If you HAVE TO pick only one language to be fluent in INSTANTLY, with the condition that you will forever be incapable of learning another language, which language would you choose?

These are the additional conditions/terms:

1. Everyone in this planet has to make a choice at the same time.
2. You don’t have any idea what your friends or family or anyone for that matter will choose.
3. You must pick a specific language, not the “whatever my best friend picks” kind of choice.
4. Assume ALL countries are doing well and you don’t have to choose a language so you can live in a wealthy nation.
5. Don’t even consider your language learning aptitude.
6. You will forget the language/s you know now, unless you choose to keep it/one of them.

So which language would it be for you? WHY?

=)

That is a GREAT question! It is also a hard question and one I need to think about. lol

So is this aside from my native language?

If this includes my native language then my first reaction is that I cannot give up English because it is part of me and if I could not speak it any more, I would lose my heritage. I will be interested to see what everyone else chooses.

Oooh that’s a hard question. I’d probably end up staying with English. Because I really don’t think my friends and family would choose any language other than English! It would be so cool to be instantly fluent in Japanese though…. or Chinese…. but if I couldn’t speak English anymore, it wouldn’t be worth it. :(

Thank you for this great thread Kat. Sure it’s a doozy eh? I have to pick ASL then. Before “words” didn’t we have to communicate somehow ONLY by gestures, body language? That’s my pick. : )

It’s a tie….Arabic and Portuguese.

Reading above, I have to say that if ASL isn’t an option I would most definitely pick Portuguese, it just sounds beautiful, warm and smooth. : )

Katherine, this is a great question, it’s very interesting to think about it, but I have to say: man, what an apocalyptical scenario! It would be a nightmare if something like this happened, not only because we would all forget what we already know, but also because being forever unable to learn another language would make it impossible to communicate with people that would have chosen another language…. Plus, eduFire and all language tutors would have to find other careers….

But if I’ll have to choose…. ( ( sigh ) ) I think I’d pick English. Although being fluent in Latin would be really cool, I’m not sure how many people would pick that, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life declamating an enending monologue in Latin (that’s something to imagine!). It would be difficult to forget what little I know in French and Italian, and, like Debbie said, loosing Romanian would mean loosing a part of my identity….. BUT still…. English is a beautiful language and most of my friends would choose it….

That was a though decision to take. I do hope no one would have to do such a choice! I truly believe in celebrating diversity through multilingualism, studying other languages broadens your horizons and helps you understand other cultures….

Let’s just hope that, with eduFire around, we’ll never have to make such a choice!

I agree with you guys…. it’s hard to pick just one language and it would really be a horrible scenario if we can’t learn another one~ I asked this question because I was thinking about it last night and I can’t choose one myself….

I’d pick Esperanto. That is what it was made for, right?

Since learning new languages is one of my passions, I would be very sad if I had to do such a thing…. even though I think English would be a good option as many people speak it and I like it also, there are a few other languages I sing in and singing is my passion too…. I think I cannot choose!! LOL

Mmm, if I had to choose I’d stick to learning Japanese :) It’s such an awesome language to learn. (However, Thai would also be one of my choices.)

Ooh Marged, singing is my passion too! (: I can sing in a few languages too, it’s quite fun memorising the lyrics although you may not know what you’re singing :P

I believe English is the most versatile language we have in the world. It has the most words (almost 1,000,000 if I recall correctly) however I’ve heard Spanish is the most expressive and I think if everyone in the world were to be speaking the same language, people would want to express themselves as differently as they could…. of course, the language we’d all be speaking would be devloped alot more.

Ahhh decisions, decisions…. I would pick either English or German, They are the most versatile languages in the world after all….

Economics, politics, world affairs, music, movies, culture, and so on makes this an easy choice – English.

After much thought, I decided to stick to my native language: Tagalog. English is technically a native language for me too and I love it, but growing up in the Philippines, I have more attachment to Tagalog.

Tagalog is not the most beautiful sounding language or whatnot. But Tagalog is one precise language, IMO. It’s also a mix of many foreign words like Spanish, Chinese, Malay, and English—so I guess even if I won’t be able to learn another language ever again, at least I get to speak even a little bit of foreign words everyday =)

I would pick Ancient Greek.

I haven’t read any posts because I didn’t want to be influenced but I’ll go back and read them now.

Ancient Greek because they have more than one word for “love”, which I find intriguing because in English we “love” everything from chocolate, to guitars, to spouses, to “The Office”. And it’s alphabet just looks cool. They were so influential in so many languages and in the sciences and I assume that it’s a very precise language.

But I dunno.

Now I’ll go back and read others’ responses.

-J.Alorda

i will pick spanish

Hi Jonathan! I have to say, yours was the most interesting choice! :)

I’ve studied just a little bit of Ancient Greek, but it was enough to realize that’s it’s a very beautiful (and very difficult) language. I don’t think it’s really precise, it’s very rich and versatile, as Arky would put it…. Anyway, great choice!

Very interesting question ^_
I would pick latin …. There just something about the culture of the romans that i love.
You can find traces of there culture in their language.
I am sure that at lest 10000 people will pick latin :D and we will create our little country.

Hristo – Wow!!! Latin! :) I’m a big fan of Latin/Roman culture/literature/mythology myself….

I already picked English, but I’d love to be able to speak Latin fluently…. :)

By the way, thanks for signing up for my class! :D

birds language , relieves you from the burden of the ’ much ado about nothing’

http://www.natureskills.com/song_sparrow.html

http://www.natureskills.com/bird_language.html

more like BIRDen

heh………..

……….
….

Yeah, I’d have to say Esperanto as well. I’d hate to see such a language ultimately go to waste. It’s really quite a conceptual, yet largely unacknowledged, language that would finally serve some point, even if the decision to learn it was sparked by a freakish ultimatum.

I’d learn Elvish or Klingon or something, just imagine all the fun looking at all your faces when I start speaking something like that fluently xD