Russian, Czech, or Hebrew?

[Kakero]

If you can, and have the time to do it. try to learn every language you can. It will be a great help to you. you'll learn more about other peoples culture and history and you'll grow to accept them. thus avoiding any " culture crash " when someday you do meet them or go visit their country.

I've made an effort to learn every asian language ( part of my job requirement actually ). currently learning Arabic. I already learn like 16 language. Korean is one of them. The benefit is while people overhere say the Koreans are so and so and so. I don't see anything wrong with Koreans.

[Reeka]

Well, of the three if you want something really different, I would vote for Hebrew. I studied Hebrew, and you do have to learn a new alphabet......and read from right to left. But since the alphabet if completely different, it doesn't bother you to read right to left. Or me it didn't anyway. Grammatically, it is a very simple language. It's not inflected like German or Russian, and verbs are not congugated. There are only two tenses of the verbs...that which shows completed and incomplete action. Only two grammatical genders as well, as opposed to German and Russian that have three.

I think Hebrew is cool and if you ever had the occasioin arise to want to read the Old Testament in the original language you could. My teacher told me that Hebrew as a language is unchanged to what it was throusands of years ago except for adding new words for things like computers and such.

Let us know what you decide.

[Raistlin Majere]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: EEF! I'm gonna ditto the comments made on Finnish! I took a short course in it and after a few months of study could barely read the main points in a child's simple story (kinda like you'd read to a pre-schooler) WITH a translation! LOL It's a fascinating language, though! Wish I'd started it when I was much younger.

It is indeed true that Finnish is a very hard language to learn. But you must of course see how rewarding it is to be able to say things like this:

Vesi hiisi sihisi hississä(which is a common toungue twister here in Finland)

Seriously, finnish is a cool language(though it may not be a completely neutral answer since im Finnish), but im not quite sure how useful a language it is to the common (wo)man...

edit: shucks, this isnt exactly a new thread, is it? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-26-2003, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Raistlin Majere ]

[Iron_Ranger]

Originally posted by Raistlin Majere: It is indeed true that Finnish is a very hard language to learn. But you must of course see how rewarding it is to be able to say things like this: Vesi hiisi sihisi hississä(which is a common toungue twister here in Finland) Seriously, finnish is a cool language(though it may not be a completely neutral answer since im Finnish), but im not quite sure how useful a language it is to the common (wo)man... edit: shucks, this isnt exactly a new thread, is it? [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QB]

Hehe,no its not [img]smile.gif[/img]

No worries though, I still havent decided. I agree, Finnish is a pretty cool language, I think Finland as a whole is pretty cool. The language, Culture, landscape. People? I dont know any Finns, so I couldnt say. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Larry_OHF]

Didn't Tolkein say that Lord of the Rings fit most properly into Finnish than any other language? That alone would be my deciding factor.

[Nevaeh]

Originally posted by Melusine: German as spoken by normal Germans can be as beautiful as any language.

German is a cool language, but I was awful at it, so I'm giving it up this year.

[Raistlin Majere]

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: People? I dont know any Finns, so I couldnt say.

Naturally, the best . Though seriously speaking, its rather disturbing how rude the people are these days(though i think its not just in Finland). now most people would automatically connect rudeness to the youth, but at least in finland, its just about worse with the senior citizens. just the other day i was in line at a shop and didnt automatically let the elderly woman pass in line(i didnt even know she was there) so she slapped me with her walking stick! and they complain about the youth...

Originally posted by Larry_OHF: Didn't Tolkein say that Lord of the Rings fit most properly into Finnish than any other language? That alone would be my deciding factor.

Ive heard of this too from a pretty reliable source

[Paladin2000]

How about Chinese (Mandarin)? It could be easier on you if you should decide to travel to China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and certain part of asia. By any means, learning Chinese is though as hell.