In reality, how useful are German, French etc

keelanj69

Considering we live in an english speaking country, with a poor grasp of second or third languages, is there any merit to learning German/French/Chinese?

Every Tömas, Richard und Harry can speak multiple languages on the mainland whereas we struggle to maintain any Irish or otherwise after school.

Especially Chinese. People are always going on about oppurtunities with Chinese but are they overstated? If not I better get learning.

Thoughts, anyone? Should we just focus on english and leave the other languages to native speakers in a world that mixes more than ever?

AngeGal

keelanj69 wrote: »

Considering we live in an english speaking country, with a poor grasp of second or third languages, is there any merit to learning German/French/Chinese?

Every Tömas, Richard und Harry can speak multiple languages on the mainland whereas we struggle to maintain any Irish or otherwise after school.

Especially Chinese. People are always going on about oppurtunities with Chinese but are they overstated? If not I better get learning.

Thoughts, anyone? Should we just focus on english and leave the other languages to native speakers in a world that mixes more than ever?

They're very useful. You will see many job postings which require a second language. Also, it's great to be able to go to a country and speak in their own language, it means you don't just have to go to all the tourist haunts where they speak English.

keith16

Everyone should learn a language. It's effect on the grey matter is hugely beneficial.

There is of course merit in learning any language but the perceived benefits of Chinese are absolutely over-stated.

Lams

I can speak a bit of german and have begun learning Italian. I think it's hugely important to keep exposing your brain to knew ways of thinking.

keelanj69

AngeGal wrote: »

They're very useful. You will see many job postings which require a second language. Also, it's great to be able to go to a country and speak in their own language, it means you don't just have to go to all the tourist haunts where they speak English.

As long as a Big Mac is a Big Mac no matter where you go, I suspect most people could survive :P

Le Big Mac.
Big Mac-san.

Frosty McSnowballs

Feck that.

If I didn't take French in school I never would have banged that French chick years ago.

Also, how awkward would it be if I couldn't pronounce Foie Gras as an hors d'oeuvre!

Mange tout monsieur, creme de la menthe

keith16

Lams wrote: »

I think it's hugely important to keep exposing your brain to knew ways of thinking.

This is the very definition of what learning a language can do for you.

Aidric

How useful? Very. It gives you freedom as well as opening many career opportunities for you, that you otherwise would not have. It portrays both ability and initiative to speak additional languages.

MadsL

http://www.jobs.ie/Jobs.aspx?Categories=Job+Type&Regions=3%2C4%2C5%2C6&Keywords=German%2C+French

No recession in the multiple languages dept.

Festy

Both are a lot more useful than bloody Irish

keelanj69

keith16 wrote: »

Everyone should learn a language. It's effect on the grey matter is hugely beneficial.

There is of course merit in learning any language but the perceived benefits of Chinese are absolutely over-stated.

Why is that do you think? Would it only be useful in impressing your OH when ordering a take away?

MadsL

Aidric wrote: »

How useful? Very. It gives you freedom as well as opening many career opportunities for you, that you otherwise would not have. It portrays both ability and initiative to speak additional languages.

Jak se maš. Jak jde tvoje Čeština?

Amirani

keith16 wrote: »

There is of course merit in learning any language but the perceived benefits of Chinese are absolutely over-stated.

There's more English speakers in China than any other country.

MadsL

Festy wrote: »

Both are a lot more useful than bloody Irish

Do you have fluent Irish?

Zebra3

The only use of learning another language is pretending you don't speak it and have birds chatting in front of you in that language and you understand everything they say with them realising it.

Other than that there could be no possible use for learning another language whatsoever.

Festy

MadsL wrote: »

Do you have fluent Irish?

Nicht

yore

Cue lots of self-hating idiots complaining about Irish and how it deprived them of becoming fluent in 56 languages and going on to cure cancer and solve world poverty.

When in reality, if they didn't have Irish classes, they'd just have devoted those extra 3 or so hours a week to playing with themselves

Aidric

MadsL wrote: »

Jak se maš. Jak jde tvoje Čeština?

Jsem dobry, dekuju. Moje Cestina je ok. Je to tezka. Mluvite?

Festy

yore wrote: »

Cue lots of self-hating idiots complaining about Irish and how it deprived them of becoming fluent in 56 languages and going on to cure cancer and solve world poverty.

When in reality, if they didn't have Irish classes, they'd just have devoted those extra 3 or so hours a week to playing with themselves

Or learn another language that they could use in a number of countries.

eg. Spanish

keith16

NiallSparky wrote: »

There's more English speakers in China than any other country.

`

Not sure what your point is?

keelanj69 wrote: »

Why is that do you think? Would it only be useful in impressing your OH when ordering a take away?

Not saying that at all, it's as useful as learning any other language. However, there seems to be some sort of herd thinking at play where everyone says, "oh yeah, Chinese, language, yeah, new superpower, we all have to learn Chinese", in the same way people in Ireland were saying just a few years ago: "oh yeah, house, buy buy, property ladder, trade up, economy".

There's no real substance to it. There are no high quality jobs in Europe that require Chinese. Plus, a billion people already speak it.

keelanj69

keith16 wrote: »

`

Not sure what your point is?



Not saying that at all, it's as useful as learning any other language. However, there seems to be some sort of herd thinking at play where everyone says, "oh yeah, Chinese, language, yeah, new superpower, we all have to learn Chinese", in the same way people in Ireland were saying just a few years ago: "oh yeah, house, buy buy, property ladder, trade up, economy".

There's no real substance to it. There are no high quality jobs in Europe that require Chinese. Plus, a billion people already speak it.

Better for Europeans to learn other european languages so? Spanish, french and german especially?

Aidric

keelanj69 wrote: »

Better for Europeans to learn other european languages so? Spanish, french and german especially?

How did you do in school with languages?

yore

Festy wrote: »

Or learn another language that they could use in a number of countries.

eg. Spanish

Yes of course you would have. Teachers of Spanish in the Irish school system are automatically and without fail genii. Whereas teachers of Irish are idiots and incompetent to the man/woman.

And you had the remarkable foresight, as a 6 year old, to know that Irish wasn't worth learning then but Spanish would have been, and thus, in a rebellious reaction, decided to protest by not becoming fluent in it. Because you'd be fluent in Spanish now. And I salute your remarkable resistance at refusing to allow yourself to become fluent in Irish despite your innate linguistic abilities.

Kinda like the way you knew that maths, science and computers would be where it was at in the future and went on to get 100% in higher level maths, physics, chemistry and biology in the Leaving.


You could always find three hours a week now to learn some Spanish???? Any reason why not?

Ravelleman

NiallSparky wrote: »

There's more English speakers in China than any other country.

Well that's just untrue.

keelanj69

Aidric wrote: »

How did you do in school with languages?

Reasonably well. Why?

Yitzhak Rabin

When looking at a useful language to learn, if its purely from how much benefit that you can gain financially from it, you need to identify place where there is a lot of economic activity, but few bi-lingual speakers.

Chinese is a waste of time from that point of view. There are literally 10s of millions of fluent English speakers there who can work for a fraction of what would be worthwhile for an Irish person.

Continental languages like French/German are useful given what economic powerhouses the countries which speak those languages are, particularly French, given it will give you access to a lot of African nations.

However, if you were to choose one language, I would recommend Arabic. Its widely spoken, importantly in countries where you can earn vast sums of money. There's also a lot of work in the defence industry given the never-ending conflict in the region. A fluent educated Western English/Arabic speaker will never be short of work in the near future.

MadsL

Aidric wrote: »

Jsem dobry, dekuju. Moje Cestina je ok. Je to tezka. Mluvite?

Mluvim dobrý kousek. Ale jenom v Texasu!

Ravelleman

Learning a language is a great experience but I'd have my doubts about the utility of learning Chinese. Given that it takes Chinese people roughly 16 years to master the written element of the language (that's according to a Ted talk I watched recently), I'm not sure how a non-native speaker could a level serious enough with which to conduct business or whatever. Of course, part of the process of language learning is understanding cultural differences, so the utility of that can't be discounted.

Unfortunately, the fact is that the level of language attained by people in secondary schools in Ireland isn't very high in the grand scheme of things. If you study languages in university you quickly become aware of the complexities that the average leaving cert student doesn't even have to think about. That being said, a lot of people leave university with language degrees despite having a terrible level in said language so it's all relative.

Regardless of whether or not Irish takes up too much time in schools, Ireland probably doesn't have the language infrastructure available to teach foreign languages in primary schools in the same way that Irish is taught. It takes a lot of teachers and a lot of resources that require years to build up.

Aidric

keelanj69 wrote: »

Reasonably well. Why?

Just general curiosity.

Zebra3

yore wrote: »

Cue lots of self-hating idiots complaining about Irish and how it deprived them of becoming fluent in 56 languages and going on to cure cancer and solve world poverty.

When in reality, if they didn't have Irish classes, they'd just have devoted those extra 3 or so hours a week to playing with themselves

That's a lot of **** to have missed out on.

rio1

If you mean useful from a career point of view then unless you are a teacher or translator they are only useful for certain jobs. I speak three European languages fluently and find most of the jobs are at a junior level or in call centres. I used my languages when I started working but as my career progressed found they were not the way to go as you are limited when applying for senior roles if you have to combine your profession with your languages.

The are hugely useful on a personal level though, opening up new worlds culturally, from literature to film and music. It's also great to be able to talk to people in their own language when abroad and be aware of what's going on around you.