What do you love about your second language(s)?

[samfrances]

It's fairly common to hear abstract questions along the lines of "how do I choose which language to learn?", but I thought it would be interesting to have a more concrete discussion about what you love about your second language(s) and what attracted you in the first place.

I'll start: I started learning Spanish because it's a "heritage language" for me, but I also really like visiting Spain and love the way the Spanish language sounds.

[Via Diva]

Well obviously I like the music. If not for the bands like Breaking Benjamin, Avenged Sevenfold and Dream Theater (I kid you not, these bands, just not all at once) I would not begin to try to learn some English on my own; if not for Angizia I would ignore German even though I love things written by Stefan Zweig and some musicals; if not for just one Kometa I would never even think to look at Czech.

English is also a mandatory, Czech is an accident, whereas German is a language I am truly obsessed with. So let me just quote this:

Stuff about German I love

I am learning German for about year and a half now (not regularly, though), so I think it's time to list some impressions from the language. There is going to be a lack of logic, reason and other important qualities, which should matter for an average language learner, but I don't care :)

1) the sound of the language
Spoken language isn't a song that you can just turn on and listen to, but that's the point! Only via Harry Potter audiobook (read by Rufus Beck) I can hear a lot of different pronunciation styles, let alone all the other sources. I actually adore the way he reads Snape's speech, I even think about doing just the same, rolling all the r's sounds funny and it's still much easier for me than anything else. I don't think I am going to sound just as brilliant as Beck's Snape, but should that stop me? I don't think it should.

2) grammar structure with "handling"
When I don't have to learn the rules or try to speak or write German verbs and adverbs, flying directly to the end of the sentence sound just awesome to me. I have no idea how can native speakers say a lot of additional things, but still successfully manage to put the verb/adverb at the end.
Seriously, how can they even write this?
Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehüllten jetzt sehr ungenirt nach der neusten Mode gekleideten Regierungsräthin begegnet.
I don't really know the answers, but I just adore this sometimes. Like there:
Sprach sie ihren Liebsten an ob er es ihr steigen kann (yeah, I like to say things twice)
And sometimes I do enjoy handling these nasty verbs and adverbs too, you know. Not in the case when I listen to Michel Thomas course though, I can't deal even with simple sentences there, feeling dull and numb (I'm curious if that had changed by now, haven't tried to listen to that for months)...

3) cases
Did you know that Russian has Suffering case? It's the one with questions за что? почему?...
Speaking seriously: cases were invented to simplify the speech. Unfortunately, German loses that bit, demanding lots of prepositions and killing Genitiv by Dativ's hand, but language still has its flexibility, allowing us to say sentences like Den Apfel isst der Mann. Yes, well, if I were looking for flexibility, I could get [much further] away with Russian, but in the case of German is just a bonus.
I still have a German declension table hanging on the door of my fridge, and I can't say I am comfortable with cases anyway, but it's better to avoid the ways of studying for now, hehe.

4) words
Oh, let me just think a little...
- die Hochzeit: German speaking folks could consider a lot of things to be taking place at "high time", but somehow they have chosen the wedding for that. The modern world devaluate the very phenomenon of the wedding fast, but this word reminds me of its original meaning and importance.
- die Vergangenheit: speaking of past... I am history nerd and I like to think about the past (whatever awful it is) anyway, and to be able to call the past with such a beautiful and natural (vergehen,vergangen) word is beyond great.
- die Gegenwart: both analogues I know fail to be that inspiring as this one.

Present? It's just there. Настоящее? It just stands on something (на + /стоит => стоящее/). Boring.
- die Leidenschaft: oh, this is one of the first German words I ever learned, but that's not the single reason for me to like it. Well, analogues from Russian and English sound just fine, but none of them has this etymology of having so much grief that it becomes a passion. Okay, okay, Russian follows this pattern too (страдать - страсть), but this is not that obvious and I prefer German morphology here.
- verrückt: oh, yeah, I have been moved, hence I'm crazy. Mwahahahaha!
- vergeben: only having learned this word I realized that both English and German are giving one consolation/ atonement/ anything else for something that one has done wrong. What a concept!
- steigen, springen: combined with Russian стоять (вставать), прыгать I don't only can easily remember the meaning of these words, but also enjoy the sound of them more...
- wahr: for the person who struggles when trying to produce a long vowel... ich war, ich wahr makes simply no difference. Well, yeah, the second also makes no sense, but isn't it funny?
- leben, lieben: I just prefer this pair to live, love, yes.
- ich, ja: these two in that order make quite a funny interference with Russian их я и не вспомнил (I haven't even remembered them), for example. It's really funny to think about yourself when you hear German yes and not to think about yourself when you say German I. These weird sensations pass by quickly, but sometimes they come back and make me laugh again :)

[smallwhite]

I like things that are mostly easy but do get slightly challenging once in a (long) while. French & Spanish fit into that category and so I love them. FSI Category I & II languages make me happy. Russian lesson 1 made me sad.

[Spoonary]

I love the immediacy of Spanish, its ratatata sound and the sassy "attitude" many people speak it with. I love its simple phonetics and its friendliness to beginners. It has a real 'pick up and play' feel to it which encourages so many people to choose it as their first foreign language. Of course, it was mine too, and although I'm sure many more languages will come and go in my life, Spanish was my first love and she's here to stay

[tomgosse]

Pour moi, la langue française, est une langue héritage. Plus c'est tres super !

Corrections to my French wanted.

[Ruan]

The thing I love the most about English is that verb endings are not all the same as in Portuguese, so there's not what's called "rima pobre" or "rime pauvre" in Romance languages ( "poor rhyme" ). I definitely learned English out of sheer necessity, it wasn't very much of a choice. I wanted to read stuff, and all the stuff I wanted to read was in English.

However, I'm planning to delve into Hindi sometime soon. I'm very much into Indian spirituality so that would help me a lot. I already love the fact that they use aspirated consonants.

[Jar-Ptitsa]

Dutch

Is extremely ugly and hideous, but it's fun and despite the sounds hurt my ears, I like it. It's not posh or elegant, but it makes me laugh

German

Is elegant and complicated, it's my favourite language.

English

The imperialist language which is the globalisation communication method, and which all the world must know. But I like it a lot, it's fun, many variations, and extremely useful. I like how it mixes French and Dutch and makes its own result.

Spanish

Very easy to read, but difficult to understand when they speak because it's too fast. The Spanish speaking people seem nice, and their countries have more sun than in the other places where my foreign lanaguges are spoken, although I don't like the very hot temperatures.

Italian

Similar with Spanish, but Italian is clearer for me, and beautiful.

Afrikaans

Hilarious language, baby Dutch

Walloon (Wallonian)

Heritage language for me. I can udnerstand it but not speak.

[garyb]

I love the immediacy of Spanish, its ratatata sound and the sassy "attitude" many people speak it with. I love its simple phonetics and its friendliness to beginners. It has a real 'pick up and play' feel to it which encourages so many people to choose it as their first foreign language.

That's an excellent description of Spanish, it's definitely a very accessible language. Unlike with other languages I've never felt a pressure to be "ready" before trying to speak it, from the start I've been happy to just dive in and try.

I love well-written French, it has such an elegance about it, both its appearance with all the accent marks and the way phrases are constructed. I may have abandoned my original goal of speaking it, but I'm still very much enjoying reading it.

I love the Italian words for animals, fruit and vegetables. I could say words like "pipistrello", "cavolfiore" and "melagrana" all day. More seriously and generally, I like how the language doesn't have any "rough" sounds, everything is nice and smooth.

[pir]

English -- started to learn it because it was mandatory. Continued to learn it because I was good at it. Also, it is a de facto lingua franca for much of the world, and by virtue of that an inveterate borrower of other languages' words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary (James Nicoll). With its huge vocabulary and multitude of phrasal verbs English is fun. It's my adopted native tongue.

French -- if I wanted to learn another language in high school it was this or Latin. I liked what I had heard of French, and France was nearby while Latin was kinda dead, so I picked French. It did not go well. But I am reclaiming it now. I've always found it beautiful to listen to, mellifluous and melodic, and it looks elegant too.

Russian -- after the French disaster, I almost gave up, but then a new teacher came to my high school and they started to offer Russian. I was somewhat fascinated with the "evil empire", and thought 'what better way to understand the culture than to learn the language'. Also, it is an official language of the UN, which made it my #3, and at that time I was flirting with the idea of becoming a UN translator. Russian rescued my love for languages, and I will always appreciate it for that, even though we only spent a year together. I want to get back to it some day because there is so much great literature to be read in the original.

Romanian -- met a group of Romanians while volunteering at an international event, had a fantastic time with them (practiced a little Russian along with English), learned some Romanian from them (mostly things I shouldn't repeat in polite company), was invited to visit, took them up on it. And I never had a better time. A poor country, much abused by its regime, but the people were awesome. I would have moved there, had it not been for that regime. As it was, I kept visiting whenever I could, and learned quite a bit of Romanian over the next few years. Some day I'd like to go back; I've fallen out of touch with everyone I knew. I really like the "funk" of Romanian, this really odd mixture of Romance and Slavic.

Romani (Sinte/Kalderash) -- heritage language. I was not in contact with any Romani until I went to Romania, but began my research there. I love that it provides a connection to a past my family hid from me, a connection that explains a lot about how they viewed me, a connection to a people from whom I like to think I got my wanderlust (though that is likely an illusion; I doubt that peripatetic nomadism is genetic).

Dutch -- met some Dutch people through my job at university, and after graduating went to visit. Got a job offer and stayed. Dutch felt like a much more friendly German (I dislike German, through no fault of its own it is associated with most bad things in my life). I love how such a guttural language can sound so soft (and that's even before you meet any Belgians). And the diminutives -- so... cute! I get homesick for the Netherlands.

Swedish -- met some Swedes through my job in the Netherlands, and with some Dutch friends went to visit them after my contract ended. Anyone who is detecting a theme here -- yup, that's pretty much how I went about acquiring languages for a while; I didn't pick them they picked me. Visited, got a job offer, stayed. Sweden had the best government language program I've ever seen. I love the sing-song of the language.

From Sweden I went to Switzerland (alas not to an Italian- or Romansch-speaking area), so it was back to German and then French for a while. And then I went to the US to visit friends I met online (before the internet), and... yup, got a job offer, and stayed. I polished my English, and acquired a whole passel of other languages at a basic level, which for the most part I didn't pick either, except for Esperanto, which I picked because it is a constructed language actually spoken by more than a handful of people. I didn't stop traveling and getting job offers where I visited, but I kept it inside the US, so no new languages were added for that reason. Then I went to Canada to live with my partner.

Which brings me to:

Japanese -- picked this up because my partner was into anime, and I can't not learn a language if I hear it every day, even if I had never planned in specific to visit Japan. Then I started to read manga, and quickly became unhappy with the commercially translated works, so sure, why not, I'll learn to read and write it. This is by far the most interesting language I've ever tackled, it requires me to turn my brain inside out, and that's good for it. The writing systems are beautiful. The culture fascinates me because I have some odd affinities with it (and completely clash with it in other aspects). I'm pretty sure this is not one of the languages that will languish at A1.

Spanish -- jumped me unexpectedly. It had always been on my bucket list as "some day". I wanted to pick it up when I first moved to California, but American culture shock side tracked me and I ended up moving on before learning more than a few words. Then I evaluated Memrise and Duolingo and wrote reports on them, and a friend said that she was surprised that I rated Memrise so much better than Duolingo in French; she felt it was the other way around in Spanish. So I started a Spanish course on Memrise just to see... And I am enjoying Spanish so much that I'm continuing with it, even though I did drop that course because it was indeed not very good. I like how it sounds, so energetic and passionate, and it is the perfect counterpoint to Japanese, which wrings me dry -- Spanish is so happy and easy at this stage; I'm in cognate heaven.

[extralean]

French - the flirtyness
Spanish - the outrageous flirtation.

Also the literature, I find so much more is translated into French than English, from places I'd never have read about otherwise.
And the regions of the world that it opens up to me. With English, French, and Spanish - I cover all the important bits.