Which probably means those language that always turn up in the general roster (Japanese, Chinese, Russian, French...), which you meant to learn or learned a bit, perhaps multiple times, but never got there. So that it's likely you'll just never get round to learning it and it's more than likely shelved forever. Which are they?
For me:
Japanese. I have tried it. First time in 1987-'88 from a little 'Get By In Japanese' from the BBC. I did one more serious try about 10 years ago. Whilst I like traditional Japanese culture, I can't abide the popular culture, the demented cartoon rubbish and all the other stuff. I don't have a burning desire to live in Japan. So I find it hard to engage. Plus the fact that it's quite difficult! As much as it would be great to speak and read it, I am willing to accept that it's not going to happen in my lifetime.
Mandarin. This is one of those where you keep thinking 'hold on though... they say the grammar is not that hard, and no verb conjugations to indicate person, number, or gender! Granted, there's scary 'aspect markers', but I'll get over that...'. Then you start the course and you're like a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest. I find this distressing because I like Chinese. Then there's the writing system...
Arabic. Many want to conquer this. I don't know how many succeed overall. I tried for a week and couldn't carry on. For simple westerners like me the writing system is an obstacle; the sound system too. I think that to learn Arabic I would have to give up every other language and probably some other things. Sadly I don't think I will ever learn Arabic and it's pity not to be able to read books that rarely if ever make it to the west in translation.
Turkish. I really wanted to learn Turkish. I had a good go. It has some attractive features from a Euro point-of-view, such as the alphabet, though this is misleading. There are lots of Turkish people I could talk to, but somehow I keep not learning it. I imagine this will persist.
You never want to say never, but I'd guess that I'll never learn these languages.
I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
I tell myself: "If I want to seriously learn that before I die, I should start right now!" - I want to at least try hard and have a very serious go at it (~several thousand hours).
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
I will likely die before learning lingua angelicus.
That said, I'm likely to be learning the dialect referred to as "fallen" because who doesn't root for the underdog...?
That said, I'm likely to be learning the dialect referred to as "fallen" because who doesn't root for the underdog...?
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
Hmmm, likely Arabic (although it's never been one on my active register anyway.)
Not because I dislike it or anything - it's a fascinating language that opens one up to an entire new side of world culture and history - I just don't think I'd have the time to dedicate to a language of such complexity and keep up my energy as I don't really have any personal reason to study it.
Japanese and Mandarin are other complex languages, but I can see situations in my life where I'd find them much more useful/interesting for me to try and crack if I had some time where I could just sit down and learn. Arabic just doesn't quite match that appeal for me.
Not because I dislike it or anything - it's a fascinating language that opens one up to an entire new side of world culture and history - I just don't think I'd have the time to dedicate to a language of such complexity and keep up my energy as I don't really have any personal reason to study it.
Japanese and Mandarin are other complex languages, but I can see situations in my life where I'd find them much more useful/interesting for me to try and crack if I had some time where I could just sit down and learn. Arabic just doesn't quite match that appeal for me.
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
Ug_Caveman wrote:Japanese and Mandarin are other complex languages, but I can see situations in my life where I'd find them much more useful/interesting...
For 'business' of course! 8 year-olds of the world unite in Japanese for business.
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
alaart wrote:I tell myself: "If I want to seriously learn that before I die, I should start right now!" - I want to at least try hard and have a very serious go at it (~several thousand hours).
Yes, the best time to start is today. The problem is I sometimes stop tomorrow.
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
Le Baron wrote:alaart wrote:I tell myself: "If I want to seriously learn that before I die, I should start right now!" - I want to at least try hard and have a very serious go at it (~several thousand hours).
Yes, the best time to start is today. The problem is I sometimes stop tomorrow.
You know... I spent about 10 years dreaming about Russian before I actually started learning Russian. Once I finally did, there was no stopping me.
To answer the original question, though: in my case, Sanskrit. I thought about it for a while. Basically, I want to learn a dead language before I die (hehe), and I thought Sanskrit sounded cool. But it would involve learning a distant alphabet, and by the sound of it (see Helen Abadzi's work), I'd never become a fluent reader of it. So, I'm not going to try.
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
Le Baron wrote:Ug_Caveman wrote:Japanese and Mandarin are other complex languages, but I can see situations in my life where I'd find them much more useful/interesting...
For 'business' of course! 8 year-olds of the world unite in Japanese for business.
Weeeeeeeeell...
Le Baron wrote:Japanese...The demented cartoon rubbish and all the other stuff....
Interestingly my life priorities are rather back-to-front...
I'm not an anime obsessive or anything like that, but I do enjoy watching dubbed versions of quite a few different Japanese shows. I wouldn't mind being able to watch them in their original language (and I really enjoyed Bullet Train.) But I would absolutely love to watch Ghost in the Shell in the original Japanese. I'm a massive fan of the cyberpunk genre and aesthetic (although interestingly I've never been able to get my head around Blade Runner ) and Japan contributes a huge amount to that.
Plus Japan has it's own space agency and some pretty decent research opportunities in my field Not to mention the overall natural beauties of the nation I'd like to one day see.
(Mandarin on the other hand is more of a personal one given I have a fair few first language speakers as close friends.)
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
If I'm being brutally honest, probably any non-alphabetic language, including abjad ones like Hebrew and Arabic. My laziness revolts against not having an alphabet to lean on.
Once in a while I still hear Japanese calling me, though.
Once in a while I still hear Japanese calling me, though.
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Re: I will likely die before ever learning X-language!
Since Greek and Latin didn't show up in my early education, they'll probably escape this life. Or maybe I'll have escaped them.
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