First of all, let me greet all of you, my lovely readers, with a warm Happy New Year 2016! Nee's Language Blog will not make it until today without you! Yes, you! You! YOU! This is a follow-up post What to learn in 2016? As we have seen in the polling, Latvian, Russian, German, Arabic, and Turkish were among the top favored languages from the list.
Latvian won by a grand victory of 40%, however, it looked quite odd, isn't it? At least, that's what I thought. It is still my favorite language, and I would definitely relearn it again when the right moment comes. Then, Russian and German were at the next rank with 13%, and Turkish and Arabic with 12 %. Vietnamese and Afrikaans with 8%. Swedish with 7%. Italian, Thai, and Dutch with 6%. Bulgarian, Persian, Burmese, and Tagalog with 5%. Hindi with 4%. Lastly, Cantonese with 3%.
My choice was narrowed down to Russian and German. It was quite difficult to decide, considering the importance of these languages in international-scale society. I have had a little experience with both languages, so learning any of them in 2016 would just be a matter of continuing what I have left before.
Both Russian and German have case systems, so in this case, they are just the same difficult for me because the language that I have known so far does not have a case system. Russian is of Slavic family and German is of Germanic family. I do not know any languages from the Slavic family yet, but I know the language from the Germanic family, which is English!
It has always been my dream to learn languages from a different family. This is because languages of different family groups usually share a little similarity, thus, it will not be easy in the beginning. However, once you have acquired a certain level of knowledge in the language, it is easier to learn the other language of the same family. So, it is pretty much like exploring a new world.
After thorough thinking, I made my decision. So, my chosen language for 2016 is...RUSSIAN...!
Hopefully, Russian would be the first language from my Slavic family that I could speak to a certain level, at least, up to conversational, which means that I would be able to talk about topics like self-introduction, asking directions, expressing myself, all basic conversations. As usual, I always start language learning by reading phrasebooks, not grammar books. Besides, I also do massive listening input by reading to audio or radio.
This is my story, what's yours?
Photo credit
Wikipedia
Wikipedia