once before, pick the one less like the first. If you don't, you're liable to mix things up. Especially if you pick something close to Spanish like Portugeuse or French.

Mandarin Chinese is the most common native tongue in the world. If you learn Spanish, too, and are already an English speaker, you will speak all of the three most common languages on the planet.

Do you have any particular goals regarding what you would use this degree for? What would you do with your Spanish and Portuguese/Chinese knowledge? Do you want to work in a particular part of the world, be a translator, be able to talk to a lot of people, study linguistics, record dying languages, or what? Answering that question might give you some insight.

My suggestion would be don't go with Portuguese. I don't know how many languages you already speak, but one of the features of learning a new language is that your brain tends to classify all non-native tongues as the same thing during the learning process. With the result, for me, that when I was learning Indonesian, I tended to fill in the blanks with words I knew in Spanish. Once you actually get the language down, this tendency usually goes away, but it was bad enough for me trying to do this with Indonesian and Spanish, two completely unrelated languages. I can't imagine the kind of hellish nightmare it would be trying to pick through two languages with such similar words/syntax/grammar/everything and still keep them separate and distinct in my mind.

If you are decided on Spanish, then my suggestion would be to pick another language spoken by a large population of the world, thus maximizing the number of people with whom you can communicate. Mandarin Chinese is one option. Hindi would be another.

I did the same thing when I was learning Japanese at first. I spoke conversational Spanish at this point and would just insert random Spanish words or the Japanese words would come out with a Spanish accent. It was quite hilarious my first semester because a friend of mine would do the same thing in French.

Damn, I did the French-instead-of-Japanese thing as well XD

I agree with the others that it's better to go with a language that's different from Spanish. Unless you go into it with solid Spanish proficiency already, it'll be more confusing to learn two similar languages from the ground up at the same time. But the concern about Mandarin being difficult is legitimate, so if you're juggling a lot, that's something to consider. What about something like German? Non-romance but not quite as challenging as Mandarin.

Go with Mandarin Chinese.

If you're not already pretty solid in Spanish, don't choose anything really similar like Portuguese. You think that's gonna make it easier, but it will only be confusing. Once your Spanish is solid, then yes, learning Portuguese will be a lot easier, but one after the other, not concurrently.

One thing to consider [idk if it's been mentioned] is that learning very similar languages at the same time and can be *really* confusing since they'll have words that sounds very close to each other - but may not mean the same thing at all/are just different enough to be confusing to the people you're talking to if you use one from the other language.

Also just to point out accelerated course =/= being reasonably fluent. Truth is, if you don't use the language outside the classroom while learning it, there's a fair chance you won't be fluent at all. Plus, accelerated courses have a habit of dropping everything but the bare bones of the course which, again, is really not a good thing for fluency [it also goes faster which can add another level to the difficulty since it may go too fast for you to keep up, even if you're a fast learner.]

So, I'd say do the one you actually want to study, and put time into learning. It'll make the experience more worthwhile, and you're going to be more inclined to do the work that's needed to learn it.

/signed: Another language major.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2442 ]

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