Question:
...if you could wake up tomorrow and magically be able to speak/write five new languages fluently? Consider picking at least one or two that aren't necessarily the ones we in the U.S. are taught are the most useful (ie, Spanish, French, German, Japanese). Portuguese, Indonesian, Swahili, Romanian, Norwegian, Farsi (Persian), etc; there are many other interesting and exotic languages to choose from too. In any case, list which ones you'd pick and why.



For the poll question...which obscure language would you most want to know?

Choices:
Hmong
suomi (Finnish)
Tibetan
Quechua (native american, Mayan)
Croatian

 

Well, I already know English and Spanish, but I could wake up and magically know five more languages fluently, I'd pick:

1) French - I took a semester and I'm taking more next year, but as long as I'm getting the opportunity to know it *magically*, might as well put it on the list. :P

2) Arabic - I strongly suspect this would come in handier than one might think.

3) Latin - ditto.

4) Czech - this is my most obscure language choice (btw, if you're curious, I was influenced by a Czech foreign exchange student). Hardly anyone knows it, but I'm not thinking of that as a bad thing.

5) Russian - since I am clearly not smart enough to learn it on my own.

This is hard, I wish I could really wake up and speak these languages

1- Chinese (It would probably be pretty useful)
2- French (Pretty common, but I don't know a word of it)
3- Latin (I know it's a dead language but it could probably help out with figuring out english or words from other languages).
4- Arabic
5- Greek

i speak a little french, spanish, english, and not much but i can hold up a few sentences in italian

I already speak French, comme l'autre qui a déja posté, But I'd like to know Arabic, Mandarin, Turkish, Russian, and perhaps Spanish.

maori [so i could read/understand all the signs around here]
norwegian [because i really want to go to norway]
russian
spanish
arabic

I wanna learn Japanese... and actually get spanish. i'm taking it in school and am failing miserably...

je suis americain, mais je parles francais. and i'd really like to learn farsi, i would totally like to learn hmong because i think its awesome that it wasn't a written language until the 50's i just wish it wasn't written phoenetically in english. next would be tibetan because i think the dalai lama is very important in today's society, especially for peace. then croatian because i've been to europe many time, but haven't had a chance to visit Zagreb. fourth would be quechua because grammar wise, i hear its completely different from english, and its also spoken by like 10 million people in south america and since i live in cali that might be useful-even though i already speak spanish.and doesn't suomi literally mean "finland"? anywasy i speak alot of languages so i think it'd be cool to learn languages that weren't so mainstream...

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I suppose you have to build it from scratch (new rules and what not) for it to be a real language. if you just change all the words it's merely a code

Good point there...

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Wikipedia has ten pages written in Klingon. I find that odd.

I don't I know several folks who speak fluent klingon

I don't have any idea why though

I tried to write my own language in 7th grade. It was harder than I thought.

Wikipedia has ten pages written in Klingon. I find that odd.

ask JRR Tolkein

I suppose you have to build it from scratch (new rules and what not) for it to be a real language. if you just change all the words it's merely a code

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Originally posted by ampmaster:

quote:

1: Elven ( don't look at me that way )

a friend of my can write fluently in elvish (tolkein elvish I assume we are speaking of yes?)

That's pretty awesome. I've always wondered, though, how does one make up an entire language? What are the rules of grammar? Is it just like... copying another language and changing all of the words? Or Maybe taking bits an pieces of rules (like with Esperanto) and words, and mashing them together until you have something new?

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1: Elven ( don't look at me that way )

a friend of my can write fluently in elvish (tolkein elvish I assume we are speaking of yes?)

spanish- it could help me if i go to mexico
french- it could help me if i go to france
italian- it could help me if i go to italy
russian- it could help me if i go to russia
armenian- i already speak armenian

1. Arabic - Would help me when I'm going in to politics
2. Mandrain Chinese - China is going to be a super power
3. Spanish - Many people speak it
4. British English - It sounds awesom!
5. Russian - Still cool

Danish - the language of Denmark
Dutch - the language of the Netherlands

Two easily confused but vastly different languages.

(sorry for a double post)

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Originally posted by LoveTheRainbow:

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Haha.. sweet. howed you learn that one?

I just found out that it actually means "Make my breakfast, bitch" Opps.

Haha, thats awesome! I'd love to learn how to sign that... even just what "bitch" is in ASL. Besides, how many people would you be saying that to who could really tell the difference?

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Originally posted by BigSlickAK:
German (i know some, but not enough)
Japanese (same as above)
Russian (it sounds mean)
Arabic (at least its not spanish)
Nepali (so i could be a bad ass Ghurka Warrior)

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Fuschiagirl 2.Danish- same reason

u spreekt geen Deens, spreekt u het Nederlands

:translate: you dont speak danish, you speak dutch.

Are you really going to try and tell me I don't know what country I've been visiting for the last 18 years? First of all, dutch is not deutch, or dansk. My mom grew up in the german minority in Denmark. She grew up bilingual, had family living in both southern Denmark and Northern Germany, and when we all go to family reunions, one half of the family can't understand the other half (and I can't understand any of them).

Also, what do you mean by your signature? It's translates to "to give others the likelyhood (sp?) of dying for their country". But it's not even a complete sentence.