Choosing a Language
Why Swedish? "Because my mother's from Sweden." Why French? "Because my company's transferring me to the Paris office." Why Arabic? "Because I'm Muslim." Many people have a very specific and personal reason they choose to study a certain foreign language. If you know which language you intend to study, you can skip this section and go on to the Getting Started page.
For those of you who have made the decision to study a foreign language but are not quite sure which one to pursue, consider the following:
source: Ethnologue
Those are the most spoken languages in the world?? You might be surprised at which languages did and didn't make it into the top twenty. There's a good chance there's at least one language on the list you've never even heard of! What's up with that? Well, not all these languages are world languages. A world language is defined as having wide geographic distribution, is used in international trade and diplomacy, and is probably the official language of more than one economically important country. The United Nations has six official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish), which together account for nearly 1.9 billion native speakers, or a third of the world's total population.
It's primarily for the reasons above that world languages tend to be the most studied. English, unsurprisingly, is hands-down the most studied language in most parts of the world. The second-most studied language varies from region to region. Koreans, for example, tend to study Japanese and Chinese, while Americans focus on Spanish, and Europeans usually pursue French or German.
source: MLA
PRACTICALITY: Will I have opportunities to use the language?
So, obviously it makes sense to take more into account than just the number of speakers. There are more speakers of Javanese than French, but you'll probably never have a chance to use your Javanese unless you're in Java. Consider also the following points:
- Is the language spoken in my community?
- Which language would be most attractive to employers?
- What does choosing this particular language tell people about me?
- Are there ample resources available to practice the language? Books? Internet sites? TV stations?
DIFFICULTY: How difficult is the language?
Some languages may seem daunting at first, but with patience and dedication, any language can be mastered. Seriously. That said, some languages are definitely more challenging than others. Of course, a language's apparent difficulty depends on your first language and knowledge of other languages. In general, Western European languages are considered the easiest for native speakers of English. German is a bit more difficult, though. Then there are the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe as well non-European languages such as Thai and Turkish. There are four world languages considered to be the most difficult of all. Can you guess which ones? Here's a hint: together they produce the acronym JACK.
The United States Foreign Service Institute has categorized languages into four degrees of difficulty for native speakers of English based on the hours of study needed to reach an advanced level of proficiency, as shown in the chart above.
Category 1: (mostly Western European languages) Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Romanian, etc.
Category 2: Bulgarian, Farsi, German, Greek, Hindi, and Indonesian.
Category 3: (Slavic and non-European languages) Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, etc, etc.
Category 4: Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, and Korean.
source: Handbook for Arabic language teaching professionals in the 21st century
Points to consider:
- The writing system. If the language isn't written in the Latin Alphabet, you have some extra work cut out for you. It might be fun, but more time consuming. However, some writing systems are logical and can be learned in a short period of time, such as Korean. Others, namely Chinese, consist of thousands of characters which have to be memorized.
- Pronunciation. Some languages have sounds sounds which can be particularly challenging. Arabic is a good example! Then there are tonal languages, such as Chinese and Thai, which have falling and rising tones that determine the meaning of a syllabe. Once you get to the intermediate level, they become second nature, but they certainly offer an added challenge.
- Grammar. Some languages have a much more complicated grammar structure than others. German and Russian have their case systems and numerous irregularities. Arabic and Turkish have complicated verb conjugations, but few irregularities. Chinese grammar, on the other hand, is simple in comparison: no conjugations, no irregularities, no suffixes, and no tenses for that matter!
OTHER POINTS TO CONSIDER
Cost. For the most part, studying one language or another should cost you approximately the same amount of money. That is, course books, dictionaries, and software programs are comparatively priced, for the most part. However, you may wish to take a study-holidy abroad. In a developing country, such as China, Egypt or Mexico, a language course and living expenses will be much less expensive than attending a course in Sweden or Japan. There are also numerous online tutoring programs (lessons via Skype with a teacher) which can run as low as $5 an hour for a teacher in China to $30 or more for one in Europe.
Interest. If you are interested in the culture, history, and customs of the native speakers of the language you're studying, you'll be much more inclined to continue your studies, watch their movies, read their literature.... Of course, by studying a language, you may then develop an interest in the culture. I, myself, started studying Mandarin Chinese on a whim, and that eventually brought me to China, where I now live!