Hello edufireans,

I would like to make a language poll on edufire;-)

All is in the title: what’s your favorite foreign language? Why is this language your favorite?

Also, I’d like to know if you’re currently studying this language. And if not, why are you studying another language or none at all?

I am looking forward to reading ALL your answers:-)

Cheers,

Katia

Hahaha! Come on, Katia! That’s like asking a mother to name her favorite child!

Really?! Maybe it seems easy to me because I am an only child with no children, who knows:D

However, there are a few basic points a serious student should consider when deciding which language to learn:

1) Your “ear”: you should find comfortable with the sound of the chosen language and enjoy listening to it.

2) You personality : you may feel more comfortable with people coming from a specific country rather than another. This may mean you feel connected with them, and thus interested in their life-style, history and culture.

3) Your travels: you enjoy spending your holidays in a given country or you even plan or dream to move there one day!

4) Your work: let’s say you work in the cooking or fashion or music field and thus need to learn Italian or French, and so on for all other fields and languages.

What about you ;-)

Katia

My favourite language is definitely French. France is a country that produced so many outstanding people and things in many fields: philosophy and literature, painting, music, science, cuisine…. And all this is now part of the world’s heritage, of the culture shared by people across the globe.
The language also sounds soft, it’s like a song. What’s more, I think that this language is perfectly designed for reasoning and discussions – it’s like the language itself imposing logic and order. At least this is my impression.
I have never learnt Italian, unfortunately, which is why I cannot compare French and Italian. But I am now learning Spanish, which has lots of similarities with French. It’s so entertaining for me! Having studied a bit of both Latin and History of the French language, it’s fun to see which words have remained practically intact in Spanish compared to Latin, and which ones changed their forms when they came to French.

As much as I like my native English, and as much as I like French as a language (in spite of absolutely despising Canadian language politics, which I am mature enough not to blame French itself for), I remain highly partial to Japanese. I have some experience as a novel translator from Japanese to English. This gave me an in-depth perspective in just how finely a master writer can use the Japanese language as if conducting a symphony. The tools are simply more varied and diverse. There’s a constant challenge in translating into English to not lose the nuances, not because English has none, but because Japanese has some that don’t translate well due to a difference in the number of options. This deeply impressed me as a linguist.

Having said that, I’m certainly not forsaking the other languages I know. I’d like to learn Spanish as well, for mostly personal reasons (my stepmother is from Colombia), but also for simple interest in the language. I still have a very long way to go, but learning English and French first seems good preparation in many senses.

Interesting topic! Linguistically, I have to say I find Hungarian and Finnish fascinating languages! Neither bear close resemblances to other European languages and they are apparently fairly difficult languages to learn…. I think that it makes them almost appear somewhat mystical! To add to this mysticism, Tolkein was a fan of the Finnish language and drew inspiration for the creation of Elvish. He once said: “It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an unrecorded Germanic language, and my own language — or series of invented languages — became heavily Finnicized in phonetic pattern and structure.”

Thank you Anton, Jeremiah and Mark for the interesting insights:-)

@ Anton: your post is very interesting! As a French speaker and teacher, I can confirm that you’re perfectely right here:

“I think that this language is perfectly designed for reasoning and discussions – it’s like the language itself imposing logic and order”.

The French praise themselves for being very “Cartesien”.

About Italian, this wonderful language has an even more rigourously structured and fit for all kind of reasonning and thoughts being the closest language to Latin.

Looking forward to more responses and insights from all of you! Students are most welcome!!!

Cheers,

Katia

Actually, just to reinforce Anton’s comment, I lived in Luxembourg for 20 odd years and there are three languages spoken (Luxembourgish, French, and German). Interestingly, while the vast majority of the population are multilingual, French is the chosen language for most formal functions (meetings, speeches, letter writing etc….). It’s funny that French would be chosen over German, given that the Luxembourgish language and culture is based more on Germanic influences than French. Perhaps the selection and formal function of French in Luxembourg is based on, as Anton said, the fact that it is perfectly designed for reasoning and discussions…. are we onto something here??!

I took Hebrew as my language in (public) high school—my town had a large Jewish community, and we managed to get a teacher for it—I took the statewide Regents test and everything—even with a Jewish cultural/religious background, I found the language to be very difficult to learn. Modern Hebrew is kind of a hodgepodge of different eras of classical Hebrew, reflecting its various periods of greater and lesser usage throughout history, also incorporating many loan words from Western languages (telephone, computer, etc). I barely passed the statewide exam after three years of study.

Throughout my life, I’ve always been interested in Esperanto and other artificial languages. I know that learning a natural language (German, French, Chinese, Japanese) would probably be more helpful to me—but I’ve always had a soft spot for all sorts of ideas and technologies that never quite caught on (Edison phonographs, Dvorak keyboards, the Henry George movement, etc). With respect to languages, that means (naturally) Esperanto, and other languages like it—the “planned” languages (and the rationales behind their creation, as well as the design aesthetics employed) have always intrigued me.

I’m trying (yet again!) to learn Esperanto via tutoring on edufire. I hope at some point to try to learn Lojban as well.

Then maybe I’ll go back to learning a “real” language. :)

Hi Katia
I m really agree with Anton. I like French language for what he explain more better than me.
I m Iranian my native language is Farsi. I learned English in university. but all the time I think to learn French language I can say I love this language.
I had a teacher some years ago once he tolled me If you want to speak about policy use English, If you want to make challenge use German and when you like to speak about LOVE use French!!!!!

so I m sure every body knows why I m here???!!!!

Yiddish is my favorite language. I love it because it consists of some many other languages.

For me, Japanese has been the most rewarding language. I am deeply fascinated by the Japanese culture and history, and the language has so much potential. However, I am also a fan of Finnish and Hungarian. Finnish largely due to my ancestry, although I also have a great deal of Norwegian in my blood, but I find that language strange. Perhaps being a native Minnesotan, Finnish just sounds more natural, as a lot of people here still speak it quite well, with a Norwegian accent sometimes….
I also have an interest in Italian and Hebrew, but my knowledge in these is very poor.

Katia,

I would pick japanese. Simply because it is the 3rd language I am learning. I am always interested in the new language that I am learning. Why I learn it? well, because japan has quite a unique culture of its own, very different from western one and it is not totally Asian from my perspective.

Cheers,

North

Hi all
That is a very good to have ideas about all of us favorite language, for me beside my Holy Quranic ( Arabic) Language I like English So much and my love is increasing everyday I add more to my language store and knowledge. The more I got from American, British, Australian English- the more I love this language so much as I have started leaning English with my own self and I continue learning to fell I have completely taste it and taste it so much:)

Hello

WOW! What an interesting question. I’ve loved reading the replies.

My native language is English, so I suppose my reply should really be English….but….I love hearing French, it’s a very musical, romantic language. I don’t really know any other languages. I hear tourists speaking in other languages from time to time, but I couldn’t tell you what language they are speaking, so in reality I can’t answer the question!

My Apollonian side likes Greek, mother of all Indoeuropean-based modern western languages (and, yes, Latin owes a LOT to classic Greek).

My Dionysian side likes rock ’ roll: Its grammar, syntax, and vocabulary are primal, tapping our basic selves back at least to Homo erectus, while energizing us for pioneering new horizons and universes.

I love any of the romance languages. I absolutely love Arabic, and want to become fluent in it one day. I see it as a challenge.

I like to write German but don’t like to speak it that much.
I like to speak English but don’t like to write it. Maybe someone can help me with it.
My favourite language is probably Italian. It sounds so melodic. It’s a perfect language for singer’s ears.

Hi again dear students and fellow tutors,

I am glad this question arised your interest! It is very informative and interesting to read your answers.

Of course, as an Italian national and a French resident I am very pleased to learn a vast majority of you cherish the so called “romance” or “latin” languages, Italian and French in particular;-))

I am looking forward to reading more of your testimonials!

Cheers,
Katia