World Citizen Wednesdays #32: Learn A New Language

Welcome to World Citizen Wednesday!

Each week we pose a question to members of the fabulous Multicultural Kid Blogs group and share their answers here.

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This week we ask…

If you could learn a new language, what would it be and why?

Olga of The European Mama: Hindi and other languages spoken in India, so that I could understand Bollywood movies.  Or, also something with a different alphabet (Hindi and the other languages spoken in India have this, but so do Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese or Chinese and many other would go with Russian because it’s close to Polish and I am lazy).

Ute of expatsincebirth: I would learn Arabic because I have many friends who talk Arabic and I would like to be able to talk their mothertongue with them and I like the Arabic literature.

Stephen of The Head of the Heard: French. So that all the years I spent trying to learn it at school wouldn’t have been wasted. So that I could find my French teacher and prove her prediction that I would never speak another language wrong by shouting at her in flawless French. And because I think it is the next language I would introduce my son to so it would be good to provide an example for him.

Amanda of Maroc Mama: Arabic which I hopefully will be learning in a more formalized way soon. I’d really like to be able to have a conversation with my mother-in-law without the aid of someone translating.

Tara of Tara Kamiya: Something nobody expects me to speak….Icelandic?LOL

Jennifer of The Good Long Road: Spanish so that it would be easier to raise our children bilingually, since my husband is fluent and has extended family in the Dominican Republic. I would also love to get back into learning Arabic as well, since it makes me sad to think I used to do a pretty good job having conversations in Egyptian Arabic and can now barely remember a thing!

Frances of Discovering the World Through My Son’s Eyes: French I wanted to learn French in high school when we were living in the USA (it was free and part of the curriculum), but then my Mom moved us to Puerto Rico so my dreams of learning a 3rd language went out the window! They offered private French language lessons but they weren’t accessible (too expensive $$, and far away).

Melissa of Where going havo?: Welsh or something else with relatively limited geographic distribution, so my husband and I could use it as a super-secret language everywhere else in the world.

Helene of Ici on ne dessine pas de mouton: Russian, Japanese.

Julie of Open Wide the World: Visaya (dialect from Philippines), so I would know when my in-laws were telling me I was eating one thing when really it is another. (Of course, I can always tell by the looks on their faces that they’re up to something, so I take small bites at first…)

Cecilia of Spanglish House: Latin mother of all tongues. Or Quechua and Aymara.

Stephanie of InCultureParent: Hands down Arabic, and I plan to learn it. I can’t wait to be able to understand my husband when he talks to the kids and be able to interact more with the whole Moroccan side of the family.

Carol of A French American Life: Gaelic, so I could understand all those haunting Irish songs.

Giselle of Kids Yoga Stories: Indonesian (or Balinese), so I could live in Bali to write children’s books, attend yoga retreats, talk to the locals, and explore the island.

Alyson of World Travel Family: I don’t think I’d pick one language, I choose lots of little bits of multiple languages, enough to get by, be polite and order food or book a room. We’re off to Thailand next week, I hope to get further that Sawadee ka. I love the way the languages in SE Asia change subtlely as you move from country to country.

Carrie of Crafty Moms Share: I would love to learn Italian since my husband is Italian, but have also always wanted to learn French (I took Spanish in school). I also would love to learn Brazilian Portuguese since so many people in our area speak it.

Becky of Kid World Citizen: I want to learn Mandarin, but I also LOVE love love the sound of Portuguese and am currently trying to master more of it…

Leanna of All Done Monkey: I have always wanted to learn French, but Farsi is at the top of my list. I grew up around a lot of Iranians, plus most of the Bahá’í Writings are in either Farsi or Arabic.  It would be so cool to read in the original language.

Jody of Mud Hut Mama: Chinyanja so I can communicate with people at our new home and feel settled in and part of the community sooner rather than later.

Cordelia of Multilingual Mama: I should say Spanish as it would help with my kids becoming trilingual. I should also say Thai as I live in Thailand but truth is I would want to learn Turkish. I am utterly in love with the sound and the country.

Varya of Creative World of Varya: Portuguese. I love the sound of it!

Jennifer of World Moms Blog: I have been taking French classes for a while now and am getting a little better, but I also am interested in learning Lebanese because my grandfather was from Lebanon and my older relatives have always spoken it around me since I was a baby! I need to take the plunge!!!

Kali of For the Love of Spanish: My husband’s family is Italian, so I have been wanting to learn Italian so I can speak with his relatives if we ever get the chance to visit them in Italy! I would also like to learn Vietnamese or Mandarin as those are the foreign languages I encounter most where I live (besides Spanish). Fun question!

Madre Exilio of Maternidad en 2 Lenguas:  This question is really hard to answer I would like to speak all languages in the world but If I would have to chose only one I would probably go for Japanese. Why? because linguistics say it is a real challenge and because I really like Japanese art, specially some Japanese painters and authors.

Kristen of Toddling in the Fast Lane: Right now French because we’re going to Paris is a few short weeks!

Melissa of Vibrant Wanderings: I would love to achieve fluency in Russian, mostly just because I find it to be a fascinating language, but you’d better believe I’d be reading some of the great Russian classics in the original, too. I studied for a few years, and traveled to Russia, but I have lost virtually all of what I knew.

Thanks to all the bloggers who shared their answers here! You can read answers to earlier questions in our previous installments of World Citizen Wednesday, including tips for traveling with kids!

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