The Student Room Group

what languages are you doing or want to begin?

Hello language lovers!

Which languages are you currently studying and do you want to study in the future?

I was just wondering!

For me, it's as follows:

Currently:
French
Italian (will continue when I come from abroad)

Near Future:
Hungarian (will possibly begin in summer...i have to take a non-Romance/Germanic/Balto-Slavic/Greek language for my major and this one interests me the most)

More distant future:
Spanish (took in high school...would love to learn more)
Catalan
Portuguese (would love to study the diffs b/w Brazilian & European varieties)
German (why not? I was born there!)

SO what about you?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
For A-level, I'm doing French and German. I've been doing a leisure course in Spanish. I've applied to uni for German and Modern Greek. I'd like to learn quite a few other languages, especially Mandarin and Norwegian :biggrin:

Hungarian hardcore! That and Finnish are meant to be really hard! But then that's all relative...
I'm currently studying AS-level French and will carry it on to A2. At uni I hope to do post A-level French and ab-initio Spanish. If I get the chance to do a subsidiary language as well, I'll do Italian, or I might just teach it to mysef in my spare time/do an evening class. I'd consider learning German later on as well, but they're the only languages I'd be interested in learning- no obscure ones! Hmmm....being fluent in French, Spanish, Italian and German, as well as obviously English, would be amazing....well, we can all dream, can't we? :biggrin:
Reply 3
I had a professor who, besides English speaks fluent Dutch, Spanish, and French, knows German pretty well and knows basic Japanese.....he's so cool.

By the way, I know that UK universities have AS and A levels and such...that is completely new to me and I have no idea what that means...what are A levels, etc?
Reply 4
about Hungarian..I dont know..I may do a summer intensive course at my school for 6 weeks....5 hours per day....I'm up for the challenge! Last year I got to do a phonetics project on Turkish and that was fun....maybe I'll learn that too! Basque would be fun to try as well.
PittGirl06
I had a professor who, besides English speaks fluent Dutch, Spanish, and French, knows German pretty well and knows basic Japanese.....he's so cool.

By the way, I know that UK universities have AS and A levels and such...that is completely new to me and I have no idea what that means...what are A levels, etc?


Basically in the UK, compulsory education finishes at 16, when we take exams called GCSEs in roughly 10 subjects. Some people take more, some less, but everyone has to take English language, usually English literature, maths, usually science and sometimes a foreign language, a technology, ICT and RE.

Good grades in these exams allow you to go on to take A-levels from 16-18. AS is the first year, and your marks for these exams are worth 50% of your final grade if you carry on to the second year, A2. You can, however, just do the first year and get a qualification worth half an A-level. Good grades in at least 2 but usually 3 full A-levels allows you to progress to university to do a degree, usually at the age of 18.
Currently doing French, did a GCSE in Latin, and I'm starting Russian at uni. Oriental languages sound interesting, as well. And German. And Scandinavian.
Too many languages. :biggrin:
I am currently learning French with a private tutor (it's my uncle's girlfriend!). I am doing French at University.

I just finished doing a 10 week Italian evening class course. That was good fun!

I am learning Mandarin as I am going to China for six months in February. I am learning from a CD as I can't find anyone who speaks Mandarin nearby to me! It's challenging, but I am learning quickly.

I have a Russian phrase book which I am trying to get through as I want to travel to Russia. So difficult when you don't know the Russian alphabet!!

I would love to learn German and Latin too, but I don't have the time!

I am also doing Egyptology at University, so I will soon be learning Ancient Egyptian Hyroglyphics. Wahey!
Reply 8
I am currently learning Spanish, near future will be Italian then I want to move onto Chinese, possibly Romanian and just for fun I want to learn either Guarani or Tongan. Maybe both if I have the time heh.
Reply 9
Fun! I love languages. Do any of you do linguistics (phonetics, morphology, etc) as well are do you focus only on language and literature?
I'm quite bad at languages but I am really enjoying studying Hebrew (by myself) at the moment...
Currently: Spanish
Near Future: Arabic/Japanese/Nepalese
Distant Future: Mandarin,Russian
PittGirl06
Fun! I love languages. Do any of you do linguistics (phonetics, morphology, etc) as well are do you focus only on language and literature?

My English Language A-level is quite linguistics based we analyse texts according to semantics, phonology, morphology, grammar etc, which is cool. It's made me want to study linguistics during my uni course, so I'm going to follow a linguistic route in German. The Germanic languages are just so interesting! Okay, just me then... :biggrin:
I want to learn brazilian portuguese and japanese. I may fly out to brazil in the summer to stay for a few months to do a language course over there. And just self study. I don't think i have the necessary grades to get into a uni course, plus i don't think there are many that cover the languages i want to learn.
I finished college and didn't apply to go to university, so i don't know how i'd go about getting back into education aftering being out of it for 2 years :>
Reply 14
gringalet
My English Language A-level is quite linguistics based we analyse texts according to semantics, phonology, morphology, grammar etc, which is cool. It's made me want to study linguistics during my uni course, so I'm going to follow a linguistic route in German. The Germanic languages are just so interesting! Okay, just me then... :biggrin:


yey a fellow linguistics keeno. if u wanna start ur reading for the german course early (good distraction from a levels :-p) i recommend Variation in German, by Barbour and Stevenson, or "The German Language in a Changing Europe" by Michael Clyne. the clyne book is brilliant,talks about regional and national differences, and how the different varieties differ on semantic and lexical levels.
I'm afraid compared with the people here I'm distinctly unexotic in my studies.
I'm sitting the Adv. Highers in French and German this year, and hopefully (if I get AAA) going to Oxford to study both (Exeter college).

I did think about maybe doing European and Middle Eastern Languages - French and Arabic - but then that would have been a waste of 5 years of learning German!! I think once I graduate I'd quite like to go and learn some other languages that are less widely-spoken (Romanian, perhaps, or polish), but I really havent a clue!
priya
yey a fellow linguistics keeno. if u wanna start ur reading for the german course early (good distraction from a levels :-p) i recommend Variation in German, by Barbour and Stevenson, or "The German Language in a Changing Europe" by Michael Clyne. the clyne book is brilliant,talks about regional and national differences, and how the different varieties differ on semantic and lexical levels.


Any good books to read about French, Russian or just language in general ? It's not really obvious to know where to start.
Dr. Blazed
Any good books to read about French, Russian or just language in general ? It's not really obvious to know where to start.

The linguistics book from the 'A Very Short Introduction' range by OUP (I think) is pretty interesting stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of books about linguistics, and especially specific languages, tend to be quite pricey, I've found. And all the libraries where I live are crap.

Oh yeah, thanks for the suggestions, priya!
gringalet
The linguistics book from the 'A Very Short Introduction' range by OUP (I think) is pretty interesting stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of books about linguistics, and especially specific languages, tend to be quite pricey, I've found. And all the libraries where I live are crap.


I think I've grasped most of the introductory ideas about the subject, so I was really looking for something a little more meaty. But thanks for trying, anyway.

My library will order me anything I need. :biggrin:
Reply 19
try looking on the cambridge or oxford linguistics depts websites (or any linguistics dept website for that matter) they should have a reading list there of fairly heavy stuff, if u feel ready to get stuck into that.