One or two foreign languages. What would you prefer?

[gene2009]

What would you prefer?
1st. Excellent know one foreign language.
2nd. Middle knowledge two foreign languages.
It’s important to me to know your opinion.
Thanks.

[Rose of Cairo]

I personally would prefer excellent knowledge of seven languages. But then again, I'm a language fetishist.

You seem to be holding the belief that if you learn more than one language, you won't be able to learn them all very well. Do you realize how limiting this belief is?

Love.

[Brutha]

It always depends on the reason for learning a language.
I use English and German (my native language) much and therefore want to be excellent in both.

If I would learn other languages like Spanish or Japanese in addition my goal wouldn't be to be perfect but to know the language well enough to be able to have conservations and read in that language and have no problem with a native speaker recognising that it isn't my main language.

[Dreamline]

I would really love to be fluent in Spanish and French. I think I could deal with many situations that way.

Jennifer

[LifeFirst]

YouTube - 090119 Global Talk Show(미녀들� 수다) - Taru&Eva Episode

These girls are pretty sexy wouldn't you think

[marinik]

Apart from the languages I speak I would learn Arab and Chinese.

[FazK]

Learning a foreign language is very difficult i would definably only concentrate my efforts on learning one at a time

[aelle]

Originally Posted by FazK

Learning a foreign language is very difficult i would definably only concentrate my efforts on learning one at a time

That's a very limiting belief here. Learning a foreign language does not have to be difficult at all in my experience.

I agree with Rose, my choice (and what I'm working on) would be to have excellent proficiency in several languages. But then again, proficiency depends very much on what you need to do with these languages.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by FazK

Learning a foreign language is very difficult i would definably only concentrate my efforts on learning one at a time

I agree with Aelle, this is a terribly limiting belief. Learning a foreign language doesn't have to be difficult at all. It can be done in a fun and light way!

Concentrating on only one of them is not for everyone. Some people do better when learning only one at a time indeed. But other people do better when they learn several of them simultaneously, especially if those are very different from each other. I know that's the case for me. When I learn several of them, I learn faster than when I try to focus on only one.

I guess it depends on how your brain works best. That is a very individual thing.

[cacheborn]

I agree with Rose. I love learning languages and I want to be proficient in all of them. There are four to five languages on my list, including Chinese. At the moment I am fighting it out with French pronunciations.

[Indiana]

One more voice to say that it's not necessarily harder to add more languages once you have your second. I speak English and French fluently and have started learning Japanese (spoken only) and Spanish in the last year, and feel confident dealing with a lot of situations in them. Next year I hope to add Vietnamese to the repertoire (that's a French word, incidentally).

The more you study languages, the more you understand the fundamental structures behind them. As an added bonus, because of the way words feed into other languages, you often gain a greater understanding of your native language by studying other ones!

[Andyee]

2 middle... you can always develop them into a much higher level. I know 4 languages and I'm completely happy

[gene2009]

Really, thank you for your answers friends.

[ar81]

You need to master your own language, before mastering any other.
You cannot master another language, if you do not master your own.

[LifeFirst]

There's nothing weird about foreign languages...there's really no limits as to what the human mind can achieve. Only people themselves who "mystify" foreign languages will have a hard time trying to know them. Look at them as if they're completely normal.

Heck look at these videos, if these people can do it, then anybody can.

YouTube - Black American lady speaking Korean

YouTube - Indian woman speaking Korean

YouTube - [180509] Super Junior -Chit Chat With Beauties 5/7

And these people are speaking a language that's not even remotely close to what their own culture is...it's on a whole different side of the planet.

[Indiana]

Originally Posted by ar81

You need to master your own language, before mastering any other.
You cannot master another language, if you do not master your own.

How do bilingual kids do it then?