08-02-2003 09:01									#1
	Which college should I attend - - which foreign language should I take? Suffering from ads?

Today I got a rejection letter from my first choice, West Point, just as I had expected.

This leaves me with two choices:
1. The Virginia Military Institute, the best public liberal arts college in the world.
2. Texas A&M, the largest (and arguably the best) ROTC program in the US.

Both fairly good schools. VMI is better for me academically since I'm planning on majoring in psychology. I kinda want a dual major in economics or business and VMI doesn't allow for dual majors though. I'm kinda planning on going to an ivy league school or somewhere after this to get a masters in psychology so I might be able to pick up the other major there. Texas A&M allows for dual majors and it has more girls. Texas girls look better on average than Virginia girls too. Not that it matters too much.

I also decided to tack on foreign language to this. I sucked in Latin. If I go to VMI, Spanish and French would probably be too hard for me too. Well, not really but I'd have to put more effort into it than I'd like to. You see, at VMI it is required to take 3 years of a foreign language or 2 years each of 2 foreign languages in high school to be sure people can handle the tough VMI standards. I am a total badass so I got in with only 2 really bad years of Latin. I'm worried that if I take French/Spanish/Latin, other people will have a large advantage over me.

This leaves me three other choices:
1. German
2. Japanese
3. Arabic
All appealing in their own ways. Arabic is the language I'd probably least want to take so unless someone has a real compelling argument that it might be useful, I probably won't take it.

Now, I won't decide soley on the input here, but I'd still like to hear what you people have to say on this issue.

	08-02-2003 09:06									#2
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College: Texas A&M

I know someone who's going there in compsci and likes it a lot.

Plus I'm not too fond of military schools and foreign languages.

	08-02-2003 09:09									#3
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Texas A&M, so I can make fun of you when they play Oklahoma.

	08-02-2003 09:10									#4
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Virginia

and dump all these girls' languages and take Classical Greek!!!!

	08-02-2003 09:21									#5
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Is there some reason you think German or Japanese would be easier for you than Spanish or French? Like, you already have some knowledge or experience in those languages? If not, I'd expect them to be harder. I sailed through French in high school and had an easy time with the one year of Spanish I took, but when I tried German in college, it threw me so bad I had to drop it.

My advice would be to take Spanish if you can possibly manage it. There's an awful lot of people in this country whose primary language is Spanish, and more on the way. Being able to talk with them could be a tremendous help to you at some point in your life. If I'd known I was going to wind up living in Southern California, I'd have concentrated on Spanish in high school instead of French.

	08-02-2003 09:23									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Rex Little Is there some reason you think German or Japanese would be easier for you than Spanish or French? Like, you already have some knowledge or experience in those languages? If not, I'd expect them to be harder. I sailed through French in high school and had an easy time with the one year of Spanish I took, but when I tried German in college, it threw me so bad I had to drop it. My advice would be to take Spanish if you can possibly manage it. There's an awful lot of people in this country whose primary language is Spanish, and more on the way. Being able to talk with them could be a tremendous help to you at some point in your life. If I'd known I was going to wind up living in Southern California, I'd have concentrated on Spanish in high school instead of French.

I'm saying that other people in the class would have more experience with French or Spanish while I wouldn't. Thus it might be hard, but it would be hard with other people and it would be easier to work with others on it.

	08-02-2003 09:26									#7
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If you have any background in Latin, plus obviously English, French or Spanish should be far easier than any of the other three languages. From what I've heard, Japanese and Arabic are among the hardest languages in the world to learn if your base is English.

	08-02-2003 09:26									#8
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German is a really cool language, my best friend is dual-majoring in CompSci and German, and during 10th grade he was on an exchange program in Germany.

German just sounds damn cool, and you can sound very menacing saying very simple and innocent things with it.

German

	08-02-2003 09:26									#9
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Choose Finnish, the only language spoken in earth after 20 years.

	08-02-2003 09:29									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki If you have any background in Latin, plus obviously English, French or Spanish should be far easier than any of the other three languages. From what I've heard, Japanese and Arabic are among the hardest languages in the world to learn if your base is English.

Once again I sucked ass in Latin and barely remember any of it. With French or Spanish I am also afraid I'd get help from people who know those languages well but not in a good way. I'd get them to translate something and I would really learn it, thus I'd be screwed.

	08-02-2003 09:30									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Pekka Choose Finnish, the only language spoken in earth after 20 years.

I would, but sadly it isn't offered.

	08-02-2003 09:34									#12
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If you're not good at Latin, then forget about learning german verbs

	08-02-2003 09:36									#13
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German, and Texas A&M after you talked about it in the Apolyton channel.
Good luck Apoc.
-J.B.-

	08-02-2003 09:36									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Datajack Franit If you're not good at Latin, then forget about learning german verbs

Part of it was that I didn't try too much at the time.

	08-02-2003 09:39									#15
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Apocalypse, pay my tuition fees, and I will teach you for free!
We can do it army style so you learn fast, I'm sgt in charge of training, so we would really get it going!

	08-02-2003 09:40									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Apocalypse Once again I sucked ass in Latin and barely remember any of it. With French or Spanish I am also afraid I'd get help from people who know those languages well but not in a good way. I'd get them to translate something and I would really learn it, thus I'd be screwed.

A) You might be surprised how much comes back to you when confronted with a similar language. You don't need to be fluent to have a background in it.

B) That's one of the shoddiest reasons for not learning a language I've ever seen. I'm sure that people who have a decent background in any language would need/want to take a more advanced class than you would anyway, so more likely than not you'd be in a class with other people who have little or no background in those languages. Otherwise, you could just team up with people who don't have a background with them. Also, I would think it would be more valuable to become somewhat proficient at a second language than just taking one for the sake of credits. In my experience, it's much easier to pick up French or Spanish than it is Japanese or Arabic (can't really speak for German) short of total immersion.

	08-02-2003 09:56									#17
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Ok new offer.. $10 000 dollars per year for 4 years. I guarantee and give my word you speak fluent finnish, and I'll even teach you some dialects.. This offer includes also physical training, it goes with the teaching.. best memory is muscle memory! Also including two 2 week trips to Finland with housing and full up keep. First one is for learning language speaking with locals and physical endure in harsh conditions (not dangerous). Second trip is in the last year (4th year), and it includes 1 week in lappland. I will teach you how to properly do crosscountry skiing and hiking in winter condition and surviving. You can't speak any english this time. Last week is purely cultural, you will meet some of my friends and maybe some ladies too. We will go out and have fun, no pressure from learning/teaching. This is your reward because you will realise how good you now are, and people barely notice you are not native speaker.
Also sauna sessions, original style. We will be out all week, sleeping in tents and 'laavus'. You will meet authentic shaman and we eat reindeer. We can hunt it if you want to. Then we will sing lots of songs around the fire, so you will learn traditional songs. I will teach you about our history and we will check out some finnish movies. We will take snowmobile safari, it's lots of fun! The last 2 days will be spent doing 'the hike of anguish' which is fun actually. 40 kilometers per day, we won't be sleeping, but at the end we will all get drunk and swim in the lake and do traditional fun stuff. This is where you get your certificate. I will also give a good word for you, if you ever want to establish business deals or so.

After this we fly back to our own graduation. Sounds like a deal?

	08-02-2003 10:01									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki A) You might be surprised how much comes back to you when confronted with a similar language. You don't need to be fluent to have a background in it.

I would have had to originally learn some Latin.

One of the better sounding sentences I had on my final exam of Latin II was "All your canton are belong to us" and I had just put that at the end as a joke because the teacher and I were watching that music video a few days before.

quote: Originally posted by Pekka Ok new offer.. $10 000 dollars per year for 4 years. I guarantee and give my word you speak fluent finnish, and I'll even teach you some dialects.. This offer includes also physical training, it goes with the teaching.. best memory is muscle memory! Also including two 2 week trips to Finland with housing and full up keep. First one is for learning language speaking with locals and physical endure in harsh conditions (not dangerous). Second trip is in the last year (4th year), and it includes 1 week in lappland. I will teach you how to properly do crosscountry skiing and hiking in winter condition and surviving. You can't speak any english this time. Last week is purely cultural, you will meet some of my friends and maybe some ladies too. We will go out and have fun, no pressure from learning/teaching. This is your reward because you will realise how good you now are, and people barely notice you are not native speaker. Also sauna sessions, original style. We will be out all week, sleeping in tents and 'laavus'. You will meet authentic shaman and we eat reindeer. We can hunt it if you want to. Then we will sing lots of songs around the fire, so you will learn traditional songs. I will teach you about our history and we will check out some finnish movies. We will take snowmobile safari, it's lots of fun! The last 2 days will be spent doing 'the hike of anguish' which is fun actually. 40 kilometers per day, we won't be sleeping, but at the end we will all get drunk and swim in the lake and do traditional fun stuff. This is where you get your certificate. I will also give a good word for you, if you ever want to establish business deals or so. After this we fly back to our own graduation. Sounds like a deal?

Maybe if I find a way to get the US government to pay for it.

	08-02-2003 10:02									#19
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Unfortunately you won't be getting any credits from this . But I promise it'll be one hell of an experience! I'll offer you an experience of a lifetime, and you will help me to get mine. Trading experiences.

	08-02-2003 10:04									#20
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Apocalypse, come on, now it's not the time to get cheap!
You'll also get to see finnish military and their training. I will personally teach you some tricks and tips we do, and I have a buddy who was in guerilla training, he can show you guerilla warfare things and teach you. It won't be easy though, but it's not supposed to be. I can't guarantee you will get to shoot guns though. And for extra $1000, we'll get a small plane (chessna) and fly across the country, and also get a 2 day trip in cruise boat. If you can recruit one more to enter this program, I will cut your pay down to $8000 per year! and another thousand for another recruit.

But hmm.. maybe I should try to ebay this experience to someone. Maybe there's some rich wacko or member of some college board or so, and would be interested.. .

Last edited by Pekka on 08-02-2003 at 10:13

	08-02-2003 20:03									#21
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I didn't vote a College, since I am not familiar enough with the system you have over there, but I did vote Japanese for the language. The learning curve is a bit steep in the beginning, but the grammar isn't that complicated; You'd just need to have the tendency to learn all the Kanji. I'm thinking of taking Japanese in University as a foreign language.

	08-02-2003 20:45									#22
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He's an anime addict, don't listen to him.


oh wait...

	08-02-2003 20:47									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Pekka Choose Finnish, the only language spoken in earth after 20 years.

And it looks like arabic.







Only a chosen few who saw my post before it was deleted will get the joke.

	08-02-2003 20:52									#24
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You applied to West Point and are thinking of going to VMI but you are not looking to the military as a career. Isnt that a little odd? Why go through all the bullshit?

As for language, I'd say it depends on your long term aspirations. Arabic and Japanese are tougher but worth more because of it. On the other hand you'd need to leave the country to master them while Spanish could be learned here.

	09-02-2003 01:08									#25
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quote: Originally posted by SpencerH You applied to West Point and are thinking of going to VMI but you are not looking to the military as a career. Isnt that a little odd? Why go through all the bullshit?

Well, first I wouldn't have to pay for college and not everyone goes to West Point or college on a ROTC scholarship do military as a career.

Actually when I was interviewed at VMI last summer I was asked if I was planning on being in the military long. I just said I'd probably be in the reservers and maybe the Nation Guard for about 20 years or so. The guy suggest West Point might be better and that I should apply there since I'd most likely get in.

And about bullshit, I view that as nothing. You apparently haven't heard about some of the mind games my parents try to pull on me.

	09-02-2003 01:22									#26
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Take french and spanish. The two most useful languages today, in my opinion.
French is really useful in the academic world (right along with german). Tons of French literature, and many historical documents are in French (it was the lingua franca of Europe for quite a while) and if you're interested in girls, as your posts seem to say, that you should also know that girls really like the sound of French. .
Spanish has much literary importance too - a tremendous amount of Spanish novelists are out there. Also, it is tremendously useful in the real world, and especially in a place like Texas.

	09-02-2003 01:41									#27
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quote: Originally posted by SpencerH And it looks like arabic.

When I was in Finland a few months ago, I thought the language looked a lot like Hawaiian. Lots of doubled-up vowels and long compound words.

	09-02-2003 01:45									#28
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If you're looking for an easy language, avoid Japanese like the plague. It's a right *****.

I'd take Spanish if I were you. Don't waste your time on French; it's worthless unless you want to be Secretary General of the UN someday...

Last edited by Drake Tungsten on 09-02-2003 at 01:51

	09-02-2003 01:47									#29
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I never said I was looking for an English language. I'd probably be rather good at foreign languages, I just did bad in everything freshman year so I was just never able to be very good in Latin since I couldn't relearned everything Sophomore year.

	09-02-2003 01:48									#30
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quote: When I was in Finland a few months ago, I thought the language looked a lot like Hawaiian. Lots of doubled-up vowels and long compound words.

Japanese is the same way, which is why it's sometimes classified as an Altaic language like Finnish. There are also similarities between Japanese and Polynesian languages like Hawaiian. The linkages are really interesting, but unfortunately no one knows what to make of them.