MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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If you could wake up tomorrow and be fluent in 3 additional languages, which would you choose? Why?
Consider the language(s) you already know or use to some extent, and if you need to improve significantly in one or more, then count this/these one(s) among your 3.
Do NOT include any classical or ancient languages.
Mine:
1. German
2. Ukrainian
3. Russian
EDIT: I forgot to say why.
1. It was my father's first language, and while I can get by in it, I am not as fluent as I want to be.
2. My German grandparents fled Ukraine for Canada because of the Bolsheviks, I spend a fair amount of time there, and my wife is half-Ukrainian.
3. Russian gives a person access not only to Russia itself, but most of the countries of the former Soviet Union. Plus, see #2.
Show your working.
Show your working.
What do you mean? You want people to declare what language(s) they already speak/use regularly in addition to English?
Spanish, as I like holidaying there, and have dreams of headng to S.America. It's also close enough to other Romance languages to enable a fluent speaker to get by in POrtuguese, Italian & Occitan.
Polish - to converse with Polish friends
Mandarin - in 10 years time it will be the key language of tourism in Asia, if it's not already.
l33t.
l33t
Already fluent in Klingon and Dothraki?
Moses .... I thought Portuguese was close in origin to Finnish than Spanish and the other Latin languages .... ?
Of course learning a language is a "waste of time" ( i know it really isn't)
Google googles will hear the language spoken to you and translate it direct onto your HUD glasses ... or transmit it to your implanted earpiece.
Spanish, Russian and Mandarin. I think combining those with English would enable a person to converse to some extent with the majority of people on the planet.
I thought Portuguese was close in origin to Finnish than Spanish and the other Latin languages …. ?
That's Basque you're thinking of. I'm fluent in Spanish and can understand Portuguese and Italian once I've had a chance to get used to the different accent, they're all very similar.
So given I already know Spanish, I'd choose Arabic, Chinese and German.
1) French
Simple really, I love France, It's my favourite Country to visit and I'd move there if I could speak French fluently enough for work. I can speak a bit, read and write less - but the French for "what's your budget?" and "Perianal Abscess" have eluded me up to now.
2) Spanish
Again, Holidays and it's a beautiful language.
3) Cantonese
Well, I have a sneaking one that, this might become very important in years to come.
French - because I go there a lot.
Spanish - because I go there a lot.
Japanese - because it'd be cool to speak Japanese.