Which language should I pursue?

[drudkh]

I am a monolingual high school student who plans on studying linguistics in university. Afterward I want to be a professor or translator, or do government/intelligence work. I need to master a foreign language to accomplish all this, but I'm having a difficult time deciding on which. I've narrowed it down to three: Russian, German and French.

I have a passion for Russia and I'm very interested in its culture, mainly literature. Russian is apparently quite useful right now in terms of careers. I would love to study the language and explore Russian history and culture even more, but there are downsides. One is the purported difficulty of Russian, and two is the living conditions in Russia and other former Soviet countries. To become fluent in the language I would have to study abroad, but I've heard accounts of violence towards tourists and exchange students, and Russia ranks low on Human Development Index and Happiness surveys conducted by the UN. This is very discouraging, but does not cancel the option out yet.

I have been learning German for two years and will be studying in Vienna this summer. I enjoy the language and culture very much, especially German philosophy, and can see myself continuing to fluency. The ups to German, for me, are its closeness to English (other than the grammar), amazing culture, high HDI of the countries that speak it (as opposed to Russia) and the fact that I've already made progress in it and will be studying abroad for it. The down is its (at least from what I have heard) decreasing marketability, due to the fact that a growing number of Germans speak English.

I studied French briefly a couple years ago, and enjoyed it, but opted to take German when I reached secondary school. The reason I am once again considering it is because I
I've recently grown quite fond of French culture, and through research I'm learning of its usefulness and geographic spread. It seems like a valid contender to me, but would most likely only be selected if German and Russian were eliminated as options first.

Also, I would like to delve into the corresponding language family once I've mastered one of these. I enjoy Slavic and Germanic languages, but I'm not so sure about Romance since I don't have any interest in learning Spanish. So, which language would be the best for me? In the long run I'd like to be fluent in 3+ languages, but at this moment in time, and as a double major in university, which should I select? Thank you.

[Kasuya]

Check out the quality of the language programs at the universities you're considering applying to. That could help sway you towards one of the languages.

[Solairne]

I am a monolingual high school student who plans on studying linguistics in university. Afterward I want to be a professor or translator, or do government/intelligence work. I need to master a foreign language to accomplish all this, but I'm having a difficult time deciding on which. I've narrowed it down to three: Russian, German and French.

I have a passion for Russia and I'm very interested in its culture, mainly literature. Russian is apparently quite useful right now in terms of careers. I would love to study the language and explore Russian history and culture even more, but there are downsides. One is the purported difficulty of Russian, and two is the living conditions in Russia and other former Soviet countries. To become fluent in the language I would have to study abroad, but I've heard accounts of violence towards tourists and exchange students, and Russia ranks low on Human Development Index and Happiness surveys conducted by the UN. This is very discouraging, but does not cancel the option out yet.

I have been learning German for two years and will be studying in Vienna this summer. I enjoy the language and culture very much, especially German philosophy, and can see myself continuing to fluency. The ups to German, for me, are its closeness to English (other than the grammar), amazing culture, high HDI of the countries that speak it (as opposed to Russia) and the fact that I've already made progress in it and will be studying abroad for it. The down is its (at least from what I have heard) decreasing marketability, due to the fact that a growing number of Germans speak English.

I studied French briefly a couple years ago, and enjoyed it, but opted to take German when I reached secondary school. The reason I am once again considering it is because I
I've recently grown quite fond of French culture, and through research I'm learning of its usefulness and geographic spread. It seems like a valid contender to me, but would most likely only be selected if German and Russian were eliminated as options first.

Also, I would like to delve into the corresponding language family once I've mastered one of these. I enjoy Slavic and Germanic languages, but I'm not so sure about Romance since I don't have any interest in learning Spanish. So, which language would be the best for me? In the long run I'd like to be fluent in 3+ languages, but at this moment in time, and as a double major in university, which should I select? Thank you.

From somebody who speaks French and German, I'd recommend French. I took a college class in Russian, too, and I found it to be more of a challenge than German and French.

From an American perspective, I found learning French (which I'm now fluent in) to be more like learning a second way to speak English. While English is Germanic, it has been highly stylized by Latin/French and there are a lot more words in French that you will recognize. Also, the French grammar is very intuitive (with few exceptions) for a native English speaker. I found it to be like when you're a little kid you know how to write manuscript (English) and then you learn the fancy way to write in cursive (French). French and English are very similar.

Learning German was a whole nother story. It's in the same family as English so you will recognize similarities, but the grammar is very different. Learning German is not hard though, it will just require a little bit more to get adjusted.

From a strictly "cool" perspective, I really like speaking German more than I do French.

And about Russian, I'd say that would be your hardest choice. Russian is the Proto-Indo-European language family with English, so you will recognize words here and there. However, Russian will be more challenging in general. Off the bat you have to learn a new writing system, but furthermore, you will not have as many cognates in Russian, so learning vocabulary will take more of an effort. But, it is still completely doable.

A personal side note: I've encountered TONS of people who speak French, and I live in Texas. If you were looking for which you could find more exposure to, I'd, again, recommend French.

The above poster is right, however, that I would go with what is the strongest program at your university. Regardless of how hard a language is, it's better to have a hard language with a good department than an easy language with a sub-par department.

[Formiko]

If Linguistics will be your major, I'd say German and Russian solely for the large amount of Linguistics literature available in them. While most Germans under 40 speak English, they are SITLL most comfortable in German obviously. My good German friends who speak English fluently (maybe better than people who've lived in the US most of their lives), are more comfortable speaking to a fluent German speaker than an English speaker. While finance should NEVER be motivation for a Linguistics student or professor (trust me..I'll show you my paycheck one day ), you'll most likely be doing Linguistic research in some third world country anyway, trying to figure out verb patterns in Martuthinira while sitting in a hut with an 80 yr old toothless woman. I doubt you'll be kicking yourself for having choses French instead of German
In my personal opinion though, I thought Russian was easier, mainly because gender is more obvious than German where gender seems to be arbitrary.
While you can say
Die Platte ist auf die Tisch. instead of Die Platte ist auf dem Tisch, in Russian feminine usually ends with аand masculine usually ends with a consonant. тарелка на столе.
Why is Platte feminine and Tisch masculine? Табличка is feminine and стол is masculine.
So, like some others have said, go with personal preference, and what your school requires.

[linguaholic]

While you can say
Die Platte ist auf die Tisch.

Um, no, you can't say that.

And I doubt that most linguists do fieldwork.

[Trapy]

Pick the one you won't give up on as easily. That's the short answer.

Long answer:

I took 8 years of french classes and have been reading on my own for about 3.
I've self studied German for 6 months then classes for 1.5 years
I've self studied Serbian for a few weeks. (think of this as your russian)

French I learnt quickly, it was my first love.
German is a FUN language to think in.
Serbian sounds so cute and using the tongue, i like the phonology.

I've found French to be good because you can understand other romance languages much easier. so if you take French and some Spanish, you can read alot of romance languages on first glance. kind of like 6 for the price of 2. I had the same problem, Spanish didn't interest me, but i didn't know that till I was stuck in the class. Maybe Portugese, or Romanian, is your thing?

German is THE language of central Europe. You can use it in Hungary, Czech and Slovak republics, Poland, not to mention places where it's an official language (DE, CH and A).

Russian, you'll probably be able to pass in most of the slavic languages. I was talking in my bad, basic serbian to a ukranian girl who spoke russian as her first tongue, and she understood most of what I said. This means, you can work in, say, Poland or Czech republic. Did I mention it gives you the chance to work in the Czech republic, aka Prague, aka the best city in Europe?

Going on a VERY stereotypical basis which is by no means true of them all and to fluency: People who learn Russian are usually the more quiet, smarter and less social people. People who learn German are friendly, warm and more outgoing. People who learn French are smart, cultured and friendly but reserved.

That's about all I can say about it. I hope that helps any!

[Lietmotiv]

French is a great language and not a difficult one. I love how it sounds and I find its grammar quite simple compared to German or Russian. French is understood in Spain,Italy,Belgium, Romania,Northern Africa .

German- I tried once to learn it but had to quit. It covers a large area,Germany,Austria,Italy(Northern Italy),Hungary,Poland,Czech Republic,Bulgaria,Slovenia, Denmark,Western Romania.
n these regions,German is better understood and spoken than English.

Russian- If I were to start learning it like one who wasn't born in an ex-Soviet country I guess it would be a hell.
The grammar itself is difficult. However,Russian is understood and spoken in Russia and in the ex-Soviet States(Ukraine,Baltic States,Moldova,Armenia,Kazahstan and so on).

As for Romanian,I noticed you are not interested in Romance language,Romanian is considered as a crossover between Romance languages and Slavic languages.(like combining French or Italian with Bulgarian or Serbian,of course adding many 'unique' elements which are not to be found in any language,which make it a real interesting language)

[Oleksij]

This means, you can work in, say, Poland or Czech republic. Did I mention it gives you the chance to work in the Czech republic

You sure about that mate? Previous work experience and qualifications would massively help finding a job in those areas, though, obviously, living in a country will require you to know at least the basics of the local majority's language.

But saying 'you can work in the Czech Republic if you speak Serbian/Russian' is way off the mark. And Russian most definitely has negative connotations for a large number of people in Central Europe, to the point where they'd pretend they don't understand you, even if they do.

[Æxylis]

While you can say
Die Platte ist auf die Tisch.

Um, no, you can't say that.

That's awesome

As far as these three languages goes... I've looked into them a little bit myself and a few things I can say about them as far as what you seem to be interested in...

French:
very irregular and odd grammar... if you want a language that throws apostrophes and hyphens all over the place and doubles up words in expressions (just look at the phrases qu'est-ce que c'est and qu'est-ce qu'il y a for example... they translate into English as something like "what is this that this is?" and "what is this that he/it thereat has/exists?") Not to mention doubling of negation words
I am not(En)->Ich bin nicht(De)->Ja nje ...(Ru)-> Je ne suis pas(Fr)
I mean, if you're going to study a romance language for its grammar then french is probably not the best one to start with... I would recommend Italian in that category as it seems the most regular...
Not to mention that you don't even pronounce half the letters in French (for example "hors d'oeuvres", is pronounced like you only have about half the letters... In english is would be something more like "or duv(r)") Anyway, I guess if you were looking for usefulness, this one would be a good one... though I believe all three of them are official languages in the UN so they should all be fairly useful to some degree.

German:
This is a nice language. The grammar is somewhat similar to English in the sense that a lot of the more commonly used grammatical words still retain remnants similar to German/germanic languages. On the other hand, since English was so badly corrupted by French and Latin, it has picked up a lot of garbage words along the way and lost a lot of its germanic purity. In either case, German is a bit easier to pick up for an English speaker because there's not as much inflection (only four cases, rather than 6 with russian, and they only apply to modifying words and not the nouns and adjectives as well) and there are more cognates than with russian....

Russian:
If you're looking for a language that would go good with linguistics, this would be it. Russian, and slavic languages in general, are more traditional than most other indo-european language families and thus the words you find in it are more likely going to be closer to proto-indo-european and contain a lot of similar grammar to classical languages like Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit. As for picking up a new script... Cyrillic isn't that hard, it's basically just a glorified version of the Greek alphabet (as it was invented by greek orthodox missionaries). So really the letters shouldn't be too difficult to learn, as it would be a lot easier than learning a language like, say maybe Chinese or Japanese for example...

[Lietmotiv]

This means, you can work in, say, Poland or Czech republic. Did I mention it gives you the chance to work in the Czech republic

You sure about that mate? Previous work experience and qualifications would massively help finding a job in those areas, though, obviously, living in a country will require you to know at least the basics of the local majority's language.

But saying 'you can work in the Czech Republic if you speak Serbian/Russian' is way off the mark. And Russian most definitely has negative connotations for a large number of people in Central Europe, to the point where they'd pretend they don't understand you, even if they do.

That's quite true. I believe knowing German is more helpful for one who wants to live/work in Czech Republic/Poland. A friend of mine who speaks German very good works in Prague(one of the requirements was speaking German).
Russian indeed has negative connotations in Central Europe. Although some understand some Russian in Poland and Czech Republic doesn't mean they would be glad to help you. When I was this summer in Prague (about one month) I tried to ask for directions in Russian because I don't speak German and few spoke English. Of course that didn't help too much. Many really don't understand,or pretend they don't understand and others would answer you in Czech and I don't understand Czech at all.
I can say what happened to me once: I was in the center of Prague in the metro station. We needed coins as we couldn't buy tickets without coins. In the metro station there was a supermarket. I entered and asked for coins in Russian and they answered 'Ne mam(which definitely means I don't have) . My friend who speaks German entered and asked it German and he got the coins. Strange enough. Not to mention that on a wall not far from the city center there was this inscription:''Death to Russian occupiers and Slovak prostitutes''
On the other hand in the center of prague on a restaurant there was this inscription(special for the Russian tourists) Мы говорим по-русски . Добро пожаловать в наш ресторан. Many shop-owners in the center of the city are Russians therefore you can always find Soviet Flags,Soviet military uniforms and all the crap

[Trapy]

Well, if you learn Russian, Czech is much easier to learn, agreed? . I know you can't just walk in and expect to get a job, speaking russian, but you can "get by" living there while you learn Czech easily.

[Oleksij]

Well, if you learn Russian, Czech is much easier to learn, agreed? . I know you can't just walk in and expect to get a job, speaking russian, but you can "get by" living there while you learn Czech easily.

Perhaps marginally easier... but that's about it. Russian is far from the most interintelligible Slavic language.

Probably though, if you speak Russian and know places, you could live in Prague using only that, yes.

[Lietmotiv]

Well, if you learn Russian, Czech is much easier to learn, agreed? . I know you can't just walk in and expect to get a job, speaking russian, but you can "get by" living there while you learn Czech easily.

Maybe. I couldn't understand too much during my stay there and I speak Russian as I speak Romanian.However,I could catch some words and phrases if they were written,written is always easyer.. But I like the language very much,the way it sounds.
My friend who doesn't speak Russian(he's immigrant in Prague), told me that after only 6 months he's able to understand all in Czech and speak quite acceptable.

[Solairne]

While you can say
Die Platte ist auf die Tisch.

Um, no, you can't say that.

On the other hand, since English was so badly corrupted by French and Latin, it has picked up a lot of garbage words along the way and lost a lot of its germanic purity.

I wouldn't say that it was "corrupted' or that the French/Latin words are "garbage."
When you look at English's fancy and elaborate words (like, "elaborate") you'll notice that they come from Latin via French, or Latin. Most of English's function words (like "and" and simpler words) you recognize in German and other Germanic languages. I would hardly consider our more ornate words to be garbage.

Our (English's) heritage has always been a bastard grab-bag of stuff. Our use of "do" in otherwise meaningless situations comes from Welsh and Celtic, our modernized grammar comes from French, our strong verbs (swim swam swum) come from our Germanic heritage. Our vocabulary is a complete mix, as is French's.

[voron]

Russian is the Proto-Indo-European language family with English, so you will recognize words here and there.

Could you give examples? Those which you probably think are cognates are actually later borrowings (from Latin mostly).

[Solairne]

Russian is the Proto-Indo-European language family with English, so you will recognize words here and there.

Could you give examples? Those which you probably think are cognates are actually later borrowings (from Latin mostly).

My bad about "Proto Indo European," force of habit from writing it so often haha. Yea, Russian is in the *Indo European* family.

Cosmonaut
Troika
Vodka (lol)
Kadet/Cadet
Tsar
Vampire

I'm sure there are others, but those are just ones that I can recall immediately.

That aside, it's also a benefit to see any Latinate origin words in Russian because they also have similar words with similar meanings in English.

I don't speak any Russian at all, so correct me if I'm wrong.

[Lietmotiv]

Russian is the Proto-Indo-European language family with English, so you will recognize words here and there.

Could you give examples? Those which you probably think are cognates are actually later borrowings (from Latin mostly).

My bad about "Proto Indo European," force of habit from writing it so often haha. Yea, Russian is in the *Indo European* family. Same with Kosmonavt
.


Cosmonaut
Troika
Vodka (lol)
Kadet/Cadet
Tsar
Vampire

I'm sure there are others, but those are just ones that I can recall immediately.

That aside, it's also a benefit to see any Latinate origin words in Russian because they also have similar words with similar meanings in English.

I don't speak any Russian at all, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Those are words taken from Russian to other languages.
2 mentions: I believe that the word Vampire comes from the Romanian word ''Vampir'' and Cadet is taken from French
Same with Kosmonavt: образовано от греческого слова космос (греч. κόσμος), обозначающего упорядоченность, строение, мир, вселенную, мироздание, и наута (греч. ναυτα) — мореплаватель.
And as far as I know ,in English they use Astronaute.
There are other words similar between English and Russian,such as water,wolf and so on.

[Sean of the Dead]

And as far as I know, in English they use Astronaute.

What? No we don't, we spell it "astronaut".

[Nukalurk]

And Tsar comes from the Latin name / title "Caesar".

[nighean-neonach]

In either case, German is a bit easier to pick up for an English speaker because there's not as much inflection (only four cases, rather than 6 with russian, and they only apply to modifying words and not the nouns and adjectives as well)

Errm? Das kleine Haus / ein kleines Haus -> des kleinen Hauses -> die kleinen Häuser, etc.