Ever Wanted to Learn a "Niche" Language?

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Imp

Imp

Lifer
Feb 8, 2000
18,828
184
106
zinfamous said:
Good thing about Italian, Portuguese and to a smaller degree, French, is that command of any those gives you a decent handle into Spanish.
:thumbsup:
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I think Italian is closest to Spanish out of those. Was watching Eat, Pray, Love recently and recognized more words in Italian than I thought I'd be able to -- I have horrible Spanish and kindergarten French. French helps with all the tenses and conjugations, sentence structure, some vocabulary. English helps with the alphabet...

On the other hand, I had a Colombian coworker who said she understood some of the Portuguese conversations by another coworker.
 
M

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
101
91
zinfamous said:
Latvian
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Several decades ago now, I had a (non-special) friend of (1st generation) Lithuanian descent in college. I learned that the language is called "Lietuviu" in Lithuanian (one of very few close relatives of Latvian) and that the feminine form of surnames ending in "-is" properly end in "-ite" despite general usage outside that country. But that's about as far as I got...:D

Oh, and fwiw, Latin, Sanskrit, Greek and virtually all modern European languages, as well as many non-European ones like Farsi and its close relatives (spoken in the Iran, Afghanistan, and other nearby countries) and a number of modern South Asian ones, are in fact all related - hence the name of the overarching language family "Indo-European." Kinda confuses a lot of people that they're written in several completely unrelated alphabets/variants, but then, alphabets have historically changed much more quickly than the underlying languages, occasionally even almost overnight, as in the relatively recent example of Turkish...
 
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zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,857
31,346
146
Mike64 said:
Several decades ago now, I had a (non-special) friend of (1st generation) Lithuanian descent in college. I learned that the language is called "Lietuviu" in Lithuanian (one of very few close relatives of Latvian) and that the feminine form of surnames ending in "-is" properly end in "-ite" despite general usage outside that country. But that's about as far as I got...:D

Oh, and fwiw, Latin, Sanskrit, Greek and virtually all modern European languages, as well as many non-European ones like Farsi and its close relatives (spoken in the Iran, Afghanistan, and other nearby countries) and a number of modern South Asian ones, are in fact all related - hence the name of the overarching language family "Indo-European." Kinda confuses a lot of people that they're written in several completely unrelated alphabets/variants, but then, alphabets have historically changed much more quickly than the underlying languages, occasionally even almost overnight, as in the relatively recent example of Turkish...
Click to expand...

:thumbsup:

probing for knowledge
 
KMFJD

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
32,661
52,105
136
You could learn Limburgish, there's about 1.3 million speakers, as a bonus you'd be able to understand Afrikaans
 
dawp

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,347
2,710
136
Thought Mayan would be fun to learn or maybe an Amazonian one.
 
Leyawiin

Leyawiin

Diamond Member
Nov 11, 2008
3,204
52
91
biostud said:
It was mandatory in school. 12 years of Danish. :/
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I read some tongue-in-cheek article saying that Danish would eventually die out because the Danes prefer to speak English.

I worked with a girl from Denmark for a year here in California. Platinum blond hair, ice blue eyes, drop-dead gorgeous and with a sweet personality to boot. Must be rough living in that country. ;)
 
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M

momeNt

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2011
9,290
352
126
I've considered having an entire "secondary culture" that is extinct. Kind of like discovering my spirit animal culture. Learn the crafts of that time period, the language, and the customs.

It's boring to spend every waking moment as American in a modern anglo-saxon culture, so I think it would be fun to spend that way during the day while interacting with people, but then at home, and with a close group of friends, basically be Ancient Egyptian, or Sumarian, or Mayan.
 
clamum

clamum

Lifer
Feb 13, 2003
26,256
406
126
Not a niche language, but I took a semester of German in college. I liked it and didn't find it that hard, even though I didn't study or practice much. I can still kinda pronounce German words correctly, and know a few simple words, but that's it.

Lately I've been wanting to learn Spanish. It's more common and may even be useful to me (career-wise) at some point. I have a "Spanish for Idiots" book (lol) as well as a learning Spanish audiobook on Audible, but I haven't really gotten into it yet. It's on my list of a million things I'd like to do but never really get started with or work on. FML
 
AznAnarchy99

AznAnarchy99

Lifer
Dec 6, 2004
14,695
117
106
clamum said:
Not a niche language, but I took a semester of German in college. I liked it and didn't find it that hard, even though I didn't study or practice much. I can still kinda pronounce German words correctly, and know a few simple words, but that's it.

Lately I've been wanting to learn Spanish. It's more common and may even be useful to me (career-wise) at some point. I have a "Spanish for Idiots" book (lol) as well as a learning Spanish audiobook on Audible, but I haven't really gotten into it yet. It's on my list of a million things I'd like to do but never really get started with or work on. FML
Click to expand...

Try Duolingo on your phone.
 
biostud

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,926
7,036
136
Leyawiin said:
I read some tongue-in-cheek article saying that Danish would eventually die out because the Danes prefer to speak English.

I worked with a girl from Denmark for a year here in California. Platinum blond hair, ice blue eyes, drop-dead gorgeous and with a sweet personality to boot. Must be rough living in that country. ;)
Click to expand...

Not likely, while most danes speak and understand English very well, the vocabulary is very limited compared to Danish. And it is nice to have a secret language when traveling the world.
 
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