How to Choose a New Language to Learn

1. Introduction: Hello everybody. Welcome to this new course about how to choose a new language to learn. This course is for all levels of language learners. And the goal of this course is to help you find out which language you could learn next. If it is a second language or a new language. If you already speak several languages, there are over 6,500 spoken languages and all the 300s sign languages in the world. You may be unsure or which language to learn next. So in this course, I will give you ten criterion to help you find out your next language to learn. You will also have a class project you do in order to select the best language for you to learn next, thanks to this criterion, I will show document to use and I will show you an example on how to use it with my own selection. So let's get started. 2. How To Choose: Now let's have a look at ten criterions. She said like genetics language to learn. Number one, spoken or signed language. Do you want to speak or sign language? You might already know a couple of spoken languages and you are unsure of what to learn now. But why not looking at learning sign language for the language you're ready speak. A sign language is not universal. You can learn it for different languages and dialects. On the other side, you might only have your mother tongue and wish to know more about speaking other languages. So this is the first step. Choose if you are interested in a spoken or signed language. Number two, your family origins. Now think about your origin. Or you parents from a different country. Or maybe your grandparents or your great grandparents. Learning a language spoken by other members of your family could be an important criteria. It is part of who you are and you might have more chances to also speak the language on a regular basis. Even if the relatives who used to speak their language and not there anymore, it is part of the story of your family. It's more a personal choice and he might keep the history of your family for generation as you could also teach it to your children one day. This criteria comes from the fact that we are more likely all descendants of different origins. So why not learn more about it? It is who we are. Number three, where you currently live or study. Now, depending if you are currently living or studying abroad and this might apply to you. You could be living in a country where you don't know the language. The example I can think of is usually English speakers having the opportunity to leave or study abroad for a year or more. And only speaking English as they are in a country where they could manage only speaking English, like in Germany or in most Scandinavian countries, as many people do speak English then. So not taking advantage of it, you will have all the benefits around you, native speakers to talk to TV and radio, to watch and listen, books to read. You can immerse yourself totally, Which is the best way to learn and practice the language. Number four, the culture. So you still don't know which language you learn, but you love Japanese culture. For instance, you'll have the Japanese manga, or maybe you love the French Romancing firms or the German metal music. So why not go a step forward? Everything from the culture of the country can be reused to learn a language. So instead of watching your favorite foreign film in English, you can actually watch them in their original language with or without subtitle. For steel in native language. I have read articles that learning a language just because you like animate, let's say. For learning Japanese. While you shouldn't be learning Japanese just for that. Well, there is more than that in the Japanese culture for any reason, or even just one reason is enough for you to start, is enough for you to expand your knowledge. And why not expand this knowledge in the related language? Number five, the wear a language sounds. Have you ever heard people saying that the French language is the sexiest language? They Sounds great. Not so much for the German language, while it's very subjective of course, but choosing a language because of the way it sounds is a great idea. As already enjoying hearing it will help you practice and listen to it more easily. Also, learn a language or you think some completely different to anything you know, it could be a good challenge. The choice is yours. Number six, travelling plan. Are you tired of using Google Translate during your trip? Or maybe asking a friend to always as something for you in a shop or in a restaurant. Learning a language we're traveling is a good reason as it will help you understand native and share more with them. Or maybe have a look at languages that are spoken in different countries or even continents, like English, French, Spanish, you're more likely to find on different continents. Or maybe if you always travel to descend destination, concentrate on this language. English is obviously a barrier option as it is an international language, but sometimes the local language might be a better option. As in France. We now really good at languages and we keep speaking French. No, MAO, How much would speak English to us? Think about it. Is the country you're going to go on holiday is more likely to going to speak English back to you? Or is it worth learning the language of that country? Look at your traveling plans. One language might be more relevant than others. Number seven, proximity and availability. Looking at what language to learn could depend on how close you are to borders with other countries. So from my experience as a child in Crohn's children, which was the language of the country of which border was closer. So for me, Italy was next door. So the choice was made up. Learned Italian. Also, living in the USF, for instance. It might be easier for you to learn French or Spanish than German because you're close to South America or Canada, or something for languages that are spoken in only one country that could be far from you. We need to think when you have the chance to speak with an ATM. And also availability is related to cost. A certain languages will have tuition fees. There are more expensive if it's thoughtless that other languages. So make sure you will have the means and the possibility to learned before starting learning your language that you know will be possible to be named. Number eight are your linguistic node. So do you like grammar? Do you like the way language is written? Or do you want to learn a language that has a complete different alphabet? So if you're looking for something completely different, why not choose a language like Russian or Chinese or Japanese or even Arabic? Or if you love grammar rule than conjugation to learn, try French as we are the best in terms of adding grammar rules to anything we said. Try to find where the challenges were. The novelty is, this actually might be the criteria that you need that will make a difference in choosing your next language. Number nine, business and work. Another reason would be that learning a new language will help you in your career. So you could start with English as it is an international language, but also French if you live in Europe. But why not? Chinese? Are they also have a huge economic impact. Also, maybe some languages are lacking in the industry you work on. Figuring out what could highlight you CB and give you the best chances in your career. Nowadays, speaking two languages is almost unknown in order to find a job. Finally, the last criteria to look at is the language you speak and where it comes from. So to explain languages apart of language family, meaning that the grammar, the pronunciation, that linguistic characteristic, they tend to be similar. So if you're not sure what to learn at home and you want to learn a simple language. This is what you need to look out. This is what you need to consider. Coincidence. My first language is French. Therefore, learning Latin languages is easier for me, like learning Italian or Spanish. And starting that is you can learn a couple of languages, the same language family, and then you could move to a different language family. So for example, after learning different Latin languages, that can be easy for me like Spanish, Italian, because I speak French in the first place. I could move on to learning Danish and Swedish because they're related, because they belong to the same family. And people who speak several languages usually they follow that approach to learn as many languages as they can. And lastly, as a quick note, if it's not your second language that you're learning or for language, a quick advice is, it's usually easier to learn more and more languages once you've passed four languages. That's usually that line two cross is four languages. So think about it. If you follow the approach we've the language family. Find full languages or three other, let's say three other languages that are part of your language family. You would have achieved four languages already and then move on to different language family to consider more languages to learn. So that's it for all the different criteria on how to choose a language. In the next video, we're going to have a look at a class project and add a table to actually help you decide which language could be the best to learn through you. 3. Let's Choose: Now let's have a look at your class project. So you can download the PDF document that is in a class project section that will give you all the information that you need to know about this class projects and how to choose a new language to learn. So what you need to do is you need to complete the table. You need to add different languages that you thinking of learning. So depending on the criteria that can give you some ideas or maybe you already have some ideas, but you're not sure. Maybe you want to learn a couple of languages, but you don't know which one is the best for you. So just select a couple. And then we're going to complete the table, shows the result and less than which languages you are not planning on learning. I'm really looking forward to actually get that feedback and Tc which languages people are planning on learning be very interesting. But first of all, I'm going to show you how to use the table. So I'm going to put two languages that I am planning to learn HIV add-on, which one could be the best one for me to learn first, I could learn both of them at the same time of course, but I'd rather learn maybe one at a time. So we can see between the two languages. Which language has the most criteria according to the wisdom given? So let's have a look. So this is the table that you can download in the class project section. It summarize all the different aspects that we've seen in the course. And I've put two languages of learning, which is Polish and Italian. And then all you need to do is actually think of each reason and write down if it's actually interesting about the language that you want to learn. So let's do those two for me. I'm just going to write that down. So let's say for the first criteria, was, is it a spoken or sign language? In both cases, I'm interested in spoken language. So they both spoken language. So that doesn't matter. You can if if you had a visitation between spoken and sign languages, you would write spoken or sine depending on that. The second criteria is, is this language related to family origin. So for polish, it is as my grandparents were pollution both sides. Italian. It's not is in the language of where you currently live. It's not because I'm based in the United Kingdom. So I'm not taking anything for both languages. Are you interested in the culture related to this language? I would say yes, football. As I listen to music, involution, Italian. So we put yes, and I've watched movies for book. In both languages. Do you like the way it sounds? Or do you want to learn it because of some travelling plan? Definitely. Because I've been to both countries, have been in Italy and I've been in Poland, and I've actually tried to speak the language a little bit, just a couple of words, but I'm not fluent to I'm Niven advance level. So definitely a yes on this. Will it be easy to learn due to availability and proximity? So on this one, I will put yes for Italian, not full polish because unfortunately I don't have any native speaker that I can speak with in Polish. It's not really something that I can speak on a daily basis. I wouldn't put it I was very available to me at the minute. Italian ED is a little bit more. I can speak to Italian speakers at work, so I can use a built my Italian schemes that works, I would feel yes for this one. Are you interested in the linguistic part, the grandma new alphabet you writing? So for Polish, what's interesting is you go more letters that you don't have, for instance, in French for me. So that would be definitely a yes. I wouldn't put that for Italian because it's very similar to French or it's not really something new to me or something I'm really interested in as much. So I wouldn't put it for that. We'll use this language for work purposes. Polish them differently. No, it's more linked to the origins of my family and Tom see myself using it for work. Per say Italian, yes, because it's something that I've tried to use my previous experiences. And finally, is it a language with this part of the same family of languages that you speak? Polish nor its Slavic language, Italians, latin language, and lifers languages, French. It's a yes. So you can just look at that. And if you're really unsure, I don't know which language I won't speak and already know which language. You can just look at it. So for Polish, I have six criteria. Italian, I have seven. So technically, it would be more interesting for me to learn Italian. I have more interest in it. So it's a good way to have looked at. So you can do the same thing. Look at each criteria that can give you ideas of languages that you could learn in the first place. If you don't have any, then put them in the colon of different languages and take them according to your interest. We can put more than two. That's just an example from the document. We can print the document more than once and add more languages if you need to. So that's your class projects. Each you want to have a look at it and please don't forget to share it back in the section. So we can have a look at the different result that we're going to get from different student. Thank you very much. 4. Conclusion: So well done everybody. We are at the end of the course. So let's have a look at what we've done today. So now you know how to choose a new language to learn depending on the fullerene criterion that we've seen. So let's summarize what we've seen. So you can look if it is assigned or spoken language. If it is related to your origins. If it is where you live, it is the language where you need. If you have an interest, abandon language, culture. You like the way it sounds. If it is related traveling plans. If it depends on the availability of learning the language. If it's about your interests, about linguistics, grammar, or alphabets. If it can help you for work purposes. And if you already speak a language from the family language, Remember that you can always help you have choosing a new language for this criterions. And also select a couple of languages and see which languages is related to the most criterions to make your decision. Learning a language should not be a burden, but something that you will enjoy. And I will bring personal growth and help you expand your knowledge. So I hope you enjoyed this course. Don't forget to share your results in the discussion section and let me know which language you planning on learning. So, thank you very much. See you soon.