[constantmeowage]

So at university I'm planning to do three languages, and I'm really really excited. However, recently I've become a little bit worried. I keep wondering whether my languages are too...for want of a better word, common. I want to take French/German/Spanish, and I'm worried that there are going to be so many other people with the same languages out there, and I was wondering whether it would be worth my while doing with an exotic language instead, like Arabic or Japanese. I have an immense passion for all things language, and I love the languages I plan to do at uni, but I was wondering whether it would be better to do a different language that would make me more employable to due to the fact less people out there speak it?

Merci à tous!

[hannah_dru]

I don't think it would hurt as it would make you stand out more at 1st glance. However, just doing "common" languages doesn't put you at a complete disadvantage I don't think. Half of it seems to be down to experience and how you market yourself. I think you'd be at quite a good advantage anyway as you're doing more than one language.

[Alexandra's Box]

More people speak Spanish than Japanese... Do you want to work with people who speak your chosen languages? I presume so

[constantmeowage]

Thank you!

(Original post by Alexandra's Box)
More people speak Spanish than Japanese... Do you want to work with people who speak your chosen languages? I presume so

Well I kinda want to go into international politics as an interpretational role. I know these roles are rather few and far between, so I'd like to maximise my chances of at least getting somewhere in that field of work.



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[superwolf]

One thing I'd consider is the difficulty of your chosen languages, and how big your overall workload will be when you're trying to bring them all up to a decent standard. I study Russian at uni, and also do a bit of Spanish on the side (I'd already learnt it to a fairly high level pre-uni, so it's mostly a case of keeping things up and expanding vocabulary and stuff a bit), and the difficulty of Russian means that I doubt that I personally would be able to cope with doing another two languages as equally weighted parts of my degree. Also over the years a number of my coursemates who started off doing joint honours in Russian and another language have now dropped one language or the other, because they felt unable to cope with both of them.

So if you're considering taking one of the less-studied languages, which are often harder for an English-speaker to learn, I'd be careful in considering whether you'll be up to the task of studying them all to a high level (not saying you wouldn't be able to, just that a lot of people would struggle), without neglecting one or more of them.

There's also your year abroad to consider (assuming that you're doing one of the standard language degrees which mostly require you to spend one year working/studying abroad) - would you be happy to live in all three countries? Also are you sufficiently interested in the other aspects of the language and its associated culture, history, politics etc.?

[constantmeowage]

(Original post by superwolf)
One thing I'd consider is the difficulty of your chosen languages, and how big your overall workload will be when you're trying to bring them all up to a decent standard. I study Russian at uni, and also do a bit of Spanish on the side (I'd already learnt it to a fairly high level pre-uni, so it's mostly a case of keeping things up and expanding vocabulary and stuff a bit), and the difficulty of Russian means that I doubt that I personally would be able to cope with doing another two languages as equally weighted parts of my degree. Also over the years a number of my coursemates who started off doing joint honours in Russian and another language have now dropped one language or the other, because they felt unable to cope with both of them.

So if you're considering taking one of the less-studied languages, which are often harder for an English-speaker to learn, I'd be careful in considering whether you'll be up to the task of studying them all to a high level (not saying you wouldn't be able to, just that a lot of people would struggle), without neglecting one or more of them.

There's also your year abroad to consider (assuming that you're doing one of the standard language degrees which mostly require you to spend one year working/studying abroad) - would you be happy to live in all three countries? Also are you sufficiently interested in the other aspects of the language and its associated culture, history, politics etc.?

Thanks for the reply. I'm interested in all history, culture, and politics, whether I agree with it or not. I think it's immensly interesting and to see how a group of people got to where they are today is for me fascinating.

That is true. Did you take Russian ab initio? How much work do you have per week (in terms of hours)? And would you recommend visiting all three on the YA, or just focussing on one?


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[Anatheme]

(Original post by constantmeowage)
Thanks for the reply. I'm interested in all history, culture, and politics, whether I agree with it or not. I think it's immensly interesting and to see how a group of people got to where they are today is for me fascinating.

That is true. Did you take Russian ab initio? How much work do you have per week (in terms of hours)? And would you recommend visiting all three on the YA, or just focussing on one?

I think it's the norm for most unis to have between 5 and 10h a week for ab-initio Russian, and around 3h for post A-Level Russian. I would certainly recommend NOT to go to all three countries on your year abroad, it will be detrimental to all three of them.

Focus on one or two of them (maybe French/Spanish and German as they don't all belong to the same family and you could pick somewhere in France that's very close to Spain and vice-versa or do the same with Germany/France, i.e. Strasbourg or Metz) but choose wisely whether you want to spread your time abroad evenly or whether you'd rather focus on one language. I'd also suggest for you to use your summers to go abroad in your countries so you can get as much exposure as you want.

[MusingsOfSmudge]

I did French, Spanish and Russian in my first year and I can tell you that Russian is an absolutely fantastic language to learn ab initio! It's logical and many people find it similar to German in terms of using cases! With Russian though, you DO have to work at it (as with any beginner language) but if you're a language enthusiast you should love it! Where you going by the way?


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[Clare~Bear]

They are common, but I don't think that many people can speak all 3 (plus english).

Perhaps doing something like arabic or mandarin would help aswell.

I'm not sure if spanish/french a-level/ degree level includes this. But perhaps you could learn the variations aswell. Like south American Spanish and African/Canadian French. You must be able to talk to people from there in 'normal' french/spanish, but it would make it easier if you knew their variations. I don't know how much they vary though. Or if you've already done it, or if it would be in optional units at uni.

I do know that an every day word in 'normal' Spanish is really offensive in SA Spanish! My aunty was being taught spanish by someone from south america. There was one word that she wouldn't teach them or let them use in lessons. She told them the english word and to go look it up. And in lessons, they had to use either a synonym or the english word! I don't know what it is though.

I don't know much about languages, but that's just an idea, so that you can use those languages in more places - I don't know if anyway else speaks German but with slightly different words, like canadian french and SA spanish.

[megan.c]

If you're really passionate about those three languages then I'd stick with them - learning a new language from scratch in addition to another two may be quite difficult and increase your workload significantly (especially if it is a different alphabet!)

The languages you have chosen are quite frequently learnt, but if you learn them all to a standard of fluency then you'll stand out and maximise your chances just as much as choosing an unusual one!

(that said, if you'd really really like to pursue a new language then by all means go for it!)

[Anatheme]

(Original post by Clare~Bear)
They are common, but I don't think that many people can speak all 3 (plus english).

Perhaps doing something like arabic or mandarin would help aswell.

Would it, though?
Employers who need serious people to speak Mandarin or Arabic general choose native speakers over people who've learnt the language. I've just graduated in Arabic, and the only job I've seen requiring Arabic was for the Red Crescent. There's not been anything else advertised anywhere. Spanish, French or German, on the other hand, there's tonnes of them.

You should study a language because you're passionate about it, not because you think it might be useful because tonnes of people speak it. More people speak Telugu than French, that doesn't make it any more "useful" (which, in turn, doesn't make it any less interesting for people who're passionate about it).

[brunettej]

(Original post by Anatheme)
Would it, though?
Employers who need serious people to speak Mandarin or Arabic general choose native speakers over people who've learnt the language. I've just graduated in Arabic, and the only job I've seen requiring Arabic was for the Red Crescent. There's not been anything else advertised anywhere. Spanish, French or German, on the other hand, there's tonnes of them.

You should study a language because you're passionate about it, not because you think it might be useful because tonnes of people speak it. More people speak Telugu than French, that doesn't make it any more "useful" (which, in turn, doesn't make it any less interesting for people who're passionate about it).

So true !

[jonnythemoose]

They're too 'common' amongst language graduates, sure, because they're the three most popular languages for a British UG to study. Nonetheless, languages is such an undersubscribed subject that if you can learn them well then it doesn't matter if they're common or not, you'll still have a commodity that many other Britons don't have; opening lots of doors that remain closed to people who are monolingual.

[Kalysto]

(Original post by megan.c)
If you're really passionate about those three languages then I'd stick with them - learning a new language from scratch in addition to another two may be quite difficult and increase your workload significantly (especially if it is a different alphabet!)

The languages you have chosen are quite frequently learnt, but if you learn them all to a standard of fluency then you'll stand out and maximise your chances just as much as choosing an unusual one!

(that said, if you'd really really like to pursue a new language then by all means go for it!)

^ This, really.
If you're genuinely interested in it and want to learn it, it will make discipline and sticking with it easier when the going gets tough. That being said, me, I'm doing Japanese because I was interested in it, rather than because of prospects. I already know what I want to do, and I know there are plenty of opportunities for me to go in that direction; the question is, do you know what you want to do, and do you know what and how to do it to get there? Think about economies, prospects, and opportunities when deciding about these things, in my opinion; languages are not as common as you think. No-where near as common as the multitudes of Business Studies related students.

[MusingsOfSmudge]

(Original post by megan.c)
If you're really passionate about those three languages then I'd stick with them - learning a new language from scratch in addition to another two may be quite difficult and increase your workload significantly (especially if it is a different alphabet!)

The languages you have chosen are quite frequently learnt, but if you learn them all to a standard of fluency then you'll stand out and maximise your chances just as much as choosing an unusual one!

(that said, if you'd really really like to pursue a new language then by all means go for it!)

Although I do agree with most of this post, learning a new alphabet isn't actually that hard (or at least the Cyrillic alphabet) because it's just learning the sounds and the letter which makes that sound. It took my Russian class a couple of days to learn!


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[superwolf]

(Original post by MusingsOfSmudge)
Although I do agree with most of this post, learning a new alphabet isn't actually that hard (or at least the Cyrillic alphabet) because it's just learning the sounds and the letter which makes that sound. It took my Russian class a couple of days to learn!


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The only real difficulty comes when you've got the alphabet firmly ingrained, and then it starts leaking out into your English writing - the amount of times I've confused my R's and P's or N's and H's is atrocious.

[smile:D]

It's worth considering that lots of unis offer language courses once you get there, which are usually taught by very experienced teachers, so it might be best to wait and then have more options at uni

[MusingsOfSmudge]

(Original post by superwolf)
The only real difficulty comes when you've got the alphabet firmly ingrained, and then it starts leaking out into your English writing - the amount of times I've confused my R's and P's or N's and H's is atrocious.

I totally agree! I kept writing the Russian version of 'and' instead of the Spanish version in my essays...:/


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[Lamb.Bhuna]

I think with China being the superpower that it is perhaps you ought to look there for inspiration. It gives you an opportunity to work with big companies as well with bi-lingual skills. Arabic is an interesting one. Out of all the languages I have learned, I have found Arabic the most difficult. But don't be put off. It is an extremely beautiful language and I am biased, so I would definitely study Arabic. Well, I did.

[superwolf]

(Original post by MusingsOfSmudge)
I totally agree! I kept writing the Russian version of 'and' instead of the Spanish version in my essays...:/


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Me too. Sometimes I think the more you study one language, the worse you get at all the others...