What is it exactly? Do you know a lot of languages if you become one?
207138
No.  A linguist is a scientist who looks at the science of Language.  While linguists study about many languages and many know how to speak more than one language, that is not the point of the science.  We look at what makes language tick.
561914
perhaps you shouldn't be so worried. judging from your question you seem to have a pretty strong foundation for the language already. i would have to hear you speak to know where are your problems areas but i can see that in writing you're doing just fine. it is important for you to learn the language and only continuing to speak and write will get you where you want to be. don't give up yet. yes, there are losers out there who will put you down and humiliate you. they are suffering from shortcomings far greater than yours. but there are plenty of us out there with patience and understanding who will help you reach those goals just by listening.
150421
It depends if you want to make money with the language or not.  There are many Indian languages not just one. So choosing one may be hard.  Urdu and Hindi are almost the same so I would start there.  And there are many Indians in the US so there is a market for interperitors if you can become fluent. Right now the biggest market for interpertors is in Arabic due to the political situation.  But Spanish is an easy language to learn and very similar to French.  You could learn Spanish and then pick up french in no time because they are so similar.  My husband knows french I know Spanish and most of the time I can understand him.
298998
It depends in where do you live or plan to live and how many languages do you speak?\n\nAre you people person?\n\nDo you have a family to support? (If you get pressure from them) And the principal thing...\n\nWhat do you really like? Do you think you will be happy ?\n\nIf the last answer is yes... go for it!
199872
4 languages ...\n\narabic , french , spanish and english ..\n\nim from Jordan
51768
Hmmm I can speak of french as I'm french. It's said to be a quite hard language and it really is, lots of exceptions in grammar, many problems of tenses. Well it's also known as a beautiful language and maybe it comes from the fact it's difficult.\nSpanish is close to french I think complexity is quite the same or slightly easier (I've learned it for 3 years). It's a nice language that sounds good, like there's sun in their language :)\nChinese is much more simple regarding tenses and grammar (my girlfriend is chinese) but one very hard thing is they have sounds we don't, they make difference between two sounds just from the tone where we don't really hear any difference, I think it's a question of habit. Of course the writing is also harder, there's a way to write with normal letters too...\n\nRegarding usefulness I think chinese is a language that will be interesting in the few next years as China is opening more, french can be interesting too and I think french can provide a better population coverage than spanish if you choose between those two...\n\nSo good luck in your learning and I hope I provided interesting inofmrations to guide you in your choice :)
298894
Communicating with others outside of your own culture/community.\n\nEasier time traveling through the world.\n\nUnderstanding the reason why our language is the way it is is rooting in understanding other languages also.\n\nWages are higher when you know another language.\n\n\nThese are just a few!
205263
My Fiance and I have a very interesting relationship and how we carry our languages in our relationship as well.. I love him and he loves me .. We always teach eachouther many different languages. It makes us soo special when we know many different languages and languages of love. \n\nAnyway, My mother tongue is English .. I know Malay and Malay sign language- two internships in Malaysia, French- Touring the city twice, Malayalam and Hindi from my freinds in the Indian communiuties, Arabic from my Fiance, American Sign language- Deaf/DeafBlind students  at the public schools where i work at (interesting and FUN JOB for me) and Spanish-my family\n\nMy Fiance is the mother tougue of Arabic. of course he speaks Arabic(Egyptian), French-Touring the city with me once,Turkish-friends, learns sign language from me for fun, and English as well. \n\nWe have the most interesting of how we carry our language of love. ( maybe its not good idea to post it becz its not according ur question as u asked for. )
542462
Well I would sy you should learn the language it will help yoou a lot.
436787
1. i like my job okay.  i joined for language school more than for the job itself.  it's one of those things where it sounds like you're doing all sorts of interesting, top-secret stuff with cool equipment, when in actuality you end up doing a pretty boring job, albeit still involving top-secret stuff and fairly cool equipment.  the linguist job varies from branch to branch and even within branches, though, so you never know.\n\n2. there is a fair demand for chinese linguists--not as much as for, say, arabic or korean linguists, but more than for french or german.  do you already know chinese or do you want to learn (or both)?  if you want to learn chinese, try your hardest to get chinese put in your contract -- otherwise, you'll be assigned according to the needs of the military.\n\n3. the air force will let you enlist for four years, though the bonus is considerably smaller.  the army's minimum is five years.\n\n4. shoot me an email in the next day or so -- i'll open myself up to spammers for that long.\n\noh, yeah, and the dlab...don't worry too much about it.  if you've ever taken a foreign language and done well in it, it shouldn't be a problem for you.  even if you've never studied a language, if you know what a verb is, you'll probably still pass.
550028
The best thing I have ever done at my free time was to learn two foreign languages. By the way that is why I am here now, cause I can speak  English :-) You have no idea of how speaking more than a language can open your mind and bring you all kinds of new experiences. I don't regret having stopped watching soap operas and having exchanged that for hours of fun language studying :-) I take it easy on my mistakes... What really matters is that it is fun and rewarding ;-D
437509
What a weird thing to say! This person that told you about the "basics of Spanish" doesn't make sense to me =( \n\nI guess the 'basics' of a language could be the 500 most used words plus all grammar (however you might define grammar..). Then the rest of the words would be easier to learn. The thing with language is that it's hard to say what is the most important thing to know. If you look at vocabulary and grammar, just one out of these two won't get you very far. I guess for tourists it's most important to know some basic sentence structures with some loose words to fill in ("Do you know where the [toilet/hotel/museum/restaurant] is?"). Still, that doesn't mean you know a language. I guess for Italians it would be like that, though. If they knew the basic differences between their own language and the Spanish language, they would probably find Spanish quite easy. This doesn't go for English and Spanish, though. English is a Germanic language, Spanish is a a Romanic language. They are too different.\n\nSo.. unless Spanish has some secret code to it, I don't know what the person was thinking.
528529
what language is that?
275877
While the structures and different writing system make it doubtful that vocabulary and grammar will transfer from any of your languages, it is generally held to be true that being multi-lingual will help you learn your next language.  Your brain knows how to learn a new language.  You have some 'tricks' that you cannot consciously explain, but you are more efficient.  For one thing, you will no longer expect another language to be a secret code for English, and you wil not fight differing grammar rules.  (Oh, the topic of the sentence comes last...cool! instead of 'why are they so wrong?' or 'no verb conjugations or tenses, cool! instead of 'what's the matter with those people?") \nAs for basic fluency, what is your definition?  I think 'survival skills' are definately doable, but it takes an immersion experience in the country to actually become fluent.  I understand that good schooling can get you to Internediate-Low (ACTFL scale) and then you have enough language in your brain that an immersion experience can help you to become fluent.\n Good luck. I can hardly wait to find the time to learn a non-Indo-European language to see if those theories work for me!
29423
Having students learn two languages is great, no matter what the second language is - I'm all for it. Hell, if you can get them trilingual, do it.\n\nEvery language that someone can converse in opens the doors to perhaps a job that would have never been possible, or come in handy in a certain situation.\n\nMy sister is quadrilingual, I'm trilingual. One of my proudest moments of hers was when she was when she called Cuba and conversed in Spanish, tracking down my aunt who was vacationing there in order to tell her that her father passed away. If it wasn't for my sister and the Spanish she new, my aunt could have missed the funeral.\n\nOn another note though, the best time to make someone learn a language is when they're young. If the parents know two or more languages, they should speak with their children in all languages. Some folks are concerned the child will be mixed up, but take it from someone raised in more than one language - it worked out just fine.\n\nI am happy to this very day I was raised to be trilingual, allowing me to get buy easy in a lot of places in the world, and being able to talk to people and relatives that I otherwise would have been unable to.
458852
If you think that your ready, just take it. if it's just about learning the language, i think that you should do a pretty good job.
267178
English, Spanish, French, German, Yiddish, Italian, some Hebrew (I'm a bit rusty), some Portuguese, a bit of Russian, a bit of Polish, ASL (American Sign Language), enough Tagalog to get by, assorted phrases in Gha, Ibo, Hindi and Urdu.\n\nI can also read Latin (High, Church and some Vulgate), Helenic Greek (slowly and not well), & Middle English.\n\nI guess I need a life!  :-)