Languages

I obviously speak English and it is my first language and have been learning Spanish. I am in Spanish three, I take it seventh hour. For me, learning Spanish has helped me with my English. When I started Spanish in eighth grade it improved my knowledge of English. This is because we had to know all about verbs, nouns, sentence structure and other similar stuff, and I had been struggling to learn that.

Some of the world's easiest languages to learn in order are Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Hindi, and Mandarin. This is ranked on speaking, grammar, writing, and overall. The last one on the list (Mandarin) ranking difficult or very difficult in all categories. One reason for this is because it is a tonal language. What that means is the pitch or intonation the word is said affects its meaning. The same word means something different depending on the way it is said.

Part of the reason Spanish is so high up (ranging from very easy to easy on the scale) is because everything is spelled how it is said. So writing in Spanish in theory is a very straightforward task. Though some people who have taken a Spanish class could argue that even though it is spelled the way it is said it is still very hard to spell and write. I think that if you can learn a somewhat easy language like Spanish you should. I think this because for some jobs the starting wage is higher if you can speak another language. Another thing is that if you can take it while you are still younger it is better than waiting until you are older. It is a lot harder to learn another language once you are older, almost like how you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

There are also some very big differences between languages. I used to think that you just had to learn different words that that was all but I was very wrong. There are some words in Spanish that do not exist in English. There are also some things that are the same in English but different in Spanish. An example of this would be how there is a difference in past tense, saying I did this or whatever else and it is the exact same word in English but in different context means something totally different in Spanish. This is one of the harder concepts for English speakers to learn and people who have Spanish as a first language just explain the difference as whatever sounds better which does not help an English speaker.

I feel that if people can learn a language they should. I also know that some people struggle with it a lot more than others and some people might never be able to be fluent in another language and some people find it extremely easy to learn another language. In the end it is just personal. Some people will just take another language class just for college and some are genuinely interested and are able to learn many. I personally enjoy learning Spanish but most likely it will be the only other language I learn.

Questions - Which person are you? Are you learning a new language for college, because you want to, or are you not learning a language?
Would you ever consider learning a new language that wasn’t on this list or have you learned a language other than your first language?

 

Source - https://www.jumpspeak.com/blog/easiest-languages-to-learn

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    • I think that knowing spanish before coming to spanish class made it very different for you because you had a base knowledge even though some of it you didn't know or some of it was wrong but it was most likely easier for you to learn what is correct now rather than later on in life.

  • knowing a couple languages can be really helpfull for everything, for when you travel it would be easier for appliying for a job it can also help a lot. My fist language is spanish and when i can to the US i didnt speak english at all, but now i do im not 100% fluent and some words are hard for me to pronounce but its okay i keep learning and i will get better and better.

  • Knowing 3 languages, I agree with you. All different languages are related to each other. I learn languages because I want and because I think it is very helpful for the future when applying for jobs and when traveling. I think that any language in the list would be interesting to learn and would be helpful.

  • I 100% agree with you! As a former Spanish 3 classmate of yours, I can also say that it has helped my English quite a bit. I was also struggling with sentence structure and defining parts of speech. But when I took Spanish 1 in 8th grade, it really helped me and prepared me for high school.

    • I found it very interesting that it helped so much with my English because it is not English it's a different lanugage so it didn't really make sense that it woud help but it did. Though I still find sentence structure very dificult because questions are so different in Spanish.

  •  I took spanish for the intent of getting into a 4 year college but as I learned more I realized that it's a good idea to know other languages. I also plan on taking the apple test so that I am a certified bi-lingual. This can help when getting jobs and internships in the real world.

    • I think that it doesn't really make sense that a second language is needed for getting into a 4 year college because many people don't remember any of what they learned because they don't every use it. There are people that htis doesn't apply to but if you ask people most, I think, won't remember enough to still be fluent. But I do not know how teachers would get students to take a second lanugage if it wasn't for college.

  •  I am in a Spanish class right now and plan to take at least 3 years of it. I was intentionally taking Spanish to get into a four-year college. I don't think I would consider learning a new language if it wasn't for college or if I did not have to. Personally, I just don't find it enjoyable but I do understand all the ways it can benefit you.

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