Which language to use as base, when learning a new language

[Cainntear]

I may have a reference book problem...

The Decipherment of Linear B

Nice.

Sounds like an erotic novel for artificially intelligent robots.

[emk]

My first foreign language was English, then whenever learning a foreign language i've been using English as the base.. Now ive had some discussion about using my third or fourth language as a base for a next language..

In my experience, it was perfectly possible to use Assimil courses with a French base once I had roughly a B2 level in French. There were a few moments where I needed to look up a French word. (Though in some cases, I discovered that I didn't know the word in any of Middle Egyptian, French or English, at which point I said, "Who cares? I'll just muddle through and try to figure it out from context.")

This didn't particularly help my French much, but other than that, it was pretty boring and anti-climactic. Neither my French nor my Egyptian suffered any, and it wasn't especially difficult.

Apparently, in academia, this is considered a perfectly normal way to learn Egyptian. Your basic course might be in English, a reference work might be in French, and your most authoritative dictionary is in German. And as far as I can tell, you're just expected to deal with this, and indeed, some Egyptology programs list a working knowledge of English, French and German as prerequisites. Egyptologists can be pretty hard core! And people studying Old Norse can be even scarier: I once saw an academic journal which published papers about Old Norse in English, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

I suspect that trying to learn an L3 through an L2 is less amusing if your L2 is only at a B1 level or below. At that level, written materials can still pose considerable challenges. And of couse, at C1, it's not even a question; you're supposed to be able to deal with college-level textbooks in your L2 if necessary.

[reineke]

German and French are the first choices or among the first choices and ahead of English for translations from languages such as Sumerian, Egyptian Ancient Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Japanese, Korean, Khmer etc. I would imagine that also indicates the existence of serious learning resources in these two languages.

[zenmonkey]

I may have a reference book problem...

The Decipherment of Linear B

Nice.

Sounds like an erotic novel for artificially intelligent robots.

It's more of a mystery and romance novel...

[Serpent]

French German

I want to learn this language

[reineke]

French German

I want to learn this language

I find German French a little less painful.

[geoffw]

Old Norse can be even scarier: I once saw an academic journal which published papers about Old Norse in English, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

Yeah, but learning to read German + the 3 standard written forms of Scandanavian isn't that much harder than learning to read German + French, given the carryover from German to North Germanic. In the written form, I can't even tell Norwegian and Danish apart without difficulty. I think the comparison between Quebec French and Metropolitan French is apt here (same written form but very different accent and a few lexical and grammatical tweaks in the spoken form), and Swedish is mutually intelligible with Norwegian in spoken form, so...

[Mista]

And people studying Old Norse can be even scarier: I once saw an academic journal which published papers about Old Norse in English, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

From a Norwegian point of view, this doesn't look the least bit scary. Norwegian and Danish are practically the same languages in writing, and while Swedish takes some getting used to (in writing), it would be too much to say it requires learning. We regularly read both these languages in Norwegian classes in school. English is compulsory (for 7 years when I went to school), and a second foreign language is also compulsory in high school (German being the traditional and most common choice). If you are interested enough in languages to study Old Norse at the university, none of these other languages will keep you back. But of course, reading academic papers is a learning process, in any language.

I studied Ancient Greek, and as most students of Ancient Greek, I soon discovered that you can't just learn Ancient Greek, you also have to know German, French and Latin. And once you're past that stage, it seems you are expected to use your knowledge of those languages to also read papers in Spanish, Italian and Dutch. And then, in the end, you end up learning Coptic. I mean, I did . By that time, the German is taken for granted (that is, by the time you are teaching Greek and joining a Coptic reading group with the PhD students). And you really need it, if you ever want to move past the introductory book. I think all ancient languages are like that.

Last year, I took a preparatory class in French at the university, and halfway through the course we had a test where they among other things wanted to test our ability to express ourselves. So they asked why we wanted to study French. And I wrote: it all started because I wanted to read the classics, like L'histoire du parfait grec by Pierre Chantraine, and Aperçu d'une histoire de la langue grecque by Antoine Meillet. Which reminds me, I should get back to those one of these days. Incidentally, I dropped by Wikipedia to check the title of Meillet's book, and found that he also, apparently, wrote one in German, an Altarmenisches Elementarbuch (1913), which according to the French Wikipedia article is (was) to appear in a French translation in 2016

[Charles Hussell]

I have always found that French and Greek are highly enjoyable.

However, French requires great oral skill, while Greek can be (literally) a pain in the rear.

[mihaivancea]

I use English to learn both French and German. Still, my native language is Romanian, and I've always wondered if using it to learn other languages would be more efficient (native is native). Of course, you find a lot more learning material with English as reference.