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What should I study as my third language?

Hi, I've got a slight problem in terms of deciding on my course for Uni which I thought I'd ask about. In September I am starting a BA Modern Languages degree at the University of Southampton. The course allows me to continue on both of my A level languages (French and Spanish) as well as starting a new one from scratch which can be any of Italian, German, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, Chines or Japanese. I'm not sure which third language to choose and I'm not sure which would be best to go for. Of those on the list, I'm mainly thinking of either Chinese, Portuguese or Arabic. Can anyone who studies these languages or studies them with a combination of French/Spanish please shed some light on the situation and on what you think? Would really appreciate it

Reply 1

samtheman96

I do Russian and Greek. I really enjoy Russian, mainly becuase I enjoy learning about Russia's dark history at the same time. Italian is also a really nice language to learn and quite easy to pick up. Arabic is supposed to be really hard to learn

Reply 2

L'Evil Fish

Chinese/Arabic.

They're totally different and require a whole different outlook, plus they're useful business languages and very impressive.

Though whichever you enjoy would be best, you're gonna have to learn a whole character system for Chinese, or a new alphabet and grammar system for Arabic.

However, I don't study languages, heck, I'm not even at university so my advice isn't from someone who's experienced it!

Reply 3

samtheman96

One thing I can say about doing Russian is that it is a great conversation starter.

Chinese or Arabic !!

Original post by AlphaNick

Chinese. It may appear daunting, but speaking it is extremely easy - virtually all verbs are regular. Just memorising characters for writing is the only tricky bit.

I'd agree with this, even though I may be biased as I study Chinese at uni.

Verbs don't even conjugate in Chinese! Much easier than European languages. It's just the characters and grammar which are a bit counterintuitive for an English speaker. It's definitely and interesting language to learn and I'd definitely recommend it!

Reply 6

gagaslilmonsteruk

German is an uphill struggle. Easy to begin with but soon gets hard. I did it for 5 years from Years 9-13, so for you the beginners cause will zap through it much faster.

French on the other hand, good choice :biggrin:

(Mainly because it's one of my JH subjects :biggrin:

)

Reply 7

jm925

Original post by samtheman96

One thing I can say about doing Russian is that it is a great conversation starter.

Agreed!

Reply 8

samtheman96

Original post by jm925

Agreed!

Reply 9

Jebedee

Keep away from Japanese, you won't be learning anything else for a while otherwise.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 10

chriscahill9

Out of all the options, Portuguese would be easiest as it's very similar to Spanish (I know as I've been studying in Spain for the past 7 months, and am now pretty much fluent). It would therefore mean you would have to do far less work than otherwise.

Second to Portuguese, Italian would be easiest as a lot of the words are very similar to Spanish. If you studied either of those two, it would be far less of an uphill struggle than otherwise.

Reply 11

Squaresquirrel

Just one point I'd like to raise: As people have stated Chinese grammar is very simple however the phonetics are very hard - Don't expect to have good pronunciation without spending a decent amount of time in China . . .