I'm having trouble choosing a language to learn. I've decided on either Russian or Swedish. Here's why...
Russian: my friend is learning Russian (albeit at a slow pace). It'd be kind of neat if we could talk to each other in a language other than our native English.
Swedish: it sounds really pretty when spoken, and if I were to learn it, it would be the first foreign language I will have become fluent in.
Those are my reasons, now here are my previous language-learning experiences. I know a little bit of French from a 1-year (so far) French class I've had. I plan on continuing the class next year.
I also have a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese. I can understand the pronunciation and I know some basic phrases. I can read hiragana and a few katakana, and I know one or two kanji.
Sorry for the long post, but I am trying to decide carefully so I won't regret my decision (or get bored and give up) later.
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Anonymous2010-06-23 2:45
Russian, people to practice with help, but you might end up reinforcing bad habits, so make sure you know your shit.
How do you plan to learn these?
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Anonymous2010-06-23 6:32
OP, I higly doubt you'll learn either of them having just those reasons. You'll most likely give up with such attitude.
However, just in case you'll get serious in the future...
For English natives Russian is about twice more difficult to learn than Swedish. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers
So if you're in it for fun, go with Swedish. It's not that useful (10M speakers), but if you plan to use it, it may be important to you.
If you're after usefulness and don't fear playing on hard mode, go with Russian (250M speakers). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language
You'll get Belarussian and Ukrainian (to some degree) as a bonus.
I personally prefer impossible difficulty, so I go with Japanese. Russian native, BTW :P
Japanese being hard is a myth, it might even be easier than English. The only real difficulty is the writing system. I say difficulty, but it's just a time consuming task.
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Anonymous2010-06-29 13:13
>>6
This depends from linguistic background - it's far easier to a Mandarin speaker to learn English grammar (mostly isolant) than Japanese (flexional). However, to a Russian speaker, Japanese palatizated consonants (as in syoyu) are a piece of cake in front of English oRRRRRRRRRRcish eRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
For the writing system... well, learn in hiragana, move afterward to Han characters.
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Anonymous2010-06-30 13:51
I'd say go with Swedish. Did you know that becoming fluent in Swedish lets you moderately understand the extremely similar languages Norwegian and Danish? 3-in one package, shit's awesome.
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Anonymous2010-06-30 16:05
>>8
Statistically, Norwegians are best at understanding other Scandinavians, so if you're after that, it may be a better choice.
Although as it's a more important language, there are perhaps more options if you choose Swedish.
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Anonymous2010-06-30 19:04
I'm sorta working on Norse. NOt too hard for us ugly americans. I don't get the appeal of Ruski. Unless you want to read communist propaganda, I don't know what yo0u'd do with it.
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Anonymous2010-06-30 20:32
Who wouldn't want to read communist propaganda?
Shit is so cash!
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Anonymous2010-06-30 22:54
If you like to read, learn Russian. Great shit comes out of Russia and doesn't get translated or takes years to get translated.
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Anonymous2010-07-01 8:28
>>12
Not anymore. Modern Russian Literature consists mostly of overrated shit(think of twilight, but worse), plagiarism of overrated shit(think of H.Potter) and pure untainted insanity(there was a book, where Russkies fought space aliens with the power of prayers[orthodox prayers, not catholic])
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Anonymous2010-07-01 10:29
>>13
This is also true for the entire contemporary literature.
If someone wants to read classical russian books written in Russian.. well, good luck with that. I doubt more than 5% of non-native english speakers here could read through the first pages of Ulysses.
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Anonymous2010-07-01 17:27
Russian one of the most popular language over the world. I think it's a good choice.
Если тебе нужен собеседник, владеющий русским, можешь обращаться ко мне.
Russian only if you're gonna have anything to do with CIS countries.
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Anonymous2010-07-07 12:04
я с английским не очень..так понимаю образно..и немного говорю..а вот с писаниной трабла..учил немецкий...поэтому хотелось бы узнать топовые топики и темы...
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Anonymous2010-07-07 15:20
Laerer du svenska. Russisk er for dumhoder og tosker.