Tongue Exercise

In this modern day, we see more and more people feel not enough with their language skill. They want to expertise more and more foreign language eventhough their proficiency in their mother language is still poor. I thought they want to be smart-looked within their foreign language ability. But again, I was wrong (very often when you see people from your narrow point of view). I’ve made much conversation with those who learn foreign language, and regularly asking their motivation of learning that.
I have some sort of statistics in my mind but never tried to arrange it. And right now I write it here to arrange it and, hopefully, give some extra thought for them who’s on the way learning a new language.
This is the list, sorted by quantity from greater to lesser (amount of people I knew who try to understand a little/learning/learned/expert it):

1. English
Not a surprise. This is a global language so people urged to learn it as soon as possible. Many people believe (so do I and I think you too) this is the most important foreign language. So, the reason is clear.

2. Chinese
Many said this is the second important future language as China now is growing fast and will be the next superpower country, so then people want to take advantage of it and start with learning it.
But actually, many of people I know learn this because they are in Chinese lineage and feel the need for knowing their basic heritage.

3. French
They seemed learn this language for style, pride and intellect-looking-manner, because you will be seemed so dumb when pronouncing “Peugeot” as “Peiu-jhot”.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but they really like the part of pronunciation. And some people said this is the most artistic language in Europe. So, if you love Europe, learn this!

4. Programming / Computing
This is surprising. I’m not trying to joke, this is for real. In this information era you must consider this language as legal language. The reason people learning this is, like I mentioned above, this is an information era, so you need to know how to interact with computer and make it helps you to solve problem.
In this part, I mean markup (HTML or else) language too, which means, you blogger are—aware or not—learning this language.

5. German
Some of them are looking for continuing study there. But most of them said this is the easiest language for you who want to learn a new foreign language.

6. Japanese
Anime bombardment is encouraging their fans to learn Japanese language. And several of them are in love with Japanese culture.

7. Dutch
Similar thing with German, but this language isn’t easy for sure. And maybe another reason is many ghosts from Old Dutch who had conquered Indonesia for 3.5 centuries possessed some of their mind.

8. Italian
They said this language is quite unique and have some sort of artistic style just like French. Also, people who are involved in classical music or orchestra/opera (I’m not sure what is it called) seemed urged to learn this language.

Note:
- I exclude people who take formal education for those languages, such as Higher Education of French language, Faculty of Language/Literature at University level, or IT department (for computing language).
- Notice this: Almost all of them learn a language with a general reason: They are admiring the country (mostly the culture) of origin of the particular language.
- With exception of no. 4, females are dominating. I don’t know what are male doing to improve their skills, but maybe not in language.


If you’re wondering what are my selection of those language, I have already thought of learning these in not too distant future:

- English (I need much improvement particularly on grammar side =! )
- Chinese (the same reason with what I mentioned above)
- German (if and only if I continue study there =p )
- Italy (just in case I live there ^^ \/ )
- Latin (for God’s sake, this is the mother of all language, why don’t anybody try to learn this)