this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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My relatives in australia speak english and a bit of german. They told me they had the choice to learn german or spanish in school.
But what is the point, other than you really want to learn a random language? I learned french, then english and later i had the opportunity to learn italian or spanish if i wanted to. But that's because these are the languages people speak here and the bordering countries. My relatives never used any of their german, except when they went to europe once.
Being from East Germany I had Russian in school, can't speak, but I retained the ability to read kyrillian letters, come in handy sometimes, especially if there are phonetically similiar words.
In Australia I had the option to learn Japanese and then when I went over to Europe my school specifically had a Chinese option, both for "facilitating trade and future relations"
Ngl years later I kinda only use my Chinese skills when I'm at the Chinese market and I'm trying to find the right ingredients for something, and I reckon out of my entire class I probably benefited the most out of taking the language. It isn't the cultural trade exchange they were hoping for...but hey, it's pretty useful being able to correctly identify stuff when the English stickers they plaster on the label are vague at best and incorrect at worst
Learning a language is good for your perspicacity in general. Like doing sudokus except it lets you read the news or poetry or something from another culture in its original form.
One reason is that it helps you to understand your native language better.