Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
If we do not hit our goal we will be forced to close the site.

Current status: https://keepboardsalive.com/

Annual subs are best for most impact. If you are still undecided on going Ad Free - you can also donate using the Paypal Donate option. All contribution helps. Thank you.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

Language help

  • 14-09-2009 05:15PM
    #1
    zazzz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 74 ✭✭


    What are the top languages to learn and what are the hardest,
    relating to career.


Comments

  • #2
    biko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,060 ✭✭✭✭biko


    Depending on what field you are in and where you're going within that career I'd say French and Spanish are good to know.
    However Mandarin would help open doors as China is a massive emerging market.

    Hardest? Depending on what you already know but French (any latin based language) would be easier than Japanese/Mandarin.


  • #3
    juanluis1987
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2 ✭juanluis1987


    There are almost 400 million spanish speaker around the world. It could be an interesting language to learn¡¡


  • #4
    Alex152
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23 ✭Alex152


    Once you pick up one Latin based language, the others are not so hard to follow because you become familiar with the rules etc


  • #5
    tac foley
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,500 ✭✭✭tac foley


    Any of the far-eastern major languages are difficult. Japanese and Korean - two isolates - are held by the US military school of languages to be the hardest.

    On the other hand, any of the North-American native languages are not exactly easy. The Algonquin/Athabascan group are very hard, as are the Na-Dene languages - Apache, Navajo, Hopi and so on. Inuit and any of the west coastal native languages are also hard and you'd really need a good reason to learn them in the first instance.

    What about having a go at any of the native Australian aboriginal languages? That'll give you something to do in the long Fall evenings ahead.

    tac


  • #6
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Paid Member Posts: 9,847 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    As well as agreeing with above posters, Russian would be an intermediate difficult language to learn but there is a 100M+ speakers + many technical terms derive from English terms.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    Crann na Beatha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,763 ✭✭✭✭Crann na Beatha


    This post has been deleted.


  • #8
    deirdremf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,399 ✭✭✭deirdremf


    zazzz wrote: »
    What are the top languages to learn and what are the hardest,
    relating to career.
    Depends on the career.
    German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, French are probably the main technological languages.
    Sales, all the above, plus Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, maybe Italian, Turkish, Farsi, after that, it's up to you!

    But really, without knowing your field of interest, it's difficult to advise.


Advertisement