What languages should I study?

Prove it. I don't think there is any basis for that statement. The writing system is irreverent, Swahili uses the Latin alphabet but it isn't related to any European language.

I am studying French and German As-Level (with other subjects of course) and Russian GCSE. I know that I want to study languages at University but don't know what combination to do.

I have recently fallen in love with Asiatic languages and I know I want to study one.

But Chinese or Japanese...?

The chosen language would be joint honours with French except for Leeds if I apply which will be Chinese or Japanese and Russian. (5 years)

Which language is more useful.

I was initially interested in Japanese and I still love it but there is something about Chinese that really makes me want to study it also.

Any advice?

Chinese ISN'T A LANGUAGE LOL ... Its mandarin or Cantonese that they speak in China.

As a language student myself, nobody can make this choice for you and you have to pick whichever language you are motivated to study. You will be expected to do a lot of reading and supplementary work in your own time and if you aren't interested in the language a lot, you'll really struggle to keep up with demand past first year.




So because Romance languages use the same alphabet and are derived from each other, someone who speaks Spanish can understand/read French perfectly? I don't think so. Sure there will be similarities and common vocab, but they are entirely different languages for a reason.

Also, you do realise that "Chinese" can refer to more than one language, and that these themselves are not mutually intelligible?

Thank you for mentioning that, but did you even read clearly what I wrote? I said that 'spoken Chinese and Japanese are different' and 'Chinese characters can be seen in Japanese as well', not that someone who speaks Chinese can understand Japanese perfectly - besides, I only pointed out that Japanese was derived from Chinese because whoever I quoted before this incorrectly stated that they 'don't even think they (Chinese and Japanese) are related to each other' - I'm sorry if you misunderstood my statement though

He;s probably referring to "Standard" Chinese, which is based on Mandarin.

I have to disagree because "Chinese" is really just an overall term for a language(s) spoken in China. It is not a language.
There are hundreds of languages in China ... I've lived in China a while...

No, Chinese isn't a language, it's a language family. Obviously there is sometimes some confusion as to which of these languages people are referring to, but often it means Mandarin, as that is by far the most common. And as I said, the standardised form of Chinese is based on Beijing Mandarin, so that is the "main" Chinese language and the one that people mean when they say Chinese.

There being 100s of languages doesn't really mean anything. Someone studying Chinese here in the UK will be learning the standardised form of Mandarin, and won't know even the names of any other Chinese dialects beyond Cantonese and possibly a few others.

But that's what a previous post claimed, which was what the person you quoted was refuting. They were arguing that they are too distinct to be mutually intelligible and you replied that Japanese is derived from Chinese - which makes it look like you agreed with/were supporting at least to some extent the other poster who claimed people speaking "Chinese" could read Japanese perfectly.

X

Also don't do Russian - everyone I know who did it is regretting it and people are now seeing that it probably shouldn't have been included in the BRICs in the first place (http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/after-brics-mints-austerity-britain-and-big-c)

And your point being...??

The point is you said they're related, they aren't. Either find some proof to backup what you said or stop saying it.

Japanese is derived from Chinese, so they are related. I shall say that because it is true, and there is proof, just like there is proof that the Romances languages are derived from Latin.

I'm not going to argue with you, you're wrong. Japanese is not derived from Chinese and they're not related - even a little bit of research would tell you that. If you want to remain in ignorance, that's up to you.

Oh? Because I have done quite a lot of research in this field before and there is evidence that Japanese is derived from Chinese - even a 'little bit of research' would tell you that. But then, if you want to remain ignorant, that's up to you

Just can't go wrong with Arabic tbh

Just because you know people who regret having done it (what did they expect, jobs using Russian to fall from the sky?) doesn't mean nobody should do it. Russian is the reason why I can apply for the jobs I'm applying for and stand out from the crowd. My level isn't amazing but at least I speak it, and there are a few fields where it's really useful (risk, banking, finance, marketing to name a few).

I'm not sure either why you linked to this article, China may be growing faster than the other three, but does it really mean it's the only country you should focus on? Are you suddenly gonna drop everything and learn Hausa and Yoruba, move to Istanbul or migrate to Mexico just because another acronym was created? Probably not. It might not be as easy to do something related to Brazil or Russia as it looks like it is with China, but there are definitely opportunities if you know where to find them, and less competition.

It's not about following the flow and doing what everyone else is already doing, it's about finding a niche. That way there'll be less competition and you'll be much more valuable than someone who knows what everybody else knows, which I'm sure you already know. There's no guarantee MINT is really gonna happen (it's only a prediction, we may well end up with an I the same way BRIC should be C), and even if it does, it's no reason to put off people from studying Russian. Whether Russia should be a BRIC country or not is particularly irrelevant when it comes to choosing a language, and it should most definitely not be a reason to ditch it.

Regardless of how valuable people think it may be because they choose to believe economists and wrongly interprete the information given, there are tonnes of opportunities to use Russian, the language is incredibly interesting, the country is fascinating, and having Russian means you can do a lot of things from nuclear energy to cyber security, diplomacy, risk, banking, etc. Don't diss it when you haven't done it and you're just relying on other people's views of it, you clearly don't have a representative sample of the Russian learners population large enough to put forward this kind of skewed and harmful opinions.

Regardless of how valuable people think it may be because they choose to believe economists and wrongly interprete the information given, there are tonnes of opportunities to use Russian, the language is incredibly interesting, the country is fascinating, and having Russian means you can do a lot of things from nuclear energy to cyber security, diplomacy, risk, banking, etc. Don't diss it when you haven't done it and you're just relying on other people's views of it, you clearly don't have a representative sample of the Russian learners population large enough to put forward this kind of skewed and harmful opinions.

Also (and I'm sorry to reply twice), but I completely agree with what you said about doing things to do with nuclear energy, banking etc. However, I think that's linked to what I was saying when I said if you are going to do a language, gain some other skills as well. No one expects a job to fall out of the sky, and I did mention that chinese makes me stand out. I was mainly trying to talk about using the language + knowledge, which is what a lot of people believe you can do when you leave university, but is not always the case if you don't have other skills/experience to recommend you. Again, I'm sorry I've clearly offended you, I can only speak from my own experiences.